The end of this month is fast approaching! There are so many great things that we can do in our classes, but with limited time, especially in the elementary classrooms, we have to choose intentionally.
If you are still deciding what to do, I’m sharing some options with you here. The list includes resources for elementary, middle and high school students! Some of the resources are on my blog and others are available on Teachers Pay Teachers.
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!
This is a fun activity that can be used with students in first grade and up! This activity focuses on reviewing or introducing colors, animals, numbers and seasons. This is not an identity activity!
Your students each will need to create their own ¿Quién soy? activity. They will need to fill it out, color, cut and glue.
Once your students have finished the activity, collect their work and use only one student’s work at the beginning of your class. Read the sentences and let the rest of the class guess who it belongs to. I recommend doing one or two students per class to build repetition in a fun way. You will see that your students will ask you for this activity the day you forget to do it!
As World Language educators it is hard to find a single off-the-shelf curriculum that fits the needs of each elementary program. Some programs have less frequent class sessions than others, some are required by their schools (or have the wonderful opportunity) to make strong connections with other subjects, some have more heritage speakers in the student population, and so on! It’s also important to shape a program according to the needs and interests of the community. All this is just to make it clear that I don’t offer a set “one size fits all” curriculum for this reason.
I have shifted to using more stories with my students, but I also supplement them with songs, games, crafts, picture books, holidays, celebrations, culture, cross-curricular connections, clip-chats, and other activities. I don’t teach a unit just focusing on weather, days of the week, months, the alphabet, foods, and so on. I include these topics in our daily routine when we do calendar time. The stories focus on high-frequency vocabulary and expressions as well as vocabulary related to clothing, family members, colors, numbers, and more!
These are some of the stories I use by grade level. It might seem like a lot, but the stories themselves have a lot of repetition and recycle a lot of the same vocabulary. This is also based on the frequency and length of time I see my students. I see my kindergarten students in small groups, once a week for 30 minutes and my 1st through 3rd grade students twice a week for 40 minutes each time. I mostly follow the resources in the order presented and sometimes I recycle stories and use them again the following year to refresh some of the vocabulary and high frequency words.
My love for using stories in my classes is never-ending! Read some of the reasons why I use stories in my classes:
THEY ARE FUN AND ENGAGING
When using stories, students always want to know the end of it, so it really keeps them engaged. In my experience, the stories are even more engaging when they are simple and students can follow the plot in the target language.
AN OPPORTUNITY TO SHARE ABOUT OTHER CULTURES
You can also bring stories that give students opportunities to learn about other cultures. Make sure to check facts before bringing the story to the class. It’s important to avoid stereotypical stories or overgeneralization.
PRESENT LANGUAGE IN CONTEXT
Stories are perfect to provide “chunks” of language, rather than isolated vocabulary words. Stories present useful language and grammar in context. Make sure the stories you use with early language learners provide enough repetition and use high-frequency vocabulary and phrases.
CHILDREN NEVER GET TIRED OF THEM!
Find different ways to retell the story. You could have your students draw their favorite part of the story, and later you might use their pictures to retell the story.You can add more fun by retelling the story and having your students become active participants in it! This way you are providing repetition without your students even noticing it!
STORIES I USE!
Although these are my own stories, I also include a variety of stories from other authors and cultures:
