Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Memorama


I just loved playing memory when I was a kid. Playing it in the foreign language class has loads of possibilities- from the simple -matching two of the same pictures- to the more challenging- matching a picture with a word, or matching two parts of a sentence. As children have more experience with the language, you could have them match pronouns with appropriate verb conjugations (yo + hablo) or matching gender (la + flor).

When I play with my kiddos, I give it a twist. Using a pocket chart, I have taped the numbers 1-20 on the chart, spacing them so the cards can go between the numbers. The playing cards (I make them using clip art from google image search or flashcards) go into the strips of the pocket chart. To play, one kid has to say a number out loud (in Spanish, of course) in order to have me turn the card over. A second kiddo says a second number, upon which I turn that card over. If they are a match, yippee! (or yupiiiii, as the case may be) If not, I flip them over and two new kids get a turn and so on. At the end of the game (usually I allot a specific amount of time to play), we count the number of pairs and say each pair outloud. This way of playing is a great way to get two for the price of one- practicing numbers while at the same time practicing target vocabulary on the memory cards themselves. ¡Disfrutelo!

Friday, May 16, 2008

¡Bienvenidos a todos!


This is Pepita. She is beloved by my students- she is part of our class each and every day.

As a Spanish teacher, I am constantly looking for new ideas to use in my classroom. I have been teaching Spanish for 10 years to K-2 (14 years in total, but I started in ESL), and though one would think I have discovered all there was to do in class, new ideas keep coming. Sharing ideas with others is, in my opinion, part of being a professional. For the last several years I have been presenting workshops on teaching Spanish at the elementary level. This blog will attempt to continue that work-to share ideas, games, activities, pedogogical information, etc that are successful and allow our students to grow in their ability to learn and use Spanish.