Pete el gato

We've been reading and acting out Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes in kindergarten. This book is great for several reasons. For one, a lot of my students are familiar with the character and book. And it has lots of easy repetitive language. It´s great for practicing colors, emotions, fruits, how to express likes, and the verbs walk and sing. The only problem is that it's not been translated into Spanish. Not that I let that stop me. 

First, I "read" the book to them in Spanish (I showed them the pictures and translated it into Spanish.) Then I used story props from www.kizclub.com to act it out. With the story props, I added some extra parts so that students could practice additional colors and fruits. Here is the basic script I used.

Pete es un gato. Pete tiene los zapatos blancos. A Pete, le gustan muchos los zapatos blancos.

Pete dice, "Estoy bien." Pete canta, "Me gustan, me gustan, me gustan, me gustan mis zapatos blancos.

¡Ay caramba! Pete caminó en las fresas. ¿De qué color serán sus zapatos ahora? 
¡Rojo!

Pete no dice, "Estoy triste." Pete dice, "Estoy bien." Pete está caminando. Pete está cantando. Pete canta, "Me gustan, me gustan, me gustan, me gustan mis zapatos rojos."

¡Ay caramba! Pete caminó en los arándanos. ¿De qué color serán sus zapatos ahora? 
¡Azul!

Pete no dice, "Estoy triste." Pete dice, "Estoy bien." Pete está caminando. Pete está cantando. Pete canta, "Me gustan, me gustan, me gustan, me gustan mis zapatos azules."

And repeat for other colors. The kids loved chanting me gustan, me gustan.   Then we did some writing. The students trace the first part of the sentence and then fill in their name and favorite color.

  

 We had learned Me gusta/No me gusta here and there earlier in the year but this has turned out to be a quick unit that has helped them really get it. And of course we'll be spiraling back to it later as well. How do you introduce likes and dislikes with your students? Share in the comments below or on Twitter using the hashtag #earlylang.