La ropa

¿Qué llevas?

It is time to get dressed and have some fun!

My students were asked to design outfits for their new friends. Then depending on their level, we did different activities. 

In the past I worked with K-8 and and this is how we approached this topic:

K-3rd?: For each grade level I had designed an appropriate list of vocab words that I know they were able to grasp. We used lots of movement to "put" those items on. In some classes, the students even brought extra clothes to dress up and play some serious rounds of "Simon dice"!

3rd-8th: The older grades were able to talk more about them. So for example they would give them new names, ages, nationalities. They would present their "new" friend to the class. My older groups would also venture into descriptions of the clothing items, tell us where they shop for this items and what their favorite things were. They also partnered up and expressed what items they liked or disliked from the outfit of their partner's new friend. We had a great time!

Currently, I work with high schoolers... this is how we worked this same activity. 

High school: My high school students did the same steps as the younger ones but you can always take it a bit further. Currently we are working with pronouns after prepositions as well as stem changing verbs. So, I tried to tie it up together and created some conversation cards that they were able to use in small groups. We did our basic introductions for the "new" friend and then we incorporated weather and seasons and described what we wear in each season. 

       

We also worked with descriptions and adjective agreement by using colors and textures as adjectives. In order to keep "old" material fresh, we also went shopping. Images of clothing items were posted around the room with different price tags. They were each given a budget and asked to shop around. Then we gathered and volunteers could share what they purchased.

For homework, students had to address the different conversation cards in writing so we could focus on form and spelling. 

Overall the students in all grade levels were very responsible to the activity and enjoyed creating their own materials.

One fun game that you can create after students have present their friends, is a game of guess who. You can draw 5 random ones and display them on the board. Then read aloud some clues about those cards and have the students guess which friend those clues refer to. They can play individually or in small teams. Get ready for some intense competition =D

You can download the whole pack here. It will include the pronoun after preposition lesson; the characters to color; the conversation cards (12total) and the answer sheet. 

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Tic tac toe

Tres en línea

Games have always helped me engage students and hold them accountable to review the material at home. Tic tac toe, or tres en línea, is a lovable classic that can be adapted to any topic! Set up time is minimal so you get to start playing right away!
**Download the templates here**


K-8: A few years ago when I taught K-8, my first graders had a wonderful time getting to play a classic, while adding a Spanish twist to it!  They were learning some basic descriptions using ser + adjectives. So for example, I asked those who were Xs, ¿Cómo te llamas? What is your name? and before they could have a turn they had to answer "Me llamo ____". My name is _____. 

Other rounds required students to look at a card that showed pictures of vocabulary words we have used and tell me what they were in Spanish.

At the end, students were asked harder questions. They had to create descriptions. So when a green card with a purple #3 was shown, students would tell me "El tres es morado y verde", The #3 is green and purple.

We had a great time and it was fun to see them so excited about the game but also about answering correctly!

High school:  Think your high schoolers are too old for this game? Think again!  This week, my high schoolers needed to review the regular preterit from last trimester in order to get started incorporating some irregular preterit verbs into our conversations.

I brought the game out and they loved it!  Out theme for this unit was vacations and traveling. So, I would ask them a question like "¿Qué hiciste en tus vacaciones de primavera?" and in partners they would share a verb. Once the verb was selected they had to conjugate it correctly before being able to place their X or O on the board!

As always their competitive nature took over and we ended up with an impromptu winner and losers bracket to see who the ultimate preterit champ was!  This all took us 10 minutes since they have been reviewing =D

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Conversation cards

Conversation cards 

There are several ways in which I use conversation / task cards in my room. 

1. Speed dating: It's simple! Just set up your seats in two rows where they face each other. I usually also post a timer on the smart board. 

With my novice students, I provide one row with conversation cards and the other side does not have any. 

The idea is that once the timer starts, students can start conversations based on that original question from the conversation card. These mini conversations will only take about a minute or so and therefore your novice students will enjoy it and be challenged enough! I have created this sample set of 20 questions that I use with my second semester students. They are meant to spark conversation with the topics we covered during first semester.   See the complete collection here. 

     

2. ¡A caminar! When students come in to the classroom you give each one a different conversation card. Once you do your morning routine, you get students "warmed up" by having them walk around and start short conversations with different students. In that conversation they must use their questions from the card. 

3. Written assessment. Each student receives an answer sheet. You give everyone one card to start with. They read the card and answer in complete sentences in the space provided. The teacher then walks around the room switching cards so that students have a chance of answering multiple questions. Set a timer and see how many they can answer. This can be done for 2-3 mornings as a warm up activity. On the last day you can collect and grade to give students feedback. I also go over all the cards as a group so we are all on the same page. 

Are there other ways in which you could use these cards in your classroom? 

Hope you can enjoy these ideas in your classroom.  

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