Tarjetas Navideñas

Now that all of our K-4 students are together in one school, I thought it would be fun for the 'big kids' (4th graders) to make Christmas and Channukah cards for our Kindergartners. It is a fun way for students to use the language for a real purpose and builds community between grade levels, fostering the notion that Spanish can be used to communicate with others. We are keeping the messages very simple, so that the Kinders can understand them, with a related illustration on front. The added bonus is that students reinforce letter-writing vocabulary, such as 'Dear...' and 'Besos y abrazos' or 'Saludos' or 'Adiós'.

Too cute!

Word Banks

Word banks are a great way to organize vocabulary for students, collecting the necessary words and phrases around a particular theme or activity. Sometimes a word bank consists of vocabulary around a cultural theme, such as this one for a unit my first graders are doing on Venezuela.


We have just begun this one, adding important cultural info to a large map of Venezuela on the wall in my classroom- Salto Ángel, bolívares, chocolate, cacao....more to follow. For the little ones, this is a great visual as well as an organizer and reinforcer of what they are learning.

Great video!

This is short but terrific! An aerial view of Salto del Ángel in Venezuela.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEztVvy3G_4

Really neat website

These cuentos interactivos are so cute!!!

http://www.cuentosinteractivos.org/

List Poems

List poems are a great way to allow students to create a finished piece that has intrinsic value all on it's own and at the same time reinforces vocabulary and structure. This list poem about a butterfly egg was done by a second grader- she chose a picture to write about, made a list of vocabulary which described the picture, and illustrated the poem. The nice thing about list poems is that there is no need for rhyme or meter, making them accessible to lower level students. Even students with a small core of vocabulary and little knowledge of grammar can create one- at it's very simplest it can be merely a list of adjectives or verbs centered around a theme, such as an object, a picture, an idea, etc.

¡Torta!

I devised this card game, modeled after 'Torta' (a game from Spain) and Slapjack. My fourth graders are working on the constructions 'me gusta', 'me gusta mucho', 'no me gusta' and 'me encanta' with various activities such as skiing, playing basketball, reading, etc- 12 total. I found a bunch of picture depictions for each activity and made enough copies to make about 84 cards (thereby each activity is represented several times).
To play I divided the class into two teams and split the deck in half. (I prearranged the cards so there would be lots of matches). A member from each team comes up and they both turn over a card at the same time, like in Slapjack. If the cards are the same, the first kid to slap the cards and call out 'Torta' is the winner, but not until he or she has made a sentence with the activity and one of the constructions (like 'Me gusta patinar'). That team then gets all the cards that have been turned over. If the cards are not the same, the next two players come up to turn a card, and so on. At the end of class, I tally how many cards each team has and a point goes to the team with the most cards. I keep a running scoreboard so we can track over time how the teams are doing.

Practicing Names

A cute traditional rhyme for practicing "Me llamo ____" :

A E I O U
Arbolito de Perú
Yo me llamo _____;
¿cómo te llamas tú?

I like to play a game with this rhyme once the students have learned it. The students sit in a circle. The students recite the first two lines, I say the third and fourth, rolling a ball to a student who then answers the question. We then start again, the student now saying the third and fourth lines and rolling the ball to another student. The game continues until everyone has had a turn. For a silly twist, you can write out the students' names on cards, shuffle them and pass them out, making sure students get a name other than their own. Or you can write names of famous people or cartoon characters. Finding ways to practice the construction 'My name is ___' and 'What's your name?' in an interesting manner can be difficult, but this game works well, is fun, and of course, the rhyme is authentic so a cultural element is tapped as well.

A great quote!

While searching for quotes on language and language learning to decorate my classroom door, I came across this one:

"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart."
- Nelson Mandela

Guia Infantil

This is a really neat website designed for families in Spanish-speaking country, encompassing cultural topics relating to children, recipes, advice for parents, etc. The link below is for the page for tongue twisters; from there it is easy to search for other themes such as poesía, chistes, cuentos y más.

http://www.guiainfantil.com/servicios/trabalenguas.htm

End of the year

Here we are, counting down the days until summer vacation! As the kids get anstier, and my patience wanes, I wind down my theme work and look to activities which review learnt vocabulary. Often this includes games of all kinds. One I particularly like is 'Reloj', a card game from Spain. This works best in smaller classes or groups.
To play:
You will need several decks of cards (I use 5 decks for a class of 12)- remove the queens and the jokers.

To play:
-all cards are dealt evenly to players. Cards are kept face down.
-going clockwise, first player turns over top card, places it in center of table and says ‘reloj’. next player turns over his/her card and says ‘uno’. next player does the same, saying ‘dos’- play continues in this manner counting up to ‘rey’ (12). when players get to ‘rey’, counting starts again at ‘reloj’.
-as cards are played into the middle of the table, should a player turn over a card which holds the same value as the number he/she calls out, player must take all of the cards in the center. (So if player says 'dos' and turns over a 2, player takes all of the cards in the middle) No cards are taken when ‘reloj’ is said since it does not represent a number.
-play continues until one player goes out.

cards are counted in this order:
reloj
uno
dos
tres
cuatro
cinco
seis
siete
ocho
nueve
sota (10)
caballo (jack)
rey (king)

Disfrutalo!

Language Journal

I found this language journal while looking for something else. I have not had the opportunity to fully explore the site, but thought it might be of interest to some.

http://www.languagemagazine.com/internetedition/frame.html

Categorizing by color

When introducing a new thematic set of vocabulary, I plan activities which tap into previously learnt vocab. At my level, this includes numbers, size vocab, and colors. One activity which I particularly like is categorizing by color. This can be done with any set of items and is a great review of color words. Long ago I made a 'color mat'- a big poster with a space for each color on it (labeled, of course).
My First Graders have just started the theme 'Ranitas'. Using a collection of small frogs and the color mat, I held up each frog and asked "What color is this frog?". I call on a student to answer- this student then gets to place the frog on the appropriate color. I have gathered over the years enough frogs for everyone to have a turn, with multiple frogs of some colors and some colors having no frogs at all. Once all of the frogs are placed on the color mat, then I ask "How many frogs are red? (blue, yellow, etc)" Colors and numbers have now been practiced with a novel item (frogs) which keeps the interest and motivation high.
Tip: since many items are more than one color (a frog could be both yellow and black), I instruct the class to identify the color that it is the most of. This makes it easier to place the item on the color mat.

One of those 'A-ha!' moments

Over the years I have been stymied by the learning process of some of my students- two of my current students have provided me with an epiphany...now I am working out how to address the issue.
What I have noticed
Like any other teacher, I have a wide mix of abilities in my classes- all kids come to Spanish, regardless of whether they are learning disabled, autistic, have speech impediments, etc. Making these kids feel successful is extremely important to me yet it is a continual challenge, particularly as they go through the grades to find those successes. As I mentioned above, two of my current students have provided some insight. Both of these girls are learning disabled...both of them have a great accent in Spanish and both are able to easily and creatively use a wide variety of phrases such as please, thank you, you're welcome, bless you, "how do you say ___ in spanish?", hello, goodbye, etc, yet when faced with a question like "How are you?" or "What color is the ___?" they struggle to come up with an answer. One moment it seems like they are extending and another moment they have great difficulties accessing class. This has puzzled me to no end. I know they both have memory retrieval issues and have challenges recalling information, yet they were using lots of phrases and words appropriately. What was the mystery I was missing?
What I suspect
I believe the solution is in fact simple- situations where only one possibility exists are learnt and recalled better than situations which are open ended and have multiple possibilities. In other words, there is only one word to express "please", but there are many answers to the question "How are you?" (my students have a choice between 12 possibilities by the end of 2nd grade). I suspect these girls' brains are able to pull up and use the vocabulary that falls into the first category- 1 word/phrase for a situation- but can not sift through a set of multiple possibilities in order to choose a specific word/phrase to use. Perhaps their brains are unable to store this information in a manner which allows them to access it later, or the process breaks down before it even gets to the part of the brain where this information is housed, or they can not pick out from what is stored the particular word/phrase they want to use. Certainly amount of usage of vocabulary plays a part- however, we use expressions of courtesy and the question 'how are you' every class, so they are used in equal parts.
Going forward
The challenge for me now is to figure out how I can present vocab for these types of kids (because I have many like this, not just these two girls) in a way which mimics the '1 word/phrase for a situation' phenomonen while at the same time integrating it into a 'multiple possibilities' framework. I shall ponder this further....

A clever mistake

Today in one of my first grade classes we were reviewing the names of some farm animals that we had learnt in kindergarten. We came to 'sheep' and in the picture I was showing was also a lamb. One of my students said, "Well, that must be lambo, which would be a boy, and if it was a girl it would be lamba." I asked him to explain his statement, whereupon he said 'O's are for boys and 'a's are for girls....my students have lots of experience with gender endings, starting with 'niño' and 'niña' in kindergarten. Though the o's and a's won't forever suffice (wait for mapa and mano and problema and so on!) the concept is well accepted with my students and as in this case, is well understood, even if the words he made up are incorrect. So smart!

Arpilleras, Part 3

And so, the people and animals are made. Though the kids will eventually get to take them home, first I safety pin them to a large arpillera background I made several years ago. When it's full, it's really a sight!
This is the kind of project to call the local newspaper about...great PR for your program!

Arpilleras, Part 2

The backgrounds finished, it is time to make little people and animals to populate it. I found head beads in Oriental Trading Company several years ago and they work really well for this part of the project. (You will need to go to their website; the head beads never show up in their catalog) I make the bodies out of pipe cleaners, put the head on the bodies, and use sheep wool and alpaca fur for the hair. I would have the kids make the bodies, but it would take too much time and frankly, many of them don't have the fine motor to be able to do it without loads of assistance. Needless to say, it is a lot of prep for me, but well worth it.


We use pieces of fabric to dress the people and half a pipe cleaner for the belt.
The animals are wrapped with yarn to give them some 'fur' - super easy and super cute!

Arpilleras, Part 1

Every March my first graders learn about Peruvian arpilleras- I like how concrete an example they are of cultural perspective. Though I do not go into the origins of the arpilleras (orginally from Chile, made to preserve and record life in rural areas as a political statement), they are so powerful visually in their representations of ordinary life that I think they convey a lot of information all on their own.
One of my standards is to have my kids participate in cultural activities- often this takes the form of authentic games and songs. I have had to modify the making of arpilleras to make them more accessible and practical for my classroom. Part one is the creation of the background.Using construction paper and a collage technique, kids made scenes inspired by the arpilleras I have and pictures I showed them of rural life in the Andes Mountains of Perú. In addition, I cut out tree shapes from fabric which kids used to make trees and shrubs. We brainstormed ideas before we started- what did we see in the arpilleras I showed them- houses, mountains, trees, gardens, streams, fruits, grass, etc. I specifically told them not to include people and animals, as that will be Part 2. Stay tuned!

An easy piñata

I love bringing piñatas into class, but frankly, I just can't afford to buy piñatas for all of my classes- it isn't in my budget. So, I go the less expensive route- I make paper bag piñatas. Besides, in a twenty minute class, there is no way (unless there is a very lucky hit) that we can break a piñata in that time. Sometimes we barely get the paper bag broken before I have to return my kiddos to their gen ed classrooms.
Paper bag piñatas are easy to make:
-buy a gift bag at your local store (Walmart sells them for a dollar)
-decorate with streamers, pictures, stickers, whatever
-stuff with candy

Tip: Instead of just putting a bunch of candy in the bag, use snack bags to create one for each student. I put their names on the bags and make sure each bag has the same amount of candy. When the piñata is broken, there are no hogs and no kiddos with nothing. (Thanks to Stephanie, one of our 2nd grade teachers for this idea!)

Play a little fiesta music (Dále, dále, dále) and you are good to go! ¡Viva la piñata!

¡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!

Jícama con limón

Here's a simple yet yummy treat to share with your kiddos- a common snack in México.

You need:
1 small-medium jícama (the bigger they are, the more fibrous they are)
Juice of one lime
cayenne pepper (optional- and boy, does it go a long way!)

Remove the skin of the jícama and slice in julienne strips
Add juice of the lime and mix.
Sprinkle with cayenne pepper (be stingy! :))

Serve in little cups. This is enough for one class, maybe two if they are small. I find that it's better if I hold the cayenne off and let each kid choose whether he/she wants it. It should really by piquin peppers but I can't get those around here. At any rate, most kids have never tasted a jícama so it's a great snack that has some novelty but won't turn off the vast majority of your students.

Enjoy!

Literacy support

Yesterday, during an activity with one of my Kindergarten classes, a student who had been asked to identify what animal I was holding up (a picture of a cat), thought for a moment then looked up at one of my bulletin boards where I had posted pictures of family vocabulary along with large labels for each word and said 'un gato'.
I am a strong advocate for presenting all vocabulary in written form along with the oral language. Even the youngest students will begin to build a visual memory of those words, and connections are built in the brain between the written and spoken language. This student already has literacy skills- she is already reading at an early emergent level. Regardless of whether a student has a set of literacy skills or not, however, the written word is an important piece of scaffolding and providing support for our students. In addition, students are encouraged to transfer the skills they have learned with the gen ed teacher to the Spanish classroom- another connection.

So cute!

On Friday, one of my kindergartners asked me, "Are you from Spanish World?".

For Jen

Hi Jen,
I answered your question in the comments section of the last post (geo/flags)- just wanted to let you know. :)
Julie

Fun with Geography and Flags

January is geography month- at least, for my first graders it is! We start by learning the names of the Spanish-speaking countries in South America and where they are on the map. I made a large map out of bulletin board paper, laminated it, and stuck velcro on it so I can do TPR activities with the map. For example, I printed out the flags for each country, put the other half of the velcro on the back, and have the kids put them on the correct countries.

First, I call a kiddo up and give him/her a flag and tell him to put it on ________. This continues until all of the flags have been attached to the map. This simple activity works on recognizing where the different countries are and helps the kids learn the names of the countries. Once the kids have a working knowledge of where the various countries are, we then work on recognizing which flag belongs with which country. This is a great opportunity to practice colors while you are working on geography. Instead of handing a flag to a kiddo, I would now say "Find Venezuela's flag and put it on the map." We then move to individual maps which the kiddos will eventually take home.
Flags are just one possibility- during my frog unit, we place various frog pictures I found on the internet on the countries where they live. You could do famous places (Machu Picchu, Angel Falls, etc), capitals, pictures of people in traditional dress, currency...the possibilities are limitless.