¡Feliz cumpleaños Pepita!

Yes, we celebrate Pepita's (our puppet friend) birthday! It's an authentic, real reason to use birthday greetings and vocabulary while at the same time having fun and using our imagination. One of the activities we do is make birthday cards for her. We brainstorm possibilities for greetings, messages, and leavetakings that can be used in the cards prior to starting on the cards themselves. The key for me is to get the students to use vocabulary they know (we do a lot of activities with greetings, leavetakings, etc as well as common expressions for writing letters and notecards). Here are some examples from my second grade classes:

This little girl added a speech bubble saying 'gracias' for the mouse who is receiving the gift. Love the good manners and creativity! (I do correct spelling but hadn't gotten to this one prior to taking the picture).
This is the inside of a card. The message is simple, basic, and yet effective and meaningful!

I use word banks for my second graders when they are doing writing activities. Each child gets a word bank to work with. As students become accustomed to using word banks they develop dictionary skills and the ability to access resources at their disposal, instead of constantly relying on me. As well, it ensures good spelling habits and reinforces literacy skills.

We are always trying to bring the real world into our foreign language classroom- writing cards and having celebrations are great ways to do so!

Modern Language Association- Language Map

Check this out!

http://www.mla.org/map_main

The Modern Language Association has used the 2000 census to create a map which displays where languages are spoken throughout the United States.

Really neat!

Rompecabezas

You know those classes where one or two kiddos finish early on a project or activity? "I'm done." can be the dreaded statement, especially for the traveling teacher who doesn't have a load of other items to turn to. One simple solution is to give the student or students a puzzle to do. But, I want to keep it light- I can't be carrying around puzzle boxes in my bag. So, I make my own puzzles using pages from calendars- here's how I do it:
-I choose a picture from one of the many Spanish-themed calendars I haved collected
-I glue the picture to stiff paper, making sure the paper creates a border so students can tell which are the edge pieces
-On the back, I divide the future puzzle into squares with a pencil and ruler. For younger students, you will need fewer and bigger pieces, and for older students you can make more, smaller pieces.
-In each square I write a letter (the same letter). When the puzzle is cut up I will know to which puzzle the pieces belong. If you have mutliple puzzles, the pieces can get mixed up and this helps to resort them.
-I laminate the puzzle.
-I cut the puzzle up along the lines I have drawn on the back.
-I put the pieces in a ziploc baggie labeled with the name of the puzzle and the letter I used on the back.
-The puzzle is ready to go!

When we are doing a project, I throw 5-6 puzzles into my bag- they are lightweight and easy to carry around- and hand one out when a kiddo says, "Señora, I'm done. What can I do now?"

¡Diviértete!