One more resource for El Día de los Muertos

There are a ton of free excellent resources for El Día de los Muertos (see Dustin Williamson's compilation here). Amy Zimmer and Elena López have also created some amazing resources to use. Also, here is a movie guide for El libro de la Vida.

One of my favorite things that I did last year for my Spanish 1 Día de los Muertos unit was the song "Calaverita" by La Santa Cecilia. It is a catchy tune with lots of room to explore some products, practices and perspectives related to el Día de los Muertos. The video is also a fun story. (If you look closely, you might see a certain politician who is no allowed to enter the party.)

Elena López and I created the slideshow below that tells the "story" of the video. The slideshow used comprehensible language for a beginning Spanish 1 class. We included some vocabulary slides (I wanted to target certain words) to start and also included questions to ask as we tell the story (students usually have whiteboards to answer the questions). I put the lectura and the questions in this doc  so that students can read it again and write the answers. The video has a great twist at the end and I think students will like it. If you want to make a copy and/or embed it somewhere for classroom use, click here. I

Also, if any of this is useful for you, please consider giving back in a Radiohead style format.

After we go through this slideshow we will watch the video and do a cloze activity with the song (also in the doc). The translation is also there because I like students to know what they are singing about all week! 

Dustin created this slideshow to introduce the band and I adapted it a bit.  If you want to make a copy and/or embed it somewhere for classroom use, click here.

These are all the resources that Elena (mostly her!) and I created for online practice:

Memrise (Kara's)

Kara's basic vocab quizalize - - quiz.al  code = uzr346

Quizailize (Elena)

Elena's Textivate - versión reducida - put in order

Elena's Textivate - versión reducida - separate the words

Elena's Textivate - versión reducida - fill in the blanks.

Elena's versión reducida - all possible activities

Kara's Textivate - shortened version - put in order

Kara's Textivate - shortened version - fill in the blanks

Textivate - Preguntas de comprensión (multiple choice) (Kara)

Textivate - Preguntas de comprensión (choose words to get correct sentence) (Kara)

Texivate - Elena López's versión reducida

Vocabulario - Quizlet

Vocabulario - Memrise

Presentación - Google slides (Historia original de Kara Jacobs)

Hoja para estudiantes (usa páginas 4-7 para el cuento)

Hoja de la canción (actividad de cloze con preguntas y traducción)

Historia reducida (para dibujar y recontar)

Ordena la lectura - Textivate

Preguntas de la lectura - Textivate (en proceso)

Historia reducida (para dibujar y recontar)

Lectura - categorías

Actividad de emparejar las frases con las tfotos

EduCanon

Preguntas para Educanon - Papel

Purpose Games

Quizailize

Feel free to use it and let me know if you have any ideas, suggestions and/or corrections! 

El Cuy - una lectura simplificada

I love the articles from Veintemundos. They write about such a wide variety of interesting cultural topics, but sometimes they are just a bit too advanced for some levels. Also, for some students, just reading an article that long can be rather difficult. So, one of my new goals is to adapt some of those articles and create some activities to go along with them so that I can use them in different levels.




My first attempt is with this article: El Cuy: Mucho más que un simple animal. In this doc, I included the following:

• two "I can" statements:
• Puedo explicar la importancia del cuy en el Perú (con vocabulario nuevo)
• Puedo comparar algunos productos, prácticas y perspectivas culturales del Perú con los de mi cultura.
• a list of important vocabulary words with Spanish to Spanish definitions/synonyms
•  a Quizlet link for Quizlet Live 
• a simplified version of the article with some English words embedded to make the reading easier
• a variety of comprehension/recap activities after each chunk, including some pre-AP cultural comparison type questions
• two videos to show what the article is talking about
• Anthony Zimmern clip related to one part of the article
• A commercial that includes El Cuy Mágico, along with Zachary Jones' worksheet to go along with it
• a couple of final writing activities to finish the lesson

I created all of this for a colleague to use with an "animals" unit. I also have included some possible Essential Questions for that unit:

• ¿Por qué son los animales importantes en nuestro mundo? (amigos, trabajo, comida, belleza, parte de las leyendas y la cultura, salud)?
• ¿Para qué sirven los animales?
• ¿Cuáles son algunas características de los animales? (animal related vocabulary)
• ¿Cuáles son unos animales importantes en otras culturas? ¿Por qué son importantes? Cómo se comparan los productos, las prácticas, y las perspectivas relacionados con estos animales con los de nuestra cultura?

I hope to do something similar with this article: Rana Dorada: El animal más venenoso del mundo. Anyone want to help out??

Also, if any of this is useful for you, please consider giving back in a Radiohead style format.

If my colleague doesn't use this, I will surely find a place to include it! Even if it is for a few days when I am at a conference... NHAWLT and ACTFL are coming up soon.

"Soy yo" for Spanish 1

If you haven't seen the video for "Soy yo" from Bomba Estéreo, check it out below. I am sure that this song and video will be one of the favorites of the semester. 

I used this song last year (but with this cool video) in Spanish 1 because it is catchy and because of all the "soy" reps. This year, I did a bit more with the song/video.  This mini unit for Spanish 1 was a big hit with students. I put a lot of time into creating these resources and I decided to sell it on TPT. 

(If you like this song, check out resources for another Bomba Estéreo song, "Internacionales" here.)

Update - 8/15/17 - I have added a "possible order" for all of the activities included in the unit.

I created a slideshow (see parts of it below) that includes:
- information about the band 
- some vocabulary slides to introduce and ask questions
- screenshots and text to "tell" the story of the video
- some slides for asking questions about the story
- a slide that has all of the screenshots (can be used for summarizing, speaking, and listening)

I created a doc for the mini unit that includes
- "I can" statements for the mini-unit (see below)
- a targeted vocabulary list
- links to Quizlet and textivate activities
- a link to a possible assessment
- a reading activity in which students have to find the Spanish words
- a reading activity in which students have to circle the correct word
- a reading activity in which students have to answer questions
- a reading activity in which students have to draw the story
- some personalized and creative questions
- an activity with cierto/falso statements

- a cloze activity of the song with the English translation

If you would like to purchase these materials, click here for Teachers Pay Teachers ($7.00).
These are my goals for this mini-unit:

• I can comprehend a story with visuals to support my comprehension.
• I can read a story and comprehend it without visuals.
• I can understand and pick out cognates.
• I can understand some words in Spanish because of the context, the visuals, or the actions of the teacher.
• I can answer questions about a story and about myself.

Here is the slideshow wit some of the slides: