March Madness with Animals and their Habitats ¡en español!

I recently saw Mundo de Pepita's blog on how she did March Madness with a Twist. Instead of basketball or even music (like a lot of high school Spanish teachers do) she had her students decide their favorite Latin American animals. It's a genius idea for this age group and I can't wait to try it especially because my second graders are getting ready to start a unit on where animals live. This will be a perfect way to grab their interest.

I'll start the unit with my new Animal Habitat Posters with sentence frames. I plan on projecting on the board to introduce the new vocabulary. Then I'll put them up on a bulletin board and print them for students to use in a writing center. Get your set here!

Once I've introduced the habitats and where animals live, we will start with the bracket. As I started to decide which animals I should use and looking for authentic resources for class I came across the Madrid Zoo's page on their different animals. They are absolutely perfect for my novice mid learners.

There are beautiful photos and icons for type of animal, what they eat, habitat (YAY!) and what continent they live on. There's also a section for their status in terms of conservation. Lots of accessible language that we can talk about in class.

I picked 8 animals that had easy enough names and lived in the right habitats and came up with my own Marzo Manía bracket. I made 8.5x11 posters for each animal and then a sheet with the bracket that I will either project and/or hand out to students to keep track of which of our animals is winning.

Get a FREE copy of the posters and bracket sheet HERE!

Do you do March Madness with animals, music, or something else in your classroom? Share in the comments below or on Twitter using the hashtag #earlylang!