This story can be used any time during the school year, however it is a good beginning of year lesson. The story focuses on high-frequency questions and structures such as “¿Cómo te llamas?” and “Me llamo.”
How to Start With This Story?
Start by introducing yourself, for example saying “Hola, me llamo_____”. I suggest you use a name tag with your name and point at it when introducing yourself to the class. Introduce Osito, the main character in the story by saying “Este es Osito. Se llama Osito, yo me llamo (your name)”, model it a few times and ask your students their names by saying “¿Cómo te llamas?” Your students might answer with just their name or using the sentence “Me llamo”. I have shared a few more name activities on my blog. Click HERE to read them.
Before Telling the Story
You can either use the flashcards or props to introduce the characters. These are animals that live in the Andes and the story takes place in Colombia. Use the real pictures to match them to the illustrations so students can see how the real animals look. You may want to show short clips of the animals, but this is optional and can be done before or after telling the story.
Place different flashcards on a table or the floor. Describe one of the flashcards. For example, It’s a big animal, its colors are black and white and it says “moo”. After the description, have one of your students tap or slap the right card using a fly swatter.
What’s missing?
Place 3 to 5 flashcards on a table or on the floor. Look at them with your students and name each of them. Have one of your students close his/her eyes while you hide one of the cards. Have your student open his/her eyes to guess the name of the card that is missing.
The jumping game
Place a line of flashcards on a table or the floor. Call out some of the vocabulary placed on the line and have one of your students jump next to the correct card.
Charades
This is a game of pantomimes. The rules for this game are simple. No words or pointing at anything, just acting it out for other students to guess. Choose one student to act out one of the animals.Have the student act out the animal and give students turns to guess. Whoever guesses first will become the next acting person.
Reverse Charades
Have a student close their eyes. Show a card to the class. The class will show the gesture for the animal. The student has to guess the name of the animal. Give that students two to three turns to guess. I usually help if they are having a hard time guessing. You can decide on the amount of turns or opportunities you give the student to guess.
Simon says
I like playing this game by replacing the name “Simon” with my name or the name of the student leading the game. Assign a sign, gesture or sound for each animal in the story. Have your students make a circle. You (the teacher) or one of the students should be the caller for the game. The caller has to say “______ dice, “Hay un oso” and everyone in class will do the gesture for oso. If someone does something different, then that person will be out.If the caller says “gua, gua, hace el perro” without saying “Simón dice” and someone still does the gesture, then that student will be out of the game. The game continues going until there is one player left. Most of the time I play this game without sending students out. It removes the stress over making mistakes.
Get Ready to Tellor Read the Story
You can project the story or print it to read it aloud to your students. Another idea would be to tell the story just using the props and then project or print the story to read it together.
Class Survey
Ask your students about their favorite animal in the story. Count the results along with your class!
Act It Out
Print out the props and give turns to your students to act out the story. This is a wonderful way to provide repetition.
More Extension Activities
Mini- Book
Have your students color the mini books and take them to share with their families. No scissors are required for this mini-book. Just color and fold!
Name Tags
Have your students fill out and decorate their name tags. Depending on the time of the school year you might to keep them and use them to learn your students’ names and use them during class to give turns or play games!
As a World Language educator I want my students to understand the power and responsibilities we all have and carry as ethical citizens of the world, and I have been working hard on making sure that my lessons and class routines support this by going beyond linguistic goals and intentionally including topics on gender, race, identity, the environment, and opportunities for cross-curricular connections. Cultivating a sense of belonging is important at any age, but crucial in the early years. It is important for our students to be able to see themselves in the materials we bring to our classes, but also to be able to see and appreciate others who are not like them.
A good resource to help me guide my teaching practices is the Learning for Tolerance’s website. I have been basing my lessons on the Social Justice Standards in anti-bias education from their website.
Here are some ideas to celebrate family diversity in our classrooms:
Bring Pictures:
Show pictures of various different kinds of families and describe them.
Use sticky notes to label the family members in each picture.
Ask for volunteers to describe each family in the pictures.
Use Videos:
These videos are in English but you can pause them and talk about the different families in Spanish.
This song is algo great to pause and talk about the different family structures.
This song is algo great to pause and talk about the different family structures.
Picture Books:
Books are a great way to spark conversations. In most of the cases in the early language classroom, students have already read them with their homeroom teachers. (Click the image to see the list on Amazon or CLICK HERE!)
Inspired by this beautiful idea of the family as the strength and support ask your students to think about their families. Make sure to have multicultural crayons or markers for your students to use and ask them to draw their families. Invite them to talk about their families. Be aware that not every student might want to share about their families. Find a space to display their families. Ask your students to look at them and talk about the different families in their class.
Adapting the Family Tree to Different Levels:
Students draw a picture of themselves and their families.
Students make the pictures and label them.
Students make the pictures, label them and write a paragraph about their families. For example: “Esta es mi familia. Yo vivo con mi papá, mi mamá y dos hermanos. Tengo un gato y un perro.
Use multicultural family figures to talk about different kinds of families and continue reinforcing vocabulary in Spanish.
Knowing how to pronounce your students’ names correctly is one of the most valuable things to start connecting with your students from day 1. Below you will find some tips that might help:
Get Ready in Advance
Take a look at your class lists. Don’t assume that you already know how to pronounce your students’ names.
Investigate prior to your class the name each student goes by or their preferred name.
On The First Day in Class
Ask each student to say their name. Repeat their name back by saying “Hola, (insert student’s name). ¡Mucho gusto!”
Let your students know that is ok for them to correct you if you mispronounce their names.
You might want to make a video of your students saying their names, recording their voice on a device, or ask them to use platforms such as Seesaw for them to record themselves saying their names. Use the recordings or videos to practice your students’ names.
Decorating Nameplates
This will require a little preparation on your part.
Look for bubble fonts in places such as Teachers Pay Teachers. You can find free and paid fonts there. Just make sure to read the clipart artists’ terms of use to know if they can be used in your classroom. Many of them allow them for free when using personal resources.
Once you know your student’s preferred name, create a document where you type your student’s name in a rectangle not bigger than 2 inches wide.
Cut each nameplate out.
Give your students time in class to decorate their nameplates.
Keep the nameplates in your classroom. You can use them for grouping activities, keeping track of turns, for other name activities, and so on!
This actually works better than the numbered sticks and students love seeing you use something that they worked on!
While talking about how unique we are, I have used the book All the Colors We Are – Todos los colores de nuestra piel by Katie Kissinger, and it has been a great resource to start the conversation. The children love learning about the magic power we all have called melanin and how we get our skin color from the sun, our family, and our ancestors.
Here are some ideas to talk with your students about how unique we all are:
1. Start by reading the first pages of the book All the Colors We Are. This introduces the children to the idea that we all have different skin color and why everyone is unique, plus you will see that your younger students will enjoy saying the word “melanina” a lot!
I take the time to have this conversation in English. Chances are that your students are already reading books related to race/skin colors with their homeroom teachers too! This is a great opportunity to talk about the different eyes, hair, and skin colors in Spanish.
Mi ojos son de color negro, azul, café/miel
Mi pelo es negro, café, rubio
Mi color de piel es blanco, café, negro.
As the book All the Colors We Are suggests, children in younger grades can also compare their skin color to things in nature. I think this is great with lower elementary students but not as much with older students.
2. I created a resource to accompany and support the book All the Colors We Are. The resource is called Me gusta como soy. It includes a short story and activities that go along with it.
Read the short story Me gusta como soy– Something that has worked great during reading the story is to invite the children to engage in the reading by saying the phrase “A mí tambíen” after reading each page of the story. For example, if you read “Me gustan mis ojos,” invite the class to say “A mí también.” You might also ask again about the color of their eyes. After reading the story, make it a celebration by creating your own song with the lines in the story.
3. If you don’t own multicultural crayons,* colored pencils,* or markers,* you really need them for this! Allow students to look at the crayons, colored pencils, or markers to find which one matches or is close to their skin color. Put together mini-books using multicultural crayons and other colors.
4. Invite your students to take the mini-book home to share and start and share with their parents what they learned about where we get our skin color from.
5. Students who are learning from home can also complete their books via Seesaw.
I hope you join me in celebrating your students and talking about skin color in Spanish class!
Abrazos virtuales,
*Amazon Affiliate Links: Fun for Spanish for Spanish Teachers participates in the Amazon LLC Associate program. This post contains affiliate links wich means that this site earns advertising feeds by linking to Amazon products. Participation in this program doesn’t alter the cost for the buyer.
I just started teaching many of my students in person. I didn’t even know some of them because I was just assigning lessons to their grade through Seesaw and Otus (the Learning Management System used by the school where I teach). I have seen others quite a bit during our Zoom classes, as they have been participating in the home learning program which includes live (synchronous) classes.
When I started teaching more of the students in person in January, I had the opportunity to rethink many of my lessons and also connect to what the homeroom teachers have been doing in their classes. Students across several grades have read the book “Your Name is a Song” by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow, and I have seen it frequently in the library. I have always loved the title of this book and decided to read it myself and find ways to incorporate it in class. I’m sure what I’m sharing here is not new and that many teachers inspired by the title of this book have asked their students to create songs with their names. I have used this activity with grades K through 5, and, to my pleasant surprise, the upper elementary students really enjoy singing their names.
I never change my students’ names in Spanish class for various reasons: (1) I want them to be respectful of other people’s names and not using them as something they can appropriate; (2) I love hearing my students say their names; and (3 because our names are part of who we are!
I must confess that I sometimes have a hard time pronouncing some of my students’ names, but I let them know that I need to hear them say it again and try really hard to say their names the way they pronounce them. This can be especially challenging for me because I tend to use my (occasionally thick!) Spanish accent while pronouncing their names. But I think it is really important for them to hear me facing a challenge and for them learn to hear my Spanish accent with English words, and to make a special effort to listen and understand English that has a different cadence and sound. I think that maybe it even builds greater empathy and tolerance.
I have been using a simple activity where I choose a student volunteers, and, as a group, we ask the question in the picture using some American Sign Language (ASL) from YouTube tutorials.
What’s your name?
For the part that says “¡Me gusta tu nombre!”, we make the heart shape with our hands.
And for the part that says “¡Es una canción!,” we use the following sign:
And then the student sings a song with his/her name.
Using this activity has been beautiful and a great way to connect with students!
During this time of the year in the United States Christmas is everywhere! On TV ads, on the radio, on the cup of coffee you purchase, and more – and students and families who don’t celebrate it get over-saturated with these images and messages. It is important to offer space in our classrooms where they can breathe and have a space to share and cherish their family traditions and celebrations. Yes, this can also be done in Spanish class! I know that many of us love teaching the Burrito Sabanero song by Juanes, and I am not saying that we should stop singing those songs, but as educators, we should acknowledge other spiritualities and beliefs in our language classes too, especially in the context of such a diverse country like the United States.
Learning for Justice is a wonderful resource to use and incorporate when creating lessons for our classes. Their Social Justice Standardsare a must-see/use resource that provides a solid grounding for anti-bias education at every level. These standards provide a common language for schools to use. The standards are divided into four domains: Identity, Diversity, Justice, and Action.
I had the opportunity to dive deep into these standards during the summer when I participated in a group to rethink the social studies curriculum of the school where I currently teach. I saw that these standards work great for world language educators and, in fact, many Spanish teachers are already using them. With that in mind, I created a resource to use around this time of the year. It is also based on an experience I had last year with a student who was the only Jewish student in my first-grade class (read post here). I can’t let my own joy for Christmas sideline my students’ identities and needs.
All educators know that teaching this year is different, and since I am not seeing many of my students because they are working on asynchronous lessons, we will miss having these conversations. Hopefully, next year will be different, and I will be able to update this post. For now, I will send a short video of me talking in English and Spanish about family celebrations and assigning the activity below on Seesaw for my students to complete. Better times will come!
¡Hola! I am Carolina, a Colombian elementary Spanish teacher based in Boston, MA. Fun for Spanish Teachers is the result of my passion for teaching Spanish to children and my desire to inspire collaboration and creativity in a vibrant teaching and learning community. It’s the perfect stop if you are looking for songs, games, teaching tips, stories, and fun for your classes.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
***Amazon Affiliate Link
