¿Quién Se Comió la Empanada de la Abuela? – Game to Reinforce Vocabulary About Family Members

 

This game has been motivating my second graders a lot lately. We did a unit on family members, we talked about the diversity in families, and they then described their own immediate families orally and in a small written project.

I modified the well known game called “Who Stole the Cookie for the Cookie Jar?” to support this unit. Instead of a cookie, I printed a picture of an empanada. This added a small cultural twist to the game (and made me hungry for Colombian comfort food…).

 

I told my students the story of abuelita, who made just one empanada and that someone in the family had eaten it without her permission. I added a detective to this version.

I printed a picture of a detective and gave it to one student. I also gave printed pictures of different family members to the rest of my students. I got them from my “La Familia” set that I have in my TpT store. When you play it, you can also print pictures of family members from other sources.



I gave each student in the room one picture to represent a family member, and I made sure to include pets such as a cat and dog.

Before playing the game, I made sure to go over the lines of the chant. We chanted every line and also helped the detective say his/her line.

How to play the game?

Once you have assigned the different pictures of family members to the students, choose one student to be the detective. The detective will have to leave the classroom. While the detective is outside the room, give a student with the picture of a family member the picture of the empanada. Everyone in the room has to pretend to have the empanada in their hands.

The detective comes back to the classroom and will have three opportunities to guess who has the empanada.

The class chants:
¿Quién se comió la empanada de mi abuela? (two times)
The detective answers:
¿El papá se comió la empanada de la abuela? (two times) Usually the class helps the detective chant.
Depending on who has the empanada the class will answer:
“El papá no se comió la empanada de la abuela.”
or
“El papá sí se comió la empanada de la abuela.”

Remember that the detective has three turns to guess. You can play this game for a long time in class and get everyone using some language skills that they’ve learned in your class.


Have fun playing the game!

 

 

BRING EL CARNAVAL DE BARRANQUILLA TO YOUR SPANISH CLASSES

BRING EL CARNAVAL DE BARRANQUILLA TO YOUR SPANISH CLASSES

Picture from the official website
Every year in February, the city of Barranquilla, Colombia hosts one of the most beautiful carnivals in the world: El Carnaval de Barranquilla.  This carnival has been declared by UNESCO as one of the “Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity”. That’s a mouthful, but it really is amazing! It’s important to share this with our students not only because of its recognition but also because it’s an opportunity to bring some language to the classes in a colorful way. It’s also worth mentioning that this is the city where Shakira was born and raised.
I am a big fun of using Google Earth when doing cultural explorations. You can also add the use of a play passport. With your students, first locate Colombia and the Barranquilla. Bring the language alive by asking questions such as:
¿En qué continente está Colombia?
¿Qué lengua se habla en Colombia?
¿Dónde está Barranquilla?
¿En el norte o en el sur?
¿Qué pasa en Barranquilla en febrero?
Carnival time is a happy one in Barranquilla. Dances, parades and even children celebration in their schools. Here is a short video of “El Carnaval de Barranquilla”.
One of the most iconic characters is “La Marimonda”. It’s a funny character – a combination of monkey and elephant.
Here is a cute video of two children trying to figure out what “La Marimonda” really is.
Children recreate Marimonda dances at school.
Here is a video of a professional group of dancers doing “La Marimonda” dance.
A video of the history of the Marimonda.
Now it’s your turn! Have your students create their own Marimondas and get ready to celebrate carnival in your class with this story and activities. You can find it on Teachers Pay Teachers.
Have fun!

Valentine’s Day – Spanish Teachers Blog Hop

I have teamed up with a group of ten World Language Spanish teachers who have teaching-related blogs and are active sellers on Teachers Pay Teachers. I am so excited about the diversity of this group – with elementary, middle and high school teachers. We have all prepared resources that will help you enhance your lessons to celebrate Valentine’s Day in Spanish class. Many of these resources will be free during the dates of the hop which are January 31 and February 1, 2015
I am a K-3 elementary Spanish teacher. My students always enjoy mini-books in class, and I have put together one for you to use with your students.

Here is your freebie!

Hop over to Fun Monkey Bars to see the freebie she has prepared for you!
¡Feliz Día de San Valentín!
Carolina
Christmas in Colombia

Christmas in Colombia

December is a busy month in Colombia. Many schools close early in the month, and everyone gets ready to celebrate “la Navidad” with friends and family. Everything starts on December 7th with “La Noche de la Velitas,” a night  for everyone to celebrate la Inmaculada Concepcion. You will find candles in many houses, and they will stay lit all, night and the celebration continues until December 8th.
 
From December 16 to the 24th, many families gather to recite prayers and sing Christmas songs next to the Nativity scence. This is called “Las Novenas” because it lasts nine days.
 
December 24th is a family night, when everyone awaits with joy the rebirth of “El Niño Jesús.” People share Colombian treats such as natilla, brevas, and manjar blanco to celebrate. The children that attended all the novenas without missing a might will get presents from the family hosting the celebration. This is the most important night when people stay up waiting for Niños Dios to arrive. Children have to go to bed before midnight to be able to receive their presents.
 
December  25th is the day when the children celebrate opening the presents “El Niño Jesús” left next to the Nativity scene, the Christmas tree, or under the bed.
 
All these celebrations lead to December 28th“El Día de los Inocentes,” a day that is similar to April Fools in the United States. It is a day filled with jokes and fun.  
 
And on December 31st everyone gets excited about the New Year and the resolutions it brings. Año Viejos are built in many places to leave the bad things from the previous year behind and make a new start. They are be burned at 12:00am. The five minutes before the year ends are crucial and frantic, with yellow underwear for good luck, suitcases filled to go around the block (to ensure you travel much), a dollar bill in your pocket (you probably get the reason for this one), 12 grapes with 12 wishes or resolutions, and many other exciting and fun thing for a new start to a new year.
 
January 6th is usually not a big day in Colombia, but it is in other countries like Spain. In Colombia, it’s the date that marks the end of the Christmas season which means it’s time to put away the pesebre for next year!
Hav fun!

Interactive Notebook in A FLES program {Take A Quick Peek!}

This is my first year using interactive notebooks with my students. I teach grades PreK-3, but I only use it with second and third graders, and they have Spanish twice a week for 45 minutes each class. We play games and sing a lot in class and sometimes make projects on iPads,  but at the end of every unit I like making a paper project or worksheet they can keep in their notebooks. Last year I used binders and divided them into sections, but soon enough the binders were messy, and some students dropped them by accident, and pages flew all over the place. I am not sure how interactive this notebook is, but I like calling it that because it sounds less boring than calling it just a a regular notebook, at least for my own motivation! So far the results have been great and the children really love them. Creating an interactive notebook is a lot of work. I have decided to create mine along with my students and with the curriculum in progress to see what activities really work.

Take a peek inside our notebooks. These are some of the activities in the second and third grade interactive notebooks. I will keep adding more pages as the school year progresses. 
  
Children worked on personalizing their notebooks
  
We used these two activities during the first two weeks of school. 
The calendar in the notebook is very useful as we use it as part of our class routine and can refer to it and access it very easily.
We also glue regular worksheets in the notebook folded in half to save space.

 
These are two different activities second and third graders did to review and learn new parts of the body.

   
We also glue booklets and lyrics of some of the songs we learn during class.
 

This is our latest activity to share what we are thankful for in Spanish.
 
At the end of the notebook we glued envelopes to keep those extra papers we need to save such as our participation cards.
Purchase this product here!
More pages will be added as the year goes by and we explore more language in our classes. You can purchase all the activities above in my TpT store. The good news is that I will keep adding more activities to this set, and if you purchase this set now you will be the first to get the new activities at no extra charge. You will be notified via e-mail every time I add more to this product, and you will just have to download the recent file! The price will change as the product grows, and you won’t have to pay anything extra.

Have fun putting your interactive notebooks together with your students!
Carolina