Las vacaciones y la comida!

Today is the last day of a multi "unit" research project -- I know, I know... we are still using textbooks. That's a story for another day.  However, you TOO can make lemonade from whatever lemons you get ;D

I love sending my students on vacation! So, at the start of the trimester I give them a country and from that day forth, this country is their new identity.

First we incorporated our countries in our clothing unit. We first started with simple clothing activities to get us all on the same page, and later students worked with describing traditional clothing items from their countries. I have the basic clothing resource here.

We then moved on to ser vs. estar and I quickly realized we needed a lesson in geography! So we shared in groups the location of our countries in the map. Estar + prepositions of location!! This activity was fun and we did many information gap activities! This was followed by a little research to find information about their countries itself. So we were able to describe our countries a bit better based on their geography, eco-turism, weather, etc. I used this activity to give them examples about what they could do with their own country.

My next unit was the house! Boy I loved this unit!!! First we started with the basics and I used this fabulous resource by Fun For Spanish Teachers. We labelled rooms, we described them, we placed them inside the house! It was just awesome. Then, we looked at what typical homes in our countries looked like and shared that with friends. We drew rooms and partnered with others to see if they could draw our descriptions; we created dream homes. Lots of different ways to talk about homes; worked with these task cards. The possibilities are endless!


But, who lives in the house? The family! Our family unit was a lot of fun because it incorporates the comparatives and superlatives "grammar". We learned our family basics and then compared them to others within our family and to our classmate's families. This gave us a chance to review our adjectives. We shared a lot with each other  by comparing our family members. We found similarities and differences. We also worked on reporting back on the information that we had gathered.

A family is a unit that helps each other, so what better way than to learn some of the household chores that allow us to do things around the house! This is how I tied in the unit on informal affirmative commands! Fun games of "Simon dice" to introduce our topic led us into create "chore lists" and ways in which we can all help get ready for a fabulous fiesta!

Our home was ready, the guest list was finalized, decorations were purchased, and now it was time to eat! and we were VERY hungry !!! We came full circle! Looked up traditional dishes form our countries, described them and created recipe cards. Then, students prepared these fabulous dishes and brought them to share. What a fabulous time we had trying multiple dishes sharing our likes and dislikes.  Check out today's "menu".
  

I hope you have enjoyed this "unit" and hopefully you can find ways to break away from your textbook and take your students in a wonderful adventure!

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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El calendario Azteca

El calendario Azteca

¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños?
¿Cuántos años tienes?
¿Cuáles son los días de la semana?
¿Qué te gusta hacer los martes?
¿Cuál es tu rutina diaria?

These are just some of the concepts that you can review using this cool idea. I found it many years ago and have used it to help my students improve their presentational skills!

Here is how it works:
1. In the outer ring, they will jot down the months of the year. They can use images that represent each month. I ask my students to make their birthday month stand out. 
2. The middle ring represents the days of the week. They can also represent each day with images about things they enjoy doing on those days. I ask them to make the day in which they were born stand out as well.  
         *Use this to review gustar, or to review reflexives and daily routines. 
3. The center can be used in different ways:  
         *The year in which they were born 
         *The current year with a drawing of who they are today. 

When the project is done, half of the students line up around the classroom and half of them will walk around. In a way, these students because "art pieces" in our live museum. This will allow half of the class to present to smaller groups. I have found that this is less intimidating for my shy students.
I set a timer, and when the timer goes off, the rolls reverse.

If you would like to try this in your classroom, download it here.

Did you try it in your classroom? I would love to read about it! Leave me a comment!!

Here are some of the examples from my classroom.

          

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Por y Para

Cabin fever anyone?

We have had some seriously cold days here in the midwest, which have kept me home! On these days, our school does online teaching days. The challenge is creating work that my students can do on their own. So I try to give them something simple that will get them to practice what we have been doing in class. This way, next time we see each other we can pick up where we left off.

Por and para was one of those topics I needed them to practice without me being there to facilitate examples.

I decided that they needed help organizing their notes, so here is a simple handout where they can start thinking of different scenarios in which to use por or para.  You can download them HERE


           

I have also found out that my students enjoy task cards that they can use to start conversations with others or that make them walk around the room seeking examples. Therefore, I gather many of the topics that we have been working with in the classroom and made example task cards! Check them out here.

Or try both of these together in my bundle.

How do you teach por and para in your classrooms?

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La rutina diaria

Exploring daily routines with a simple game

La rutina y la gamificación en tu clase

Hola a todos, 

This week I was looking for ways to maximize the traditional textbook activities about reflexive verbs and daily routines. Inspired by one of Laura's recent YouTube videos (watch it here), I decided to go for it and here is what I experienced. 

Prep time: The idea of maximizing textbook activities sounds overwhelming to many, but it is not! Allow yourself to think outside the box and the results will be so incredible you'll wonder why you did not start this sooner.  

For dictation part of this particular activity there are three ways to set up. 

- #1: Look into a few of those textbooks you have and just copy the routine stories that are included. 

- #2: You could also type those stories so that the font is a bit bigger and easier to read. 

- #3: Create original routines based on samples shared by students. 

For the follow up part I simply created four different comprehension questions for each team. The key is that I wanted each group member to be accountable. This only took a few minutes per text -- many of the questions apply to multiple texts. 

The activity: As Laura explains in her video, you can do this in partners or groups. Knowing my current classes, I decided to try small groups of four. I also know how clever they can be, so I made sure to have various samples going on at the same time. I posted the original texts on the board and set up the teams in pods around the classroom.  

The rules: Clear rules are key so here are the few I mentioned to my students. 

1. One student visits the board at a time. 

2. All group members must participate. Therefore every student has to go to the board at least once. 

3. No running and no yelling. 

4. If they used English (non TL) then they would be penalized with 10 seconds without accessing the board. 

5. Spelling out words to teammates is acceptable as long as it happens in Spanish (TL)!

Follow up: What do we do after they get the story? Once they had it completely written down, they brought it to me. I reviewed it and made sure it was accurate. Then each student was given a comprehension question to complete. 

There are two ways to do this step. 

1. They can write down the answer individually -- allowing students time to focus on form. 

2. Students have some time to think about the answer and then come to respond verbally. 

3. Students use let's recap to record their answer. This does not allow for deciding an instant winner. **Read below for a brief explanation on how awesome this app is =D

The results: I knew my students would step up to the challenge! They love competing against each other. I saw many of them actually listening to one another and the answers to the comprehension questions were filled with wonderful details they remembered!

Give this activity a try. You can download a free sample HERE, or get four stories with four sets of comprehension questions by downloading it HERE.

If you like this activity, please leave me a comment telling me how it worked in your classroom or perhaps something you changed to make it better!

Don't forget to follow my Facebook Page and visit my TpT store for more resources. 

 

 

Let's recap is a really cool app that allows you to get verbal responses form students. For this particular activity, one class chose to record their responses to the comprehension questions rather than talk to me personally. The following day, we read the different routines as a class, I asked the questions and we listened to the answer from each team. Students had to decide if the answer was correct or if it missed something.  In order to do the let's recap option, I extended the activity to 2 days. One for the original activity and one for going over the comprehension questions. 

Time well spent!

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