Origami: Estrella De Navidad En Papel

I came across some great origami videos today in French and I got to thinking that there must be similar videos in Spanish.  What I found was a wide range of videos, many of them too complicated for classroom use and others a little too simple for my high schoolers.  However, there was one in particular that I felt was just right.

This video shows how to make a lovely Christmas star with origami.  The speaker has a Spanish accent and he speaks clearly and not too quickly.  The instructions are clear and the video helps out a lot for those who struggle with listening comprehension.  The speaker uses the vosotros, so this is a great opportunity to expose students to that oft-neglected verb form.

There are a couple of fussy parts about the folding.  All the best origami gets tricky in parts, but I think high school students who watch and listen carefully will be able to be successful. 

Gracias to Miguel for this great video.

¡Feliz Navidad, amigos!

--AnneK

Vocabulario de la Navidad

I recently posted a Power Point of Thanksgiving vocabulary that was very popular here and on Pinterest, so it occurred to me to create one for Christmas vocabulary as well.  I found some great pictures and I think it turned out very good.  Click here or click the picture below to download it.

Picking out the right vocabulary to use is always a challenge.  For this particular Power Point, I chose to focus on vocabulary that pertains to Christmas as it is understood by most people in North America.  The purpose of this is to give students vocabulary to talk about their own traditions and celebrations, so that they can communicate with others in Spanish.

I made a Power Point about Christmas (and other December & January holidays) as they are celebrated in the Spanish-speaking world and it is available for sale at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  That one is much longer and more detailed than this one (130 slides as opposed to 25), and it focuses on culture rather than vocabulary.  I encourage you to take a look at it and consider purchasing it as a complement to your other holiday activities.

I hope this Christmas vocabulary Power Point is useful to you.  I hope your students enjoy it and that it enables them to talk about the holidays in Spanish.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Repaso De Las Nacionalidades

For some reason the names of the Spanish-speaking countries, their capitals, and the nationalities associated with each pose a real challenge to students.  I suspect that it has something to do with the fact that they are items which require memorization (as opposed to contextual understanding) and many students are simply not interested in memorization.

I try to make it as interesting as possible.  I have colorful Power Point presentations, puzzles, games, songs, drawing activities, etc.  It doesn't matter.  Those student who refuse to learn them do poorly on that section of the midterm exam every year - without exception.

This saddens me, but I'm not one to go down without a fight, so I will continue to invent activities and practice in the hope that I'll catch a few more butterflies in my net before the midterm arrives (a week from today).

Here is a map labeling activity that is not going to win any awards for its originality or aesthetic appeal.  Nor are you going to throw a parade because its so contextually relevant; it's not.  But it makes a great quick review, extra credit, short homework, or supplement to all the other great stuff you do in class to cover the nationalities.

A few weeks back, I blogged about a nationalities game I had made.  It's a free download and it might be something you want to add to your nationalities repertoire.

I absolutely adore this video/chant on the countries and their capitals too.  It became a bit of a cult favorite in a couple of my classes a few years back.  It doesn't help with nationalities specifically, but it ties in with the geography theme.

I hope you found something useful here today, amigos.  Gracias por pasar por aquí.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Teachers Pay Teachers

Amigos, we all know that we didn't go into the teaching profession with visions of dollar signs in our heads.  We love young people, love our subject matter, enjoy being creative and nurturing, and we want to make a positive impact on the future . . . but we knew we weren't going to get rich in the process.  Am I right?

Still, there are mortgages, light bills, orthodontics, car payments, school clothes, and a thousand other things that mercilessly deplete our bank accounts without regard to how much positive work we are doing with our students or how well we meet the standards.

I'm a creative sort of person and I've been making my own materials for years, many of which I share here with my readers for free.  I think I speak for most teachers when I say that we naturally want to share and to enrich the education world.  Some of my resources I have put extra effort into making suitable for sale, and I have put those products on Teachers Pay Teachers in my digital store.

These are some of my best efforts at creating material that I believe will be useful to my fellow Spanish teachers.  I think they are interesting, beautiful, and they rock the standards.  But I don't want to brag.  :-)

Los Colores

Teach the colors in a cultural context with beautiful photos

La Navidad

A photographic tour of Christmas and other "winter" holidays (text in English)

El Arte Subacuático 

A multimedia lesson on art and tourism set in Cancun, Mexico

El Día de Acción de Gracias

A reading and exploration lesson with a Thanksgiving theme

Winter Holidays Power Point Backgrounds

Make your lessons seasonal, colorful and beautiful

I also have free lessons in my TPT store, such gems as: Car Gar Zar Verbs in the Preterite (a free grammar lesson that includes a quiz and a culture extension), a free sample pack of Power Point backgrounds to make your lessons lovely, The Beautiful Colors of Mexico Power Point that shows some lovely photography so students can appreciate the diversity of Mexico and leave behind their stereotypes.

It seems like we are all so hesitant to pay for something online, as if everything in the digital world should be free or cost, at most, 99 cents.  At the same time we mindlessly shell out $5 or more for coffee drinks and $4 for a single gallon of gas.  The mindset is a mystery to me.

Your time is worthwhile.  Don't waste it by reinventing the wheel every year!  Honestly, ask me how long it took me to create the Los Colores Power Point presentation.  (Hours and hours, amigos.  I had to search the web for the best pictures to represent each color and also demonstrate the culture of a multitude of Spanish-speaking countries.  I wrote sentences that would be informative and interesting, but not beyond the abilities of beginning students.  I formatted images, backgrounds, slide order . . . made a quiz.  I cross referenced the standards and wrote extension activities.  I contacted photographers and wrote attribution for their photos.)

Could you do it yourself?  Yes, of course you could.  But it would take you hours and hours . . . or you could pay $3.50 and get the one that has already been made.  Use it with all your Spanish I classes, then use it again next year and the year after that.  Use it as a quick review with your Spanish II classes too.  Your lesson will be colorful, cultural, contextual, and your students will appreciate getting to close the textbook for a few minutes.

Think about it, will you?

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

¿Qué es vida?

What is life?  I suppose that is a rather existential way to begin a blog post, but I am actually referring to an ad campaign by the Spanish food company Helios.  The video is warm and easily understood, even by beginners.

So, you know me, I had to make an activity to accompany it.  I mean, it's one thing to show a little video to the class.  That is always well received.  It is quite another thing to make an activity that gets my students to think, create, share, and explore.  Then it's something I can feel great about giving my students.

You can click here to get a copy of the file or you can click on the image itself.

As I was working on it, the thought occurred to me that it would make a great activity to leave with Spanish I students (or early in the year with Spanish II students) with a substitute.  The only trick would be to make sure that the students had access to a computer.  I even made a second version of it with the instructions in English so that you don't have to panic your substitute.  Both versions are contained in the same file.  You can just print the one that you need.

I hope you get some use out of it and I would love to hear from you!

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Verbos Como Gustar

Heaven help us and the verbs like gustar.  This is one of the hardest things for English-speaking students of Spanish to do properly.  It seems like I have to review it every single year, and even then I still occasionally hear a Spanish III student say "Yo gusto". 

I came across this cute image on Pinterest recently from Online Spanish Sonora ELE.  If the text is to be believed, then credit for the image and the great idea goes to Patricia. 

 

I looked it over and decided it was a great way to practice and personalize verbs like gustar.  So I gave my students a little time and asked them to read over what Patricia had written and then make a similar activity themselves.  I thought they did a great job with the task and I've linked a couple of examples of their work below.  (Please keep in mind this was a 15-20 minute activity - not a big project.)

Click on either portrait to take a closer look at it.

I put identity blindfolds on them, deleted their home towns, and changed their names - of course.  If you don't have computers available to you at school, this activity could be easily done on paper and students could draw their own portraits.  

I hope that this review of gustar proves to be fun and useful, amigos.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Después De Las Fiestas

Monday we were back in school after a week of Thanksgiving vacation.  I wanted to follow up with my students about what they had done over break, but I wanted to do something a little different than my usual activities in my Spanish IV class so I decided to approach things a little bit differently.

I told my students to write 8-10 interview questions about Thanksgiving and the vacation days, then I had them pair up and interview one another.  They were asked to record the answers they got so that they could make an informal presentation to the class.  In this way I had them talking, writing, and presenting - all in Spanish.  And they got practice to practice with the preterite and imperfect (always needed, even at level IV) in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd persons too - in an interpersonal and a presentational context.

One of my students ("April" from a post I made back in September) decided to go all out and make a Power Point to do her presentation.  I hadn't expected that, but it was a fun bonus.  The questions she asked are at the top of each slide, then then answer is below in the third person.  You can click if you want to see the presentation.

I thought it would be nice to share this with you because I know how frustrating it is to get kids to talk when they first come back from a break.  Getting them to talk about someone else however, that seems to work like a charm.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

La Voz Interior

In addition to my 80 kids at school, I'm blessed to be a mother of three wonderful young people.  My oldest daughter is 20, my middle daughter is 15 and is a sophomore at the school where I teach, and my "cherry on top" is my 4-year-old son.  That is a lot of kids in my life - each of them special and beloved in their own way.

As parents and teachers, we occasionally have moments in our lives when we come across some wisdom that puts everything into sharp focus.  I had a moment like that today when I was looking at Pinterest and I saw this little graphic:

It is simple but it speaks to a very profound truth; one that is a little unsettling in its implications when we put our minds to the immense power we have.  I feel certain this quote was originally directed toward parents but, as teachers, we wield this power at a level that no one else does.  Year after year, we teach dozens of children.  And believe me, what we say and how we say it matters a great deal to our students.   If my teachers had not been the voices of patience, encouragement, and serenity in my life . . . I don't know what would have become of me or where I would be today.

Just a thought, amigos.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Feliz Navidad

I went looking for an image that said "Feliz Navidad" on it this morning and I came across an abundance of images.  I figured I would collect them all in one space and make them easily available so that you don't have to sort through any sort foolishness online.

Some are even animated GIFs . . . ¡Lindo!

Many of the above images are not culturally relevant and they can give you an opportunity to discuss the differences in how the holiday is celebrated in the Spanish-speaking and the English-speaking worlds.  My students are always surprised to learn that snow, Santa, stockings, candy canes, and presents are not traditionally part of the Hispanic celebration of Navidad.  (Though things are changing as time marches on . . . no hay remedio.)

It might be a fun activity to get them to design their own graphic with imagery that is more relevant to the Hispanic holiday . . . maybe with an image of the three kings, Christmas tamales (yum!), poinsettias, or a piñata.  Educational and entertaining!  (And, of course, it would be a good opportunity to explain again why a guy in a big hat leaning against a cactus would not be a good choice.)

Just a note, I do not own the copyright to any of the above images.  They were found online and I'm just putting them here so they can be made available for educational purposes.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

¿Luego Qué Pasa?

Pictures are a great way to stimulate thought, imagination, and conversation both in and out of the classroom.  They say that a picture is worth a thousand words and, if I could ever get that amount of talk from a student, I would count it as quite the coup.  Some pictures provide a better opportunity for discussion than others, of course.

The following are a few pictures that I found online, here and there.  They are unusual and call for a bit of imagination to develop a background story, then they require more imagination to discuss what would happen next.  It's a great way to use present perfect and future tenses at level III, or you could just allow students to describe the picture in the present or the present progressive.

 

 

 

 

As an extension, it would be fun if students brought in their own pictures (either originals or ones they found online) to exchange with each other and discuss even more.

Have fun with them, amigos!

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Banderas en Blanco

I was going through some files on my old computer when I came across this page I put together with uncolored flags of the Spanish-speaking world.  All 20 of them are there and I put eight of them to a page, so they fit on three sheets of paper.  If you look closely, the name of the country is written in light grey text on the lower-right corner of each flag.  Click here or on the image below to download the file.

So what can you do with them?  I can think of a lot of things but one of the easiest and most obvious activity would be for students to research the colors of the flags themselves online (or in their textbooks) and color them correctly.  Then they could put them on a large map in your classroom.

But then I got to thinking of a game that would be fun.  Review colors and shapes vocabulary with the students before you begin.  Then, have students work in pairs back-to-back so that they can't see what their partner is doing.  Give one student the blank flags and a box of colored pencils.  Give the other student a textbook or a webpage (Hooray for iPads in my class!) with the colors of the flags shown.  The students need to communicate - in Spanish - to get the flags colored in as best they can.  When they are finished, they should check their work.  They will probably have a good laugh too, and learning is best when it is fun.

I hope you get some good use from this, amigos. 

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Los Colores Brillantes de México

One of the great things about being a Spanish teacher is the rainbow of colors!  I love bright colors and I also love that it's okay for me to fill my classroom with colorful textiles, piñatas, paper mache, papel picado, and whatever else I get my hands on.

Today I was browsing some photos of Mexico and I was delighted by all the colors in them, so delighted that I decided to create a Power Point presentation to showcase all the bold color of the culture.

The photos are not mine originally.  They are all available for use through Creative Commons with attribution, so I took the time to attribute each photographer with their name and a link to their Flikr page.  I am deeply grateful to these photographers who have graciously agreed to share their work which, in turn, makes it easier for me to do mine.

Wouldn't this be a great last-minutes-of-class activity, especially now that we are getting into the dark colorless time of year?  Download the Power Point and bring some bright and vivid color to your lessons!  I hope you and your students enjoy it.

Déjenme comentarios, amigos.  Me hacen muy feliz.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Pavos con Verbos - Otra Vez

Two years ago (Has it really been that long?) I blogged about a little project that I sometimes do with my students this time of year which I call "Verb Turkeys."  It is a creative conjugation practice activity with a Thanksgiving theme.  You can read the original post by clicking here, if you'd like.

Back then I had only just discovered Dropbox but I had little to no idea how to use it.  I spent hours trying to figure out how to upload my Power Point with the student instructions, but I wasn't able to figure it out.  I went back and updated the post today so it now has the link.

The language of the Power Point is in Spanish with step-by-step pictures so that the students can understand exactly what they need to do without resorting to giving them the instructions in English.  I also have some examples of student work in the Power Point as well.

Nowadays I can manage Dropbox well and I can't live without it in my classroom.  I have placed the Verb Turkeys Power Point there and you can download it here, or by clicking on the picture above.

The project is appropriate for students in middle or high school at beginning and intermediate levels.  (Elementary school students might be able to do it with a lot of scaffolding, provided they have already learned verb conjugation.)

I hope you can get some use out of it, amigos.   And it's always great to hear from you, so please leave a comment if you have the time or inclination.

Hasta la próxima,

--AnneK

¡Cien!

This is my 100th blog post, amigos.  And I figured I ought to do something really remarkable to celebrate this milestone, so I have decided that I am going to put together a list of . . . 100 Amazing Craft Ideas for Spanish Class!

Fantástico, ¿no?   Let's go!

Día de los Muertos
By far, the largest group of projects to be found online have to do with Day of the Dead.  I've included a diversity of projects here, but there are thousands more out there similar to these.

Day of the Dead - Papel Picado
Q-Tip Skeleton
Calaveras Sandwich Art
Paper Plate Calavera
Miniature Ofrendas for Day of the Dead
"Life and Death" Calavera Planters (Image Only)
Wire Calaveras (Picture Only)
Día de los Muertos Felt Banner
"Skullflake" Tutorial 
Catrina Face Paint (Several Videos) 
Crochet Calavera


Navidad and Winter Holidays
The winter holidays are religious in the Spanish-speaking world: Our Lady of Guadalupe, Christmas (Posadas), and Three Kings Day.  Consider your student population before you choose any of these crafts.

King's Day Shoe Craft (in Spanish)
Three Kings Popsicle Stick Puppets
Three Kings Paper Chain with Template
Handmade Nativity Scene
Farolitos DIY (in Spanish)
Las Posadas Coasters
Advent Calendars
Our Lady of Guadalupe Poncho Craft


Artist-Inspired Crafts
Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and Salvador Dalí never cease to inspire Spanish and art teachers alike.
  
Miró-Inspired Mural
Picasso-Style Portraits
3 Dimensional Picasso Portraits
Melted Dalí Clocks 
Salvador Dalí Mustache Portraits
"Roll a Miró" Dice/Art Activity
How to Draw Frida Kahlo 
3 Dimensional Miró (Video)


Flowers
Paper flowers are some of my favorites.  Here is a link to a post I made a few weeks ago about paper flowers, in case you missed it.  And the following are other flower crafts that relate to the Spanish-speaking world, each in their own way.

Paper Flowers
Verb Flower with Petal Labels
Noun and Pronoun Flower (Convert to Spanish)
Paper Spanish Roses
Marigolds 
Origami Poinsettia


Wildlife of Central and South America
Central America and The Amazon have some of the most colorful and interesting creatures on Earth.  It's no wonder there are so many class crafts dealing with them.

Quetzal
Scarlet Macaw
Blue Morpho Butterfly
Toucan
Clothespin Chameleon Instructions (in Spanish) and Picture 
Clothespin Snake Instructions (in Spanish) and Picture
How to Draw Monarch Butterflies


The Sun
I always knew the sun was important, of course, but I had no idea I would come across so many sun-themed projects when I started my search.

Aztec Sun Stones
Metallic Sun Sculpture
Mexican Folk Art Sun
Aztec Sun Circle and Weaving


Jewelry and Clothing
Everyone loves something to wear!

Embroidery Floss Friendship Bracelets
Lucha Libre Mask
Make a Poncho
Emossed Painted Clay Beads
Peruvian Wave Bracelet
Chilean Shell Necklace
Peruvian Thread Earrings (With Video)


Cultural Coloring Pages 
Coloring pages make great extra credit activities and they require just some crayons or markers for supplies.  I leave them with the substitute teacher in case my early finishers have nothing to do for the last fifteen minutes of class.

Hispanic Role Models Coloring Pages
Flags of Latin America Coloring Pages 
Mesoamerican Art Coloring Pages

Foods
I honestly could have linked 100 class-friendly recipes, if I had wanted to.  There is a LOT of Mexican food out there on the web along with some good Spanish and South American foods too.  These particular recipes caught my eye because they relate to other class topics easily.

Mexican Flag Vegetable Plate
Champurrado - Mexican Hot Chocolate
Hacer Guacamole (Video en Español)
Rosca de Reyes Recipe


Miscellany
And these 40+ crafts that follow, do not fit into any particular category.  I am sure you will find something there that will meet your needs if you are searching for a cultural craft project for your Spanish students.

Godseyes
Guatemalan Worry Dolls
Huichol Yarn Paintings
20 Ways to Make Piñatas
Musical Maracas
Mexican Dancer Doll
Papel Amate (Bark Painting)
Construction Paper MolasMicography Word Portraits
Mexican Metal Tooling
Art Prints (with Styrofoam)
Cascarones 
Aztec Warriors Art Project
Chalk Adobe Paintings
Fruit Crate Still Life
Mini PiñatasBody Parts Art Project
Embossed Tin Heart
Paper or Fabric Fans
Terra Cotta Bull
Graphic Boot Verbs (Image Only)
Mexico Topographic Map (And other projects!)
Portraits with Verbs Like Gustar (Image Only)
Comic Strip Maker
Talavera-Inspired Ceramics (Requires Kiln)
Wanted Poster (Image Only)
Verb Conjugation Foldable
Paper Buildings in Town
South America Cork Board and Flag Pins
Explosion Book
Fiesta Rosettes and Señorita Dolls
Graphically Illustrate Song Lyrics (Image Only)
Gustar Heart Mapping (Convert to Spanish)
Rainsticks Craft and Lesson
Guatemalan KiteCosta Rican Ox Cart
Domincan Decorative Plate
Miniature Woven Rugs
Paper Bag Puppets (in Spanish) and a Puppet Theater (in Spanish)
Mexican Independence Craft (Video)
Cardboard Cactus (Follow Pictures, Instructions in Chinese)

I have been working on this list now for hours and hours and hours.  This has become the blog post that took over my weekend, but I'm happy with the results.  I think this might just be the most useful post I have ever put together, simply due to the breadth of it.  There is a little bit of everything here - for the artsy teacher and the glitter-adverse teacher alike.  I'm hoping that my readers will be able to find something new every time they come so that they don't feel anchored to the same crafts year after year.

I'd love to hear from you!

--AnneK

Lección - El Día de Acción de Gracias

Last year I put together a little lesson on Thanksgiving and put it up for sale over at Teachers Pay Teachers, a site that brokers teacher-created lessons, activities, and other goodies for fellow teachers to buy.  As they put it, teachers pay teachers - not big corporations or textbook companies.  It's a great idea, but getting the word out there about your product is hard, especially if one is not comfortable bringing it up constantly and tooting your own horn (and I'm not).

 

I put a lot of love into this lesson.  It contains a page of teacher instructions including standards and rationale, pre-reading questions, vocabulary, vocabulary practice, a Spanish reading (Spanish II or III level), reading comprehension questions, open-ended questions, and an extension activity involving a cultural comparison.  There is also an answer key.  If I do say so myself, I think it's a great lesson.

It's a bargain at $2.  When you think about it, preparing all of that (pre-reading, vocabulary, comprehension questions, writing the article, etc. . . .) it would take you about 2 or 3 hours.  If you paid yourself minimum wage, that would be more than $21 worth of your time - and we all know your time is worth a lot more than minimum wage.  Besides, $2 is half of what you would pay for a blended mocha with whip at your local coffee store.  And, unlike that fancy coffee, you will have this lesson for years to come, to use again and again.

Here is a link to an abbreviated sample of the lesson, if you would like to have a look for yourself before investing your two dollars.

And that is about all the self promotion that I am comfortable with at this time.  I did not start this blog to make money; I just want to interact with my colleagues in other places around the nation and the world.  But I thought I would make you aware of this product in case you are interested.  And if you choose to support me with your purchase, please know that I am very grateful.

Gracias amigos,

--AnneK

Día de Acción de Gracias

Today was our last day of class before our (much needed) Thanksgiving break.  I'm lucky to work at a school where we get the whole week of Thanksgiving off.  When you put the two weekends together with the five days off, it's a glorious nine days of rest.  This is especially nice because Thanksgiving is often such a big production involving travel and days of cooking and prep, that you actually need a vacation from it.  Irony, I suppose.

I didn't want to introduce new material today and I knew the students were tired and distracted, so I taught an abbreviated lesson then I saved the last twenty minutes of class to discuss Thanksgiving.  We needed some vocabulary to do it, so I put together a Power Point with pictures and vocabulary terms.  I love to introduce vocabulary this way because it minimizes the need for us to resort to English to communicate.  The only downside is that it often takes a long time to find all the best pictures, so I figured I would share the presentation here with my readers.  That way you don't have to invest that time.

The Power Point is not very long.  It just covers the basics of the traditions and favorite foods for Thanksgiving.  Feel free to add to it with the favorite foods and traditions of the region where you and your students live.  With this vocabulary, students will be able to engage in some conversation about the holiday - even beginners because you can stick to me gusta and no me gusta with them.

And to make things even more fun, I found this hilarious clip from the show Friends dubbed in Spanish.  Joey is attempting to eat a whole turkey and it made my students laugh out loud.

I hope you find these resources useful and that your students enjoy talking about Thanksgiving in Spanish.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK

Juego Divertido

I was thinking that I was some sort of game theory genius yesterday.  I had made up a vocabulary review game and my students loved it.  They got into it so much that I was worried that their enthusiasm was interrupting the class on the other side of the wall from us.  Then I shared the idea with my daughter (who is in Spanish III with another teacher) and she responds nonchalantly, "Oh yeah, we play a game like that in Ms. B's class."

Seriously?

Since the game was such a hit with Spanish II yesterday, I decide to play it today with Spanish IV and see if it is a success with them too.  And indeed it was!  Then a student comments to me, "We used to play a game just like this in Ms. C's room."

Wow.  So I'm not the genius that I thought I was, sadly. 

How is it that all these great games are out there and we aren't telling each other about them?  I'm guessing that our schedules as teachers are so full that we don't have ample time to sit down and discuss methods and techniques with one another.  Or perhaps we figure that our colleagues already have the same tools in their toolboxes that we do?  Regardless of the reasons, sharing knowledge and inspiration is the reason for this blog so I'm going to tell you about this original vocabulary review game so your students can have the same fun that mine did.

 The premise is simple; students race each other to recognize the vocabulary first on a paper filled with vocabulary words.  The first student to find the correct vocabulary term on the sheet colors it in with their marker.

With advanced students you can define the vocabulary term for them in Spanish and let them look for it on the sheet.   With intermediate-low students you can give hints, or opposites as clues.  With beginners you might just have to call out the words in English and let them look for the Spanish.  The game great fun, regardless.  All my classes gave it a thumbs-up.

One caveat to my fellow teachers of teens - the game gets intense as students are competing head-to-head.  So you will want to set some norms ahead of time.  ("No stabbing each other with markers" is a good one, I discovered.  *smile*)

Because I am so grateful for my followers and my visitors, I'm creating one for you to use in your classroom.  Click here to download it or click the picture above.  I put the nationalities vocabulary on this game because that is something that we will all find useful for beginning students (or as a review for more advanced speakers).  There are two copies of the same activity on the sheet, so copy them and cut them in half.  Save paper!  Or save more paper by laminating them and giving the students dry erase markers to play.  Then you can use them again and again.  (You could also put them in page protectors and use dry erase markers.)

For an extra challenge, call out the capitals of the countries and have the students find the nationalities that correspond.  Or simply call out the name of the country, but make sure to have fun with it, amigos!

Hasta la próxima,

--AnneK

Polls Everywhere - Otra Vez

You might recall a post I made several weeks ago about a real-time interactive web tool called Polls Everywhere.  So, I wanted to take a quick minute and update you on another success I had with it this past week.

We are studying about Machu Picchu this week in class and I had a reading for the students, some pictures, a brief video, and some comprehension activities - all fairly standard fare for a foreign language class.  We got to the end of the lesson and I was three minutes away from the bell so, on a lark, I told my students to look up one fun fact about Machu Picchu and bring it to class tomorrow.  I reminded them to use reliable sources and set them free as the bell rang.

The next day I brought up my old favorite Polls Everywhere and had the students each text in their fun facts along with their names.  What a wealth of information it was!  We watched the screen as each person's fact came up and we learned so much together.  The really fun part was that because the students had selected the facts themselves, they naturally were the kinds of facts that students in their age group found interesting.

Today we had a surprise quiz on Machu Picchu and the grades were stellar.  Win win!

Here are the questions - just in case you might want to use them in your class when you study Machu Picchu.  Students are in Spanish II (A2 for you European folks out there.).


¿Cierto o falso?

1.   Machu Picchu es una ruina de una ciudad antigua.  Cierto

2.   Machu Picchu fue construido por los Aztecas.  Falso

3.   Machu Picchu está en Brasil.  Falso

4.   Machu Picchu es un sitio arqueológico muy importante.  Cierto

5.   Los conquistadores españoles descubrieron Machu Picchu.  Falso

6.   Machu Picchu está en los Andes.  Cierto

7.   Personas de todo el mundo visitan Machu Picchu.  Cierto

8.   Hay pirámides en Machu Picchu.  Falso

9.  Machu Picchu está dividio en tres sectores: agrículo, religioso, y urbano.  Cierto

10.  Las palabras "machu picchu" son de Quechua.  Cierto

 

Hasta pronto, amigos

--AnneK