I love teaching the location unit. There are so many engaging activities to do to talk about location. I start by teaching the location words to the tune of “Pop goes the weasel”. Since many students look at their hand to see which one makes the letter L for Left, I teach them a similar trick in Spanish by having them make a letter d with their right hand, for mano derecha.
There are also some great clips from Plaza Sésamo. Continue reading
For the past several years, I have used the song, “Nada que Perder” by Mexican rock group Maná as a cloze activity. It is a great song for seeing the structure “tener que + infinitivo”
When using songs, I like to play the song a few times before giving them a worksheet so that they get a sense and feel for the song. However, most of Maná’s songs are about 5 minutes,
so there is often not a lot of time. After the students fill in the missing lyrics, and write down all the infinitives I have them look up the definitions of the verbs with a dictionary, a skill many of them need to work on. I guarantee many students will write down the definition for “sonar” instead of “soñar” which gives me an opportunity to reinforce that the “ñ” is a completely different letter.
This year, I decided that I would do this activity on a half day of school. That does not give us a lot of time to look up the definitions and go over the song. So I decided to use Edmodo as a way to introduce the song to students. Here’s what they had to do: Continue reading
Things just got Pinteresting! Thank you to all of our followers on Pinterest…. we just hit 1,000 followers! We’d like to thank our fans by offering a free giveaway and a pinteresting contest. Details below. Those new to pinterest might want to read our post with our then-Top 10 Pins.
Teaching a unit about La Casa? Here’s some resources for your Spanish classroom for this House unit:
See more images on the Casa Pinterest Board.
During Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 – October 15) we will be posting articles
and information relating to the impact of Latinos in the United as well as looking at their culture from their home countries. The goal of this particular post is to help us realize that Hispanics have a whole lot to celebrate, with over 70 Holidays, yet Cinco de Mayo is not one of them.
Many Americans falsely assume that Cinco de Mayo is an important Mexican Holiday and that anyone that speaks Spanish must celebrate it. We have made plenty of posts that negate that (check our 5 de Mayo tag if you don’t believe us), so today we want to concentrate on the actual celebrations and holidays that take place in Latin America. Many of our students only becoming familiar with El Grito de Independencia de México and Día de los Muertos after years of Spanish classes because those are the two biggest holidays that are pushed by textbooks and marketed by publishing companies. But there are over 70 other national holidays across Central and South America. Let’s start educating ourselves about them…. or even having students research them to find out more.
To download this list on a month by month list plus a calendar to embed on your website Continue reading
At the beginning of the school year we showed your our Proficiency Bulletin Board with the 4 modes of communication but our Writing section was a little blank. We’ve since found the perfect addition and wanted to share it with you.
Keep reading to download your own cute pictures of this “Campaña contra maltrato/discriminación de letras y signos”. Continue reading
During Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 – October 15) we will be posting articles 
and information relating to the impact of Latinos in the United as well as looking at their culture from their home countries. Our goal is for Americans to realize that Mexico and other Hispanic countries are more than just stereotypes.
In our last post we gave you a list of over 90 novels appropriate for young readers. But today we’d like to highlight some books that are great reads to we, as teachers. These books heighten our knowledge in regards to some very specific cultural events as well as some general events. Here’s 4 books that you may be interested in… Continue reading
During Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 – October 15) we will be posting articles and information relating to the impact of Latinos in the United as well as looking at their culture from their home countries. Our goal is for Americans to realize that Mexico and other Hispanic countries are more than just stereotypes.
Today’s post is in regards to exposing our students to the Hispanic culture and lifestyle. One way I like to do this is through readings. The librarian at my school was able to help me put together a list of novels regarding the Hispanic culture, a majority of them written by Hispanic authors. Last year, my students read 2 novels throughout the year. Since I teach a beginning level course, these novels are, of course, written in English.
The best part of these books is that they can relate to the characters in the story. It’s not a lecture, it’s not talking about a group of people; it’s talking about one character that the students get to know throughout the reading. The connection to this character and seeing the struggles they face as well as well as gives them a look into the lifestyle of Hispanics. Many of the themes of the books relate to family, which we know is a huge part of Hispanic culture, but students also discover tolerance, adversity, and other problems that normal teenagers face.
I have personally read several from the list and my favorite is Esperanza Rising, which is also available in Spanish as Esperanza renace, which is about a privileged Mexican girl who must leave Mexico and discover the hardships when she is forced to live on camp with other farm workers. Pam Muñoz Ryan has written several other Hispanic-themed books.
To download a list of books that relate to Hispanic culture, click here. They are sorted by title, and include author’s name and country of focus. Includes over 60 titles at the middle-school level. Try asking your school librarian which books your school has that deal with the Hispanic culture.
Have other books that don’t appear on my list? Let us know in the comments section!
Three quick resources to use during your unit on La Familia:
1) Family Trees (árbol genealógico) : Our most popular post includes downloadable family tree images and flipcharts of Modern Family and The Simpson. Seems like most students aren’t very familiar with the Simpsons as they are Modern Family, but they still make good charts.
(Árbol Genealógico de Modern Family)
2) Zachary Jones provides us with this twiccionario… Continue reading
Edmodo is a educational social media tool. It is just like facebook, but is set up for education so that students can interact with one another on the class page. The teacher can post links, videos, questions, and even quizzes on the class page for students to respond to.
For ideas on how to incorporate edmodo into your Spanish class…. Continue reading
SpanishPlans.org 
