It's a birthday celebration

Hola a todos! Hello everyone!

It is my birthday week and I want to share it with you. 

Starting tomorrow, and until Friday 21st, my ENTIRE store will be 20% off!

So stop by La tienda de Señora 

and celebrate with me. 

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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Ojalá...

Ojalá que les guste esta idea

I have seen the incredible impact that task cards have on the way that my students are handling the material. From simple vocabulary review, to complex grammar. Their ability to master a topic has grown exponentially since using these in my classroom. 

This unit my students are learning to express hope using the present subjunctive with ojalá and impersonal expressions. Here is a brief summary of the different ways in which I introduced them to the topic. 

1. We listened to two songs that repeatedly included the expression ojalá in order to get their attention towards this new "word".  We talked about the meaning of the songs, looked up new words, and then discussed what ojalá meant. 

      **Songs: Juan Luis Guerra - Ojalá que llueva café y Silvio Rodriguez - Ojalá. 

                      I have also found a few others in different genres, but have not tried them in class

                      Christian Nodal - Ojalá.    Vicente Fernandez - Ojalá te vaya bonito

2. Hypothetical situation: You must select a new roommate (a fun glimpse into college life!). 

Students get to list the things that they look forward in a possible roommate. From hoping they are organized, clean or prioritizing the fact that they feel it is important that this roommate enjoys the same video games and cheers for the same sports teams!

      **We first start with their hopes using ojalá. 

      **Then I introduced impersonal expressions to add more depth into their suggestions and 

      expectations of the topic. 

      **Students were given a list of helpful impersonal expressions. 

                                                   

3. Now that the hypothetical situation has been completed as a team and that students understand the expectations, I allow them to get to know each other more by using conversation cards (found here). These have been created by me about things that I have heard them share in class. 

     **I let this happen in partners or small groups where each person must contribute something to 

      the main topic. 

          

4. As a follow up to our activities, students must create sample topics and bring them to class the following day. 

     **Students exchange their new topics and I ask them to write down their hopes and expectations 

      for that new topic. This allows me to see in writing how much progress we are making. 

How do you present the present subjunctive in your class? I would love to hear about it!

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La familia y las comparaciones

La familia real y los comparativos

Teachers sharing ideas is probably one of the things I enjoy the most. Whenever I am stuck thinking of creative ways to present a topic, these teachers come to my rescue. 

I wanted to change up a bit the way in which my students practiced the theme about family and comparisons. I have my usual activities that I love, but I wanted MORE!

Here is were those teachers came to my rescue and shared this video about the Spanish royal family. Check it out here. However, lately, I have been using EdPuzzle more often to create a more engaged conversation about the video with my students. So check out the EdPuzzle version of the video here. 

With the help of EdPuzzle, my students can I watch the video together and have a classroom discussion with every questions that pops up, OR I can assign the EdPuzzle video as a follow up homework assignment!

I have also created a paper version of the questions in the EdPuzzle link that you can download here for free. 

What types of activities are you using in your classroom to talk about families? how do you incorporate the comparatives grammar into this topic? I would love to hear about it. 

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