I have never been a fan of snow, that’s probably one of the reasons why I moved from Boston to Austin. But one of the things I most miss about New England is the beautiful fall foliage and the crisp feeling of the air, even if it means snow is around the corner. I used to love teaching this song to my students because of the connection to the time of year. Fall means a lot of exciting things: pumpkin patches, apple picking, apple pie, pumpkin pie, Halloween tricks and treats, and so on!
I don’t get to teach this song with the same excitement anymore because nothing changes as dramatically down here in Austin (I’ve heard it said that there are three seasons here: summer 1, summer 2, and winter), but I can still share my love for the fall with you through this song and resources.
I still remember when I wrote this song during a cold winter in Boston when I was thinking back to this beautiful season. I am lucky that a group of friends and musicians in Colombia recorded many of my songs that you can find on Teachers Pay Teachers, Amazon, CD Baby, and iTunes.
Through this song, your students will explore the colors of the fall season. You and your students can imitate the sound of the wind and the freshness of the fall to introduce this activity. Use pictures of different seasons and ask the class “¿es verano?”, “¿es primavera?” and so on. Give time for answers and go through every season until you get to “otoño.” Introduce the word “hojas,” and sing part of the song. Have your students explore different colors and help to name them. I sometimes like to use a play parachute*** andfake fall leaves*** while singing the song. It gets noisy, but it’s a lot of fun and a great way to get your students moving. This song works best with preschool-aged children. Click HERE to download free props to use this song in your classes!
Nothing like the sounds of traditional music, and the stories behind it! I love when I am able to find a song that belongs to and represents one of the Spanish speaking cultures – and use it in my classes. Bringing traditional songs to the classroom is a way to teach our students that the Spanish speaking world is not just one culture, but that it’s made up of many cultures. It’s a way to show that there is all kinds of cultural diversity out there. However, using traditional songs in elementary school is not an easy task. Finding traditional songs that suit the levels we teach can be challenging because sometimes they have too much vocabulary and complicated structures and sometimes not enough repetition. So I know I have to work on simplifying them for my students to comprehend. Sometimes I just choose parts of a song to focus on, which usually happens to be the chorus.
This is how I recommend teaching traditional songs at the elementary level:
Identify the vocabulary or structures you want to focus on.
Provide background about where the song is from. Use a map to locate the country where the song is from – and with today’s technology you are even able to prepare your students with virtual field trips using Google Earth. You can even make a play passport for your students to keep track of when they learn a song from certain country.
Make it comprehensible. Create a slide show with images from the song. Taking a screenshot works great! Use the Movie Talk strategy to talk about what the children see in the picture. If there is no video available you can create your own slide show with pictures that are representative of the song. (See sample below.)
This may vary a little from teacher to teacher, but I let my students listen to the whole song without stopping the first time.
Focus on creating meaning. I also like using TPR and create gestures that go along with the song. When songs are too complex for my level, I focus on the chorus which most of the time provides a lot of repetition.
This is also optional, but if you happen to have some of the instruments that are used in the songs, pass them around and have your students experience them.
If you have a library in your classroom, print the Powerpoints, laminate the pages, bind them together and add them to your library.
Sing and enjoy!
La vicuñita
This is one of my favorite songs. I used it with my kindergarten students this year, and their reaction was beautiful! The first time they heard it they were in love with it, but some of them expressed sadness. I love how they were able to feel the song without the need to understand every single word.
I created a Powerpoint to talk about the song before teaching it to the class. I took screenshots of the video and added more images to use while talking about the pictures. Believe it or not, there is a lot to talk about in these pictures. Below you may find a sample of a script that I used while talking about the pictures. Expect some of the children to come up with more details. I used this song with kindergarten close to the end of the school year. I noticed that sometimes my students participated by using English, but I let it go to avoid frustration and would do the following instead. For example, one of my students said “There is a sun!” Then I pointed to pictures saying “Hay un sol,” then pointed at the side pictures on the slide, saying “Hay una luna.” Then I went back to the slide and said “¿Hay un sol o una luna?” In this way, I was giving them some vocabulary prompts and avoided some frustration at this level, allowing it to flow naturally.
Here is an example of the conversation I had with my students using the slideshow I created to make the song comprehensible.
Slide one:
¿Qué animal es? ¿Es un perro? ¿Es un gato? ¿Es una llama? No, no es una llama. ¡Es una vicuñita! ¿Es un perro o una vicuñita? ¿Dé que color es la vicuñita? ¿Hay vicuñitas en Austin, Texas? ¿Qué animales hay en Texas? ¿Dónde hay vicuñitas? Hay vicuñitas en Perú, Bolivia, Argentina y Chile. This is a great opportunity to pull out a map!
Slide two:
¿Qué animal es? ¡Hay una persona! La persona mira la vicuñita. ¿La persona es amiga de vicuñita? ¡Hay un sol! ¿Hay un sol o una luna? Hay cerros, muchos cerros. ¿Hay playas? ¿Hay playas o cerros? ¿Hay playas en Austin?
Slide Three:
Recycle structures from the previous slides. You will see that by this time the children will start recalling vocabulary on their own. You can add “¡Hay otra persona! Hay un niño y una niña.” You can go to the class and count how many niños and niñas are in the class. Again, recycle structures from previous slides, for example, “La persona es amiga de vicuñita.”
Slide Four:
¿Qué animal es? ¿Es un elefante? ¿Es un perro? ¿Es un gato o una vicuñita? La vicuñita dice, “yo soy vicuñita.” La vicuñita dice “¿yo soy un perro?” La vicuñita dice “¿yo soy un perro o yo soy vicuñita?”
Slide Five:
Hay otra persona. ¿Es una niña o un niño? La persona no es amiga de vicuñita. Es un cazador (hunter). ¿Es un doctor o es un cazador?
Slide Six:
Vicuñita está triste. ¿Vicuñita está triste o feliz? Vicuñita no está feliz. ¿Vicuñita está en la playa o en los cerros?
Slide Seven:
Hay lana, mucha lana. ¿Hay lana o plástico? El pelo de vicuñita es bueno para lana. El cazador quiere la lana de vicuñita para hacer un suéter.
Slide Eight:
Hay un círculo. ¿Hay un círculo o un triángulo? Vicuñita está con sus amigos.
Here are the lyrics of the song. I also created a Powerpoint with the lyrics, that I also use when not using the video to sing along. I chose just a few structures that I really wanted my students to get from this song. I might focus on more “chunks of language” with grades that have had more exposure to Spanish. These are highlighted in the lyrics below:
Del cerro yo vengo con mi vicuñita,
Del cerro yo vengo con mi vicuñita.
Cantando y bailando para mi cholita,
Cantando y bailando para mi cholita.
Yo soy vicuñita y vengo de la Puna,
Yo soy vicuñita y vengo de la Puna.
Vengo escapando de los cazadores,
Vengo escapando de los cazadores.
Mala ya la hora de ser vicuñita,
mala ya la hora de ser vicuñita.
Todos me persiguen por mi lana fina,
todos me persiguen por mi lana fina.
Last, but not least, we create gestures together to go along with our singing of the song.
This version is also great to show your students the instruments that are used to play this song:
It definitely takes time to make sure the song is understandable for the children and even more at the beginning levels, but the reward is worth it. My students kept asking for this song, and a few of them shared with me at the end of their year evaluation/reflections that La vicuñita was their favorite song. I shared a post on Instagram where you can hear just how much they were feeling the song.
Have fun singing!
You might also like these resources available on Teachers Pay Teachers
“Los Pollitos” is one of those traditional songs that everyone who grew up in a Spanish speaking country knows from childhood. It’s catchy, cute, and fun so I make sure to teach it every year to my Kindergarten students. I am sharing some ideas that I use while teaching this song.
Use TPR while teaching the song. I like using American sign language, or I sometimes create the gestures along with my students. Click on the links below to see some of the signs for the song:
Make props to use while singing the song. Download them HERE!
After singing the song, your students can color a simple page related to the song.
I’ve had the chance in previous schools to have real chicks in the classroom and sing the song to them. We don’t have real pollitos now, but I still have fun teaching this song.
Watch a time-lapse video of little chicks hatching
There are different versions of the song on YouTube. Choose the one you like or think works best for your classes.