World Kindness Day is a wonderful opportunity to weave empathy into your language lessons and inspire students to practice kindness all year long. Kindness goes beyond being nice; it’s about respect, supporting friends, and creating a sense of belonging. These values help students feel valued in your classroom and show them the importance of making others feel included too. Here are a few simple ways to bring kindness into your lessons and set the tone for a compassionate classroom community:
Kindness Vocabulary: Teach expressions like gracias (thank you) and eres una persona única (you are a unique person) in the target language. Adding a new phrase each day builds a strong foundation for kindness vocabulary.
Kindness Hearts: Brainstorm acts of kindness together, then have students write one on a paper heart. Create a “kindness garden” display to keep motivation high all week!
Daily Kindness Challenge: Set small goals, such as greeting a peer or helping with materials. These daily acts add up and encourage students to spread kindness naturally.
Clip Chat with Kindness Videos: Watch a short kindness video, then discuss it in the target language. Guide students to describe what they see, share how they feel, and make predictions. This Clip Chat activity strengthens language skills while reinforcing kindness in context. Read more here.
Compliment Circle: Create a habit of sharing compliments in class! Each student takes a turn giving positive feedback to a peer, encouraging a warm, supportive classroom environment.
Using these ideas, you can make kindness a key part of your language lessons, creating a warm and inclusive environment for all. Let’s celebrate World Kindness Day and spread a little extra kindness this year!
This is one of my favorite stories, not because I wrote it, but because it brings back so many fond memories of growing up in a neighborhood in the south of Cali, Colombia. As I wrote Corre, Año Viejo, Corre, I could clearly picture all the children in my neighborhood gathering around the Año Viejo. I wanted to capture that rich cultural tradition in a short story, but with a touch of humor to make it fun for elementary students and something teachers can easily share in their world language classrooms.
The Año Viejo is a New Year’s Eve tradition celebrated in Colombia and other Latin American countries. This custom involves burning a life-sized doll, traditionally filled with fireworks, gunpowder, or straw. The Año Viejo symbolizes the end of a cycle, leaving behind the negative and setting new goals, almost like pressing a reset button. It can also be a way to express political opinions, depending on who the doll represents. There are also smaller versions of the “Año Viejo.” Burning the doll is a family tradition and a community event shared among neighbors, streets, or neighborhoods. Regardless of the doll’s size, this celebration is always accompanied by the song ¡El Año Nuevo!, blending joy with nostalgia. But most importantly, it symbolizes a new beginning.
The Story in the Book
As the year comes to a close, a grandmother decides to make an Año Viejo doll to say goodbye to the old year. She carefully crafts each detail, but suddenly, the doll comes to life and starts running! What will happen to Año Viejo? Can he escape?
Corre, Año Viejo, Corre isn’t just a playful story—it’s also a great way to teach kids about New Year’s celebrations in Latin America. Students will learn about the tradition of creating an Año Viejo figure, which symbolizes letting go of the past year. It’s a fun way to teach cultural traditions in Spanish class!
Where to Find Corre, Año Viejo, Corre
You can find Corre, Año Viejo, Corre on Amazon, CPLI Books, or in my online store as part of a special bundle. This bundle includes the story and an Año Viejo character, giving you everything you need to bring this engaging cultural tradition into your world language classroom. It combines a captivating story with hands-on activities and language practice, making it the perfect addition to your teaching resources.
What’s Included in the Corre, Año Viejo, Corre Bundle:
Reading Comprehension Activities: Check for understanding with fun questions and activities that help build reading skills.
Crafts and Extension Activities: Students can create their own Año Viejo puppets, write goodbye notes to the past year, and even design their own versions of the character.
Language Learning: Reinforce vocabulary with simple Spanish phrases related to New Year’s celebrations and cultural traditions.
This bundle is an excellent tool for teachers who want to make learning Spanish fun and meaningful, while also introducing important cultural lessons. Perfect for elementary school world language teachers looking for engaging, culturally rich content!
As world language teachers, October provides an excellent opportunity to explore Día de Muertos, Halloween, or both with your students. If these topics aren’t permitted in your school, consider focusing on the migration of monarch butterfliesinstead.
While these celebrations share some similarities, their cultural roots and significance are quite distinct.
Halloween has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, a time when people believed that the boundary between the living and the dead was blurred. It evolved over centuries, incorporating various customs and traditions. Today, Halloween is often centered around spooky themes, trick-or-treating, and playful scares, with a focus on costumes, candy, and fun.Read more here!
Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead), on the other hand, is a deeply meaningful celebration in Mexican culture that honors loved ones who have passed away. Rooted in ancient indigenous traditions, it merges elements of Aztec rituals with Catholic influences. Families create altars, share stories, and offer favorite foods to remember and celebrate the lives of those no longer with us. This celebration is a beautiful way to teach respect for other traditions. Read more here!
This is a fantastic opportunity to explore the similarities and differences between these two celebrations. I’ve created a Venn diagram that you can use in your classes. While I’m not an expert on these topics, I encourage you to take some time to familiarize yourself with these celebrations before sharing them with your students, no matter the level or grade you’re teaching. We do better when we know better! Feel free to add your own visuals to the slides.
Click here to get your copy on Google Slides.You’ll notice that the images are stacked on the left side. Just move them to where they correspond on the diagram. When using the presentation in class, make sure to select the full-screen setting; if you enter presentation mode, the images won’t appear. After discussing the content with your students, you can switch to presentation mode and review it again. This Venn diagram is perfect for novice students starting in 2nd grade. Some of these conversations might take place in the students’ L1 or the common language for clarity.
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The Question of the Day, or La pregunta del día in Spanish, is a low-key strategy that engages students from the beginning of class and invites them to use the target language right away. You don’t really need much—start the class by projecting an image or asking a question, and invite your students to engage with it. This is the first thing your students will see when you start the class!
Why Use the Question of the Day?
The “Question of the Day” works across all proficiency levels and can be easily modified to your students’ language abilities. For beginners, questions can center around yes/no answers, personal preferences, or familiar topics. For more advanced students, you can introduce open-ended questions that require more complex responses and challenge students to use new vocabulary and grammar structures.
To implement the “Question of the Day,” start by displaying a question in the target language, such as “¿Cuál es tu comida favorita?” or “¿Qué hiciste el fin de semana?”. Give students a few minutes to think and share their answers with a partner or small group, encouraging peer communication in a low-pressure setting. Then, have a few students share with the class.
Quick Tips to Incorporate “The Question of the Day”
Make sure the questions are at your students’ proficiency level: For novice learners, stick to simple, familiar vocabulary. For more advanced learners, challenge them with questions requiring more descriptive or complex answers.
Use Visuals for Support: Support comprehension by using pictures, flashcards, or even gestures.
Relate the questions to the current lesson content: Where possible, connect the “Question of the Day” to the lesson’s topic. For example, if you’re teaching animal vocabulary, you could start with, “¿Cuál es tu animal favorito?” (What is your favorite animal?) to provide relevant context. Similarly, if you’re using a Clipchat or telling a story, base your question on it.
Los más pequeños is a fantastic book for Spanish world language or bilingual classrooms! Colombian singer and writer, Nathalia Palis takes us on an beautiful journey to discover the world’s tiniest animals and the valuable lessons they offer.
The book has colorful illustrations that are perfect for simple picture talks. For instance, when reading the first pages, you might ask your students, “¿Qué otros insectos pequeños conocen?” (What other small insects do you know?). This invites them to share their ideas in Spanish or learn new insect names in Spanish. You can engage your students by asking about the colors they see in the illustrations and incorporating TPR (Total Physical Response) to make the lesson more interactive. For example, ask whether the insect walks or flies, and let students mimic the movements of the insects. You can also play with the language by using diminutives and augmentatives. For example, “una abejita” and “una abejota.”
Additionally, the book is a great tool for practicing vocabulary related to nature. After reading about different creatures, have students create a chart listing the animals they learned, along with their Spanish names. This can turn into a collaborative group activity. You can also invite your students to create new creatures by combining some of the insects from the book. For example, combining the words oruga and araña to come up with a new animal, “oruña.” You can also have a sing-along in your classes with this beautiful song!
And there’s still more exciting news! Visit Nathalia’s page to participate in the fantastic giveaway! You have the chance to win a copy of the book this week, along with a special Zoom visit with Nathalia for for your Spanish classes.
This is a wonderful opportunity for your students to engage with the author, ask questions, and gain insights into the story behind the book. The giveaway ends on October 7th, 2024, at 3:00 PM Pacific Time. Head over to Nathalia’s page now to enter!
