Spring is here! The season of colors, butterflies, and also allergies, but it’s nice to feel that the heat is gradually coming on. If you have the chance to get outside with your students, nature walks are a great way to spend time outdoors after a long winter. You can use this walk as a space to continue giving input to your students. Simple activities like talking about colors, animals, counting objects in nature or just reading a story outdoors. Talk to your students as they walk and point out things they see or may not have noticed before. It is an opportunity that really helps to clear your mind and relax.
If it is not possible for you and your students to have this opportunity at your school, give your students a copy of the “Una caminata en la naturaleza” page and invite your students to look around their home or community to find some or all of the things on the list. Invite them to take the sheet back to Spanish class and use it to talk about what they saw on the walk. Use questions to motivate your students to participate. For example, what color was the butterfly? how many butterflies did you see? who found a squirrel? Your students must answer according to their language level. This can be done orally or in writing.
Invite your students to participate through the movement. For example, jump if you see a yellow butterfly or run if you don’t see a butterfly.Use this page to create a survey. Ask them about their favorite animal and write down their answers. Share the answers and talk about the animal that had more or less votes.
One last idea is to invite your students to look at the clouds and draw what they see in them. Use these drawings to continue giving input and also to generate interaction in your classes. Talk about the different shapes, shapes, colors, etc. Your students can also collect materials from nature to create their own. Depending on the language level of your students, you can invite them to describe their art orally or in a written composition. Display their work around the round and do a gallery walk with your students. I hope you and your students enjoy these activities to welcome spring.
Looking to grow your library with easy readers? Here is an idea!
You can use “story asking” to create the stories along with your students. The sample you see in the video was done with a second grade class. In this case my role was to guide my students with the story. I asked questions such as ¿Qué animal hay? Two students proposed the animals, we voted , chose an answer, and then moved on to the next question. The last part was to come up with a title for the story, which we also did together.
There are different ways to ask your students details to add to the story. You can use images, story dice, story mats, and so on, but the basic way I described above has worked just great in my second grade classes!
Writing the story only took about 10 minutes. I read the final story to my students and then asked questions about it again.
In preparation for the next class I typed the story on different pages and printed it out. I asked some students to volunteer to read the story. Students chose the part of the story they wanted to illustrate.
In this case I only had ten students, but if you have more than ten, my suggestion is to print two sets of the same story and have your whole class illustrate the same story.
I also took a picture of the class, and I added it as the last page of the story which says “Autores,” and each student got to write their name in the picture.
Last, I laminated, bound the story, and added it to our small classroom library.
A quick note! The video is set at a faster speed so I could show you the process.
Nothing like welcoming the spring in Spanish class! After the long winter months everyone is looking forward to all the beautiful things the spring brings with it.
This game is an adaptation of the Responsive Classroom game called “Just like me” – (see my post about it!).This game is simple, and can be used with any age group and in any setting. Students can sit in a circle or in rows, however works best for you and your students. You can either project these slides or print the cards. Talk to your class to get into a common agreement of what action or movement they should do whenever they identify with the cards. For example, in my classes we jump and raise our hands while saying “¡A mí también!”.
Once you and your students know how to react to a card they identify with, you can begin by showing and reading a card aloud to your class. Whoever identifies with the card should say ” ¡A mí también!” and use the gesture or movement you agreed on. After reading one of the cards, you might pause and ask your students more information about it. For example, if you show the card that says “En la primavera me gustan las flores” and some of your students identified with it, you may ask questions such as “¿De qué color te gustan las flores?” or “¿Qué tipo de flores te gustan?” and so on! You and your students can decide when you stop the game.
Click on the pictures orHERE to download the game.
Would you love to play this game at different times during the school year? I’ve go you covered! Click on the links below to download the versions for different seasons!
For some reason I feel that 2022 has been the fastest year in my life. I partly attribute this to spending too much time on social media and not being fully present. I’m not a person who likes starting the new year with goals ( I used to!) because I strongly believe that setting goals and having a new beginning can be done anytime during the year, but I have decided to start 2023 with the commitment to spend less time scrolling through social media, blog more of my own ideas, and see my friends and family in person more often.
With this being said, 2022 wasn’t a bad year. I’m lucky and privileged that I got to go to my home country (Colombia) at least twice during the year, and this year I went to see places that I have never been to in my beautiful country. And the best part of it is that I got to do it with the loves of my life! ¡Mi familia!
I’m always grateful for all the support I get from readers and teachers in different parts of the United States and the world. I love the connections I have been able to make through this blog and also the friendships that have come from it! I’m grateful for you taking the time to stop by and connect here. I wish you the best in 2023!!!
And to keep my virtual tradition alive, here are my 5 most visited blog posts this year!
Nibi is Water is a beautiful picture book written and illustrated by Joanne Robertson and translated intoAnishinaabeKwe by Shirley Williams and Isadore Toulouse. This book was written for babies and toddlers and is a wonderful resource for preschool and kindergarten world language classes too. By bringing this book to your classes, you are not only sharing the powerful message of protecting water and what nibi (water in AnishinaabeKwe) means for the Ojibwe but also to use it as a tool to provide authentic language input for your students. And the most important thing! Buy the book if you can to support the author. It’s also great when you can add it to your own classroom or school library.
I highly recommend that before engaging with the book to give input to your students, you give some background information about the author. I believe this short clip is great to do so. The clip is obviously in English, but it is important for students to understand why the book was written and help the author spread the message about the connection between water and her culture. Remember that world language classes should be a space not only limited to learning about the culture of the target language you are studying and learning day to day, but to connect with the world as a richly interwoven tapestry of languages, cultures, and traditions. Our classes should be a space to nurture global citizenship!
Some suggestions for using this book:
1. After watching the video with your students, read the book to provide additional context. I added the high frequency word “puedes”. For example:
Page 1: La lluvia es agua.
Page 2: La nieve es agua.
Pages 3 & 4: En el agua puedes chapotear y remar.
Pages 5 & 6: En el agua puedes nadar. Puedes tomar el agua.
Pages 7 & 8: Puedes hacer crecer las plantas o hacer encoger un suéter.
Pages 9 & 10: Con el agua te puedes bañar y cepillar.
Pages 10 & 11: Puedes lavar los platos o bajar (descargar) el baño.
Pages 12 & 13: Puedes salpicar o tomar.
Pages 14 & 15: Puedes darle agua al perro y al gato. Puedes ver al oso en el agua.
Pages 16 & 17: Puedes dar gracias y respetar.
Pages 18 & 19: Puedes dar amor y proteger.
Page 20: Nibi es agua.
Page 21: Nibi es vida. El agua es vida.
I use painter’s tape(Amazon affiliate link) to add text to any book I want to adapt and make it comprehensible for my students. This type of tape sticks to the book without damaging it if you decide to remove the tape in the future.
2. The illustrations are just amazing! Use them to talk about the different animals and colors in the book.
3. Print some pages of the book and use them like movement cards. There are some great illustrations that go well with TPR (Total Physical Response).
