Mi casa

La casa

Talking about different homes and different styles based on geography has always been exciting to me. When the unit of La casa approaches my classroom, I try to do new and different things that engage my students in different ways.

As a creative person, I encourage my students to experience language through crafts, colors and more! I try to bring different options to accommodate those less creative and there is always a more open ended approach that my most creative students can take and go wild!

In the past, I have used homes to address cultural topics like Cinco de Mayo. You can read that here.

This time around, I wanted to students to see the value of pictures as a mean to familiarize themselves with new vocabulary. We often doodle and create connections in that manner, so I had high hopes for this manipulative.

Visuals are super important for our young learners, but never underestimate the power of a "cute" handout when you teach older students (high school and college). These simple activities in those age groups can really spark wonderful conversations in the target language.

This week, we are starting a unit on houses: rooms, furniture, accessories, etc. We are also working hard on spatial descriptions and physical ones as well. Students usually resort to copying their vocab on their notes or Quizlet. Enter @FunforSpanishTeachers' lovely resource. My students loved labelling it, coloring it and just getting creative with it.

The second day after it has been labelled and customized, my students will walk the classroom and chat with different partners about their unique homes. They will talk about what rooms they can find in the home, what furniture, accessories, etc. They will review how to create descriptions and be able to share details of their particular homes.

¿Cuántos cuartos tienes?

¿Cuál es tu cuarto favorito y por qué?

¿Cómo es tu sala?

¿De qué color es el sofá en tu casa?

But this is just the beginning!!!

Another approach for our more novice learners is to come up with sample questions as a group, have them displayed or written on the board along with some sample answers. This will build the student's confidence and serve as a resource for when they may feel stuck. You more proficient students will not need the help, but it will make a huge difference to those who may struggle a bit.

Stay tuned for more house resources and ideas.

I have no business relationship with Fun For Spanish Teachers. I just bought this resource and loved it so much I wanted to share. 
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/La-Casa-House-Interactive-Notebook-3702194

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Technology in the classroom

How can I include technology in my Spanish classroom without it becoming a distraction?

This is something I ask myself every time I am planning a new lesson.

My students and I are fortunate to have a classroom where each student has a computer. This is both a blessing and a course. The attention span of a teenager is limited... add a computer to the mix and POOF! that minimal attention span disappears!

I am a huge fan of visual representations of the things we are doing in class. This visuals become conversation pieces and can lend themselves to many follow up activities. I even use them in our games! My students are also aware that I am not the best at drawing. That is where storyboardthat.com comes in!  It is a user friendly app (free for the basic features) that allows your students to create scenes and customize them!

This unit we talked about our daily routines. We had many conversations about what a person does, what we do as a group, and how we do it, etc. At the end of the unit I wanted to do something a bit different when it came to assessing their knowledge of reflexive verbs, vocab and adverbs (the other piece in our unit), as well as telling time and transition words. That is when my coworker suggested letsrecap.com! Wonderful app (free for the basic features) that allows students to record themselves.

The activity:  Select one storyboardthat.com product from one of their classmates. Project it on the screen and allow students a couple minutes to think about what they see. **No writing is allowed and no notes or textbooks are allowed ** When the timer goes off, everyone must start recording their own story about their classmate's routine.

The result: Check out some of the cool representations they created. As for the verbal responses, I was so impressed! They had finally reached a point where they could tell a story! There were fewer concerns on grammar - because they really knew it -- and they allowed themselves to tell the story while including lots of details. Since they all recoded at the same time they were not worried about their classmate's opinion.
*Downfall to using letsrecap* currently they do not have a way to download the recordings so I cannot share samples with you nor keep some favorites to share without accessing the app itself.

Grading:  I set up a simple rubric of what I was looking for in the assignment and clicked on the PLAY ALL button on my let's recap queue. Easy and fun and I am going to show some of my favorites to the class!

How do you include some technology in your classroom? Please share in the comments!

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