This year I wanted to do something more connected to nature in some of my classes for Thanksgiving, but this resource can be used any time during the school year. It’s a great and simple way to talk about gratitude with your students. I came across these two beautiful books that inspired my short story in Spanish called “Gracias Madre Tierra.”
The first book is called “Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message” by Chief Jake Swamp. If the book is not available, you can find different read alouds on YouTube, but the one below is my favorite.
It’s also a great idea to team with homeroom teachers and ask them to read the books with your students. What a beautiful way to create cross-cultural connections!
Here are some ideas that can be done in class:
Have a conversation about the true story of Thanksgiving. Hopefully, this conversation is also happening with your students’ homeroom teachers. And yes! I have this conversation in English with my students.
I have attended some conferences that start with land acknowledgments, especially the People of Color Conference. The school where I currently teach has a land acknowledgment on their website, and many other public and private institutions have one too!
Land Acknowledgement: This is usually done at the beginning of a public event to recognize and acknowledge Indigenous Peoples’ land and belonging to a certain territory. It’s a way to honor and show respect to the Indigenous Peoples of the land on which we live or visit. Once you have identified whose lands you are on, you can share the information with your students. It is not necessary to use Spanish for this portion of the class, but you are of course welcome to give it a try.
Here is an idea of what you can say:
I do have to clarify that I am not an expert on this topic, but given the history of these lands, it’s important for our students to know and acknowledge the Indigenous Peoples whose lands were stolen and not to sugarcoat this issue.
Use this website to learn about the territory you live on: Native-Land.ca
Resources to learn more about Land Acknowledgement:
I am proud of this resource I created in connection with the gratitude theme. With this resource I also invite teachers to bring Land Acknowledgment to their classes, take a nature walk, and invite students to be thankful to our Madre Tierra.
Growing up in Colombia we didn’t have a “Columbus Day.” This “holiday” was called “El Día de la Raza” to celebrate the different races born after the mix of a not a very pleasant encounter. Even though it wasn’t known as Columbus Day, it was still meant to focus on the “great” things Columbus did for us (we celebrated Cristobal Colón, as he is known in Spanish). I have a vivid story of when I was in 3rd grade and Profe Raquel told us that if it weren’t for Cristopher Columbus we would not have been sitting in that classroom listening to the stories of how brave he was to travel across the Atlantic to new lands. Although teachers made an attempt to recognize the diversity in Colombia, it continued supporting the main narrative that Columbus was great and brave. I never remember hearing of all the bad he did to the people who were in the territories where he landed until later when I was in bachillerato (high school).
In the last decades, countries like Venezuela and Nicaragua have opted to change the name of this holiday to “El día de la Resistencia Indígena” to honor the struggles the Indigenous people went through during the colonization period and to acknowledge that these struggles are not over. Other countries have joined this movement too!
As language educators, we can’t continue supporting the sugar-coated stories about Cristobal Colón. This is an invitation to make space and time in our curriculums to have these conversations and show the true story. It doesn’t matter if it takes some class time to have these conversations in our students’ first language. Children might also be having these conversations within their homerooms, so this can be reinforced in Spanish class.
A teacher friend that I admire and has been working hard on bringing this work to the classroom is Fran, also know as The Woke Spanish Teacher. Her curriculum is deep in Anti-Bias and Anti-Racist (ABAR) education and she works on this all year round. When doing this type of work in the classroom, it is important to know your students and also their developmental stage so that the material can be tailored to their age group. This is something that I am currently working hard on and something Fran knows how to do really well.
Here is an example of what Fran does with her students:
But before bringing these topics to the classroom we have to do the work. We really need to educate ourselves. There are several trustworthy sources on the internet. Here are some that I recommend:
Just like this post on Instagram, as a language educator, I need to be intentional and not just acknowledge other cultures at designated times on the calendar.
In case you are still wondering how to add some fun to your choice boards, a gif of yourself can never go wrong!
I am now creating videos, making choice boards, and asynchronous lessons while the school is slowly transitioning to in-person classes. I know! It sounds like a backwards plan, but I think it is the best the school can do right now to support students who are in the classroom and those who continue with home learning.
That said, adding GIF’s to my choice boards has been something my younger students love seeing.
Here are the steps:
Make a short video of yourself.
Upload it to the Unscreen.com website to remove the background. It will only allow 6 seconds. Download the short gif to your computer (gif = graphics interchange format).
Create a background with Canva. You can use animated images. Educators can use Canva for free!
Upload your gif to Canva and place it on the background you created.
Download it again from Canva as a gif.
Place it on your choice boards and have fun!
I am sure there are other faster ways to do this, but this works great for me. If you know of another way to do it, please share it with us all in the comments.
I recently shared onInstagram a template of a tic-tac-toe game I created to play during my virtual classes. I have gotten requests from different teachers who want this template and since I am all about saving teacher friends’ time, I decided to create more templates and share them here on my blog.
I have been seeing my students in small groups. In order to play the game virtually, I clicked on the “rename” part of Zoom and added either the letter “O” or “X” to divide them into teams. My students don’t have access to changing their names on Zoom because that’s how it was set up at the school where I teach, but if your students can do it themselves, that will save you some time. Since playing this game will require you to move the pieces, it can’t be played in presentation mode.
I used this game to ask questions about stories we have been reading in class. Once the students responded to the question, they could tell me a number for me to move the piece for them. It was simple, and the students seemed to have fun. I played this game remotely, but it can still be used in the classroom. Click HERE to download the slides to have fun in your classes! Once you click on the link, it will prompt you to make a copy of the document.
I also had fun learning the various names for this game in different Spanish speaking countries:
Every year I like to give a virtual tour of my classroom or bags if I am a traveling teacher. For obvious reasons, this year is different for all of us. Right now I teaching synchronous classes from my classroom, but once we go back to in person classes I no longer will have a classroom. Meanwhile I am enjoying teaching from room 60.
I decided to give you a tour of my space. I have been using my document camera for Story Listening and for read alouds. I also purchased a computer riser and it has been the best thing I could have done for my back.
I have been enjoying creating different welcoming messages on Google Slides, and my students seem to enjoy them. How is this school year looking for you? Are you teaching from your classroom, from home, traveling from room to room? Are you teaching synchronously or asynchronously?
Have a wonderful school year!
You might like these resources available on Teachers Pay Teachers:
¡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.
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