These are the stories that I’ve used in my first semester 8th grade Spanish class (Level 1).

Wildebeest Movietalk: Hay, Dice, Ve. Martina Bex has this great Embedded Reading/Movietalk which is a perfect thing to start the year. This lesson you can download for free.

To go along with the video, I teach other common animals and we watch the video el Pollito Pio.
I then read them the book La vaca que dice Oink, (preview here) which we use to talk about the benefits of being bilingual. Through the story, it is totally comprehensible and gets in the rep of dice. You can also use this video as  MovieTalk about a pez that says Gua Gua.
I also used the book “Oso pardo, oso pardo, que ves ahi”.

The next story was Va a Mexico that focuses on the strucures Va a, Tiene, y Está en. I use this story after students put together their class passport.

To go along with the structures of “va a” we listened to the video for
“Adonde vas” with Sr. Wooly‘s pro account and students completed the activities. I asked peronalized questions about what classes they go and when.

El tigre tiene hambre: A follow up to the Wildebeest story, this story focuses on Ve, Dice, and Tiene Hambre. Includes follow up activities. I have the class act out the TPRS gestures. I tell the story with class actors, and then I do a volleyball translation activity with the reading.

The next story I did was El pez y el gato, from the Storyteller’s Corner, which talks continues with Ve, Tiene Hambre, and adds feelings such as está contento. The original story is a bit short and ends with a the cat thinking of a new plan, so I add on to this story by having the cat use a glass to catch the fish and take out of the water. Then, Spongebob knocks on the door (because he is a friend of the fish) and brings the cat some Krabby Pattties to eat instead of the fish.

I did another class story-ask after this using the structures Tiene Hambre, Busca, Va a, Quiere. Each class had their own story.

To follow up with the structure of busca, and to practice Va a, and no esta, along with llama, I used this Fotografia story.

Again, we acted the story out a similar story in class, we did a reading activity, and we listened to the Juanes song in class and watched the music video which is what the reading is based on. You can download this for free here or buy the editable version.

The next story was this Tiene Que Story which focuses on the verb tiene que, quiere, and le gusta. After telling the story, students put events of the story in order, and wrote captions on the storyboard. Students also practice this story’s vocabulary on quizlet.

Students shared their captions by reading with various partners in class.

To go along with the last story, we did some TPR gestures for vocabulary relating to social media and other things they students like to do, such as taking selfies on snapchat, watching youtube videos, sending texts, and more. This vocabulary is also part of the next story.

Erika y su unicornio is about a girl who wants a animal but doesn’t know how to take care of it. Focuses on the verbs quiere, tiene hambre, and busca. We dramatized this story in class and the students loved it. The next day we did a Write, Pass, Draw activity and the next day we did a Buzz Reading of the story, which the kids enjoyed.

The next story students started with substitute teacher, by completing part of a packet made by Kara Jacobs for Soy Yo. When I came back to class, the students knew the story a bit after they did the packet and did a comprehension check by watching the video on Edpuzzle. When I got back, we could dramatize it together with the video playing in the background, as a movietalk activity.

As we approached Halloween, I did a movietalk with La Leyenda de La Llorona. We dramatized a simple version of la leyenda in class before moving on to this Got Milk commercial. We were able to complete both in the first day giving us plenty of time for activities.