Señora Speedy: Adios Monstruo - Teaching Body Parts in Elementary Spanish

A few years back my district wrote a K-5 World Language curriculum and benchmark assessments. It was great to have some direction and all the teachers were teaching the same things but it also meant that a lot of my favorite projects got the ax because they didn't fit in where they used to. One of those was my Adios Monstruo class book I used to do in second grade (read more about it here).

Technically, in kindergarten we don't learn about body parts and emotions until the third unit after winter break BUT I have found that if I wait until then to introduce body parts they will not know them well enough for our benchmark assessment in March. So instead I introduce our body parts song on the first day of school and body parts are included in our classroom expectations (piernas cruzadas, manos dobladas, bocas cerradas, y ojos en la maestra.)

This year more than usual I've been getting into the Halloween vibe (maybe it's this awesome October weather we've been having in Kentucky?) So I decided to hit body parts harder at the end of our first unit to make monstruos. It's also given us a chance to practice colors and school supplies (which is one of the focuses of unit one.)

Learning Intention - I am learning about myself and my classroom so that I can follow directions and participate fullly in class.

Success Criteria -

I can recognize and list different colors.

I can list school supplies I need in class.

I can list parts of my body.

I can listen and follow directions to create a monstruo.

To start we watched Adios Monstruo. I paused it to review each body part and we practiced Tengo miedo and No tengo miedo.

In the next class we did a spin and draw activity. This page is nice because you can make it an independent activity OR you can do it in whole group. Since kindergarten students aren't quite ready for independent work AND staying in the target language, we did it in whole group using the website WheelOfNames.com (here is a link to mine already made.) The kids had a lot of fun as we drew our monstruos.

In the final two classes we've been making monstruos de papel. I give them the black paper and a smaller green paper to get them started. Then they make the mouth, nose, ears, any arms or legs with scrap paper that I put in the middle of the table. I also used the Ellison die cut machine to make circles for eyes.

Pro Tip - I went around with a silver sharpie marker and wrote their names on the back since most of their names are still hard to read this time of year and because the black paper made it hard to see them.

In the last class, we use marker to add deatils and then we cut and paste our labels on. This is not your cutsie social media perfect project where they all come out the same, but each kid got to make it their own way and I absolutely love how they turned out!

Because we had been practicing body parts from the beginning of the year as well as colors and supplies I was able to stay 90% in the target language. I modeled for them how to cut and glue and then went around and narrated what they were doing in Spanish. While they're working is also a good time to ask them in Spanish about what colors are they using, what body part are they gluing down, etc.