Years ago I used to do a doctor roleplay with my third graders and it was super fun. But then our district gave us a unit framework and that vocabulary was moved down to kindergarten and I just couldn't make it work in the same way. So I was super excited to have the freedom to do kind of whatever I wanted with my sixth graders this past year. The doctor roleplay was back! And it got an upgrade because I saw my students every day!
Side note - Every student at my school takes a quarter each of Spanish, French, and Chinese the first three quarters and then fourth quarter they choose which one they want to continue on with through the rest of middle school.
In the first quarter I had them we learned basics like greetings, introductions, birthdays, where we lived, feelings, and numbers. More on that later because I also really like that unit! We started with a review since I hadn't seen some of them in months. But also because we would be using most of it in our roleplay later.
First up we learned body parts and we learned the alphabet so that we could spell our names.
We learned how to use the verb doler and practiced with a card game called Hola Doctor. I love to use this game with all kinds of vocab but in this case I had a ton of Me duele + body part cards and 1 or 2 Hola doctor cards. The students pass out all the cards and hold them face down (like in War.) They take turns asking ¿Qué te duele? The other player flips over their top card, read what hurts, and places it in the middle. They continue to ask and answer until someone flips over the Hola doctor card. When the doctor card is flipped the other player has to take ALL the cards in the middle pile. The person who gets rid of all their cards first is the winner.
I also used the same cards to play Quiz Quiz Trade. Students found a partner and asked them ¿Qué te duele? and then answered what was on their card. Then they switched. I walked around and encouraged them to act out what hurts and/or point to that body part. Needless to say I have several Oscar nominees amongst my sixth graders.
After we learned the Sana, sana colita de rana rhyme I added in the Hola doctor card into the Quiz Quiz Trade. If your partner had that card they would recite the rhyme over your hurt body part before they traded cards. That also was pretty hilarious. The Canticos song below was also a huge hit.
We also watched Mi Burro Enfermo Está and practiced different vocabulary for remedies. Again we played Quiz Quiz Trade.
Students then filled out a doctor visit dialogue and practiced in lines. One line stayed still while one shifted every time I rang the bell so they got to practice with multipe people. When I felt that they were ready we finally got out the doctor toys and took turns being sick, checking people in, and of course being doctors!
Students had to check in at the front of the room with a receptionist. Then they sat in the middle rows until a doctor was free. Our doctors sat in the back row and assessed the patients. When students were done they went back for a second, third, and sometimes a fourth opinion.
To make it work I waited until I knew the majority of students could handle the language they needed to do the roleplay. They also got to keep their notebooks on them and refer to them as needed. I also reminded them that if they were not speaking Spanish they would have to sit out. We never played more than 10 minutes or so because I didn't want them to get bored or slip into English. And it worked! We played over the course of a week so everyone had a turn to do each role and on my end of the year surveys most kids wrote they wished we had played more. Classroom management tip - always leave them wanting more!
Grab the worksheets and flashcards I used in this unit in my TPT store by clicking the picture below!
My fourth graders recently finished a unit on shopping and it was super fun! I haven't done this unit in several years because I seem to run out of time and I've focused on other things (mainly things I knew would be on the district benchmark assessment) but we revamped our district K-5 curriculum this fall and I brought this unit back with a bang!
Be sure to read to the end for a FREE RESOURCE!
I started by introducing different currencies by posting a link to a Thinglink. Students clicked on the arrows to see images of the difference money. I also included a link to this currency conversion site so that students could play around with different numbers.
I also added money visuals to my wall map. Students of all grades loved looking at what $5 around the world looked like.
My fourth grade students have already been using numbers during our calendar & weather time to talk about the date and the day's temperature but we practiced some more with a guessing game. This simple game was seriously one of their favorite things to play and it got super noisy!
Then we watched an Edpuzzle video and answered some questions about the different prices that we heard.
They also read real school supply lists from different Spanish speaking countries and put the items they needed into their shopping carts that I created on jamboard. Later they took turns telling a partner what they needed and the partner put those items in their cart.
We also started class with a warm-up where they looked at shopping ads and practiced asking ¿Cuánto cuesta? and answering with the price.
This was also a great way to review some of their math standards like rounding.
They worked again with a partner to create prices for different items in their own shops - practicing ¿Cuánto cuesta? and numbers again. Then I had them walk around and ask each other how much different items cost. Whoever had the best (ie. lowest) price won a point. This turned out to be hilarious because I hadn't told them we were going to play this game so some of them had absolutely outrageous prices.
We didn't have time to do a full on shopping roleplay game but for their interactive notebooks, they made these cute shopping bags. On the outside they wrote a shopping list and on the inside they drew the items and wrote the prices. Overall, it was a high interest and high engagement unit.
What do you include in your shopping units? Share in the comments below!
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.
This past spring was a surprise and we as teachers did our best to pivot quickly to distance learning. It wasn't pretty and at my school we had some participation in Specials to start which quickly fell off a cliff. Partly because families were overwhelmed and partly because we were not well-organized (which made it more overwhelming!)
We are starting back this school year virtually and we don't know when we'll be back in the classroom. The way our schedule is currently set up we will only be doing asynchronous pre-recorded lessons. The students have 30 minutes of Specials in their daily schedule. It's not ideal but there are some schools where they aren't having Specials at all so I'm happy with what we've got.
That being said, however, I don't want to see the same levels of participation so our team decided that we should house our Special Area lessons all in one place. This way students only have to check one place to see what are they supposed to be working on that day.
School doesn't start for another week and a half so this is all still in process so I'll keep you updated on how it all works out as we add more and the students get in there and start working. And if you're not an elementary teacher then I recommend THIS VIDEO for how to organize your classwork. I'd also love to what your schedule is going to look like this year and how you plan on organizing and posting work for students! Share in the comments below!
Our animal for Chapter Two is el mono with an emphasis on the verbs comer (eat) and saltar (jump). This year I have been experimenting with more TPRSish storytelling techniques. I´ve used 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed before but this year I wanted to make sure that the students were not just learning that monkey is mono but also learning some high frequency phrases.
I started with this basic video that focuses on the structure There is _____. Some kids got frustrated at how slow it went but I knew it was working when a fifth grade boy told me in the car rider line one afternoon, Hay un mono. ¿Dónde? I asked him. Then he pointed to himself and said it again.
After watching this video I showed them another video - this time with real monkeys. With this video I turn off the sound and together we describe what we see. Hay un mono. Hay dos monos. El mono come. El mono salta. One student told me, "Estoy triste" when the monkey steals and eats a bird egg. The students generally react with excitement when watching the real animals. I've used similar videos when talking about other animals. (One thing I will do better next time is make sure that the students know these monkeys live in Costa Rica. We can find it on the map and ask if Hay monos en Kentucky? for a quick comparison.)
In the next class I told them the story of the Cinco Monitos using the storytelling props from Kizclub.com. I start out by pulling out one monkey and questioning students about how many monkeys there are. At some point I tell them NO, no hay un mono. Hay dos monos and I pull out the second monkey. Then repeat until I surprise them with the third. And so forth up to five. Some classes get smart and will say the next number before I can while other classes wait for me to spring it on them. Below is how I ask the questions during the story. I have
the two sentences. Hay ___ monos, Los monos saltan en la cama, and No más monos saltando en la cama up on
the board so students can easily answer my questions. I ask them to answer chorally and also individually, mixing it up so they have to pay attention.
¿Cuántos monos hay? Hay cinco monos. ¿Hay 2 monos? No no hay 2 monos. Hay cinco monos. Los
monos saltan. Los monos saltan en la cama. ¿Los monos bailan el
flamenco? No, los monos saltan en la cama. ¿Los monos comen las bananas?
No, los monos saltan en la cama.
Mamá mono llama al doctor. El doctor dice, "¡No más monos saltando en la cama!"
¿Hay cinco monos? No, no hay cinco monos. Hay cuatro monos. ¿Cuántos monos hay? etc. etc.
Even my fifth graders are enjoying listening to this story. I've had several classes groan when I said it was time to go. They especially like to yell the answers when I say the wrong thing. There's something about correcting the teacher that gets them no matter what age they are.
High frequency phrases to focus on:
Hay ____.
El doctor dice _____.
No más ______.
After finishing the story we watched the video and sing along. The way I tell the story doesn't match the song exactly but it´s close enough that the students understand and can sing along to almost all of it. If you have a rowdy class that needs to get some energy out, I highly recommend jumping around to 5 Monitos. It works wonders
So that's what we've been doing in Spanish class! What have you been up to? How do you teach high frequency phrases? Do you use storytelling or TPRS? I'd love to compare notes. Share in the comments below or on Twitter using the hashtag #earlylang
I started out the school year with a story in 2nd grade this year - Caperucita Roja - to review the structures we learned last year using the Calico Spanish curriculum. While I love Calico, I added this before we jumped back in since students tend to forget so much over the summer. Caperucita Roja has so many opportunities to practice basic structures in the language and the kids love it because it´s familiar.
Target Structures (Things they've seen before are bolded):
¿Cómo te llamas? Me llamo ______. ¿Cómo estás? Tengo hambre. Estoy triste. Tengo miedo. Estoy enferma.
Mi abuela está enferma. ¿Por qué?
Necesito ir (a la casa de mi abuela). Necesitas venir aquí. Necesitas abrir la puerta. ¡Yo veo (body part) grande!
Necesito mirar/escuchar/comer.
Gracias/De nada. I told the story first using props from www.kizclub.com. I never tell the students what story they are listening to is one they already know in English because it's so much fun to listen to them as they figure it out. Before we start we repeat the expectations - Necesito mirar. Necesito escuchar. Necesito participar. Students participate by repeating the target structures with me as I tell them the story.
After hearing the story in one or two classes, I showed them a powerpoint with the same target structures. While I had individual students come up and act out certain parts, everyone read together (so that we ALL got practice.) My actors held their masks and had to look sad, sick, hungry, and ferocious. :-D At the end we discussed who were the characters, what was the problem in the story, and what was the solution. I let students answer in English (unless they were heritage speakers and then I insisted on Spanish) but we read the answer together in Spanish.
After doing the readers' theater version twice, I handed out envelopes with introductions to each characters. Students had to work together with a partner to match the introductions to the right character. Our staff recently went through Kagan training so we are all trying to use Kagan structures. I told the kids to work together and match them up AND THEN read them to each other using Rally Robin. But my second class didn't quite understand and instead one student would read a sentence and the other student had to find the picture and match it and then they switched - making it more like Rally Coach and a much better way to ensure everyone was engaged, reading AND listening. Don't you love it when students think of a better way to do something? Once they finished they got a worksheet with Sr. Lobo that they had to label the body parts.
We had to move on quickly to make sure we had enough time to get our Journey North butterflies ready in time but our summative assessment for this unit will be a reading & matching exercise similar to the activity they already did. Here's a great video (and authentic resource!) to use too. I have my novices listen for key words and it works great for differentiating for my heritage speakers.
Do you teach any fairy tales? What resources do you use? Share in the comments below or on Twitter using the hashtag #earlylang!
Fellow Spanish teacher, Emily, here in Lexington recently emailed me with a great game for kindergarten.
I tried a new game this year and the kids have really loved it and we were able to speak in Spanish for the entire game. Thought I’d share. It’s so simple, but great.
Have students in a circle/desks/you could even do this in small groups once they get the hang of it.
Call on someone by asking ¿Cómo te llamas? They answer with Me llamo ___.
Whole class tell them Adios ____.
Cover them with a bandana or I used a Spanish flag.
Whole class asks ¿Dónde está? ¿Dónde está? Until student pulls the flag off and the class shouts ¡Hola ____!
I demonstrated with my stuffed animal and myself so they wouldn’t feel silly about covering their heads. It is so simple, but I’m telling you their belly laughs are precious and they were all speaking in Spanish and loving it.
I played it this week with my kindergarten classes and like Emily's students we had a great time.
Alas, summer is almost over. So my room is decorated. I've got lesson plans ready for the first week and my first day outfit is picked out. Now it's time to set some goals for the year.
1. Use the APL strategies I learned this summer in training. Specifically putting the kids "on the clock" as in I give specific time limits for every activity and then use a timer to make sure I stick to it. Other strategies like teaching the behaviors I want and reteaching students who need more practice to get it right. And status reports during group work. And, and, and....this is a great training if you ever get a chance to take it. I have a list of action items from the four day class posted next to my desk to remind me.
2. 90%+ is always a goal. I'm going to have the students keep me honest by challenging them to make me stay in Spanish. The class with the most class periods in 90+ Spanish will earn some sort of prize.
3. Hispanic Heritage Month we are doing a Family Night with flamenco dancing. I'm hoping to get a LOT more participation from the teachers since I will have very specific things to give them to do.
4. Send more stuff home - coloring sheets with links to the youtube videos we watch in class; optional homework; letters/certificates to communicate the good things that students do in class.
5. Do projects that personalize the learning for my students. We're going to write books for their classrooms in Spanish, make ¿Cómo estás hoy? posters, and write pen pals in Mexico. I also decided to not print out flags to decorate my room. Instead I'll have older students color them and then I'll hang them up.
School starts soon - less than two weeks now. I just finished a week's worth of APL training (a system of classroom management we will be implementing school-wide.) Here are the units we will be working on in the 2nd-5th grade (K-1 will be doing the Calico Spanish curriculum.) Not sure we'll make it through everything - I don't have a good track record of getting through things quickly. But that's because I want to make sure that my students can really do what I'm asking plus the inevitable field trips, assemblies, and other disruptions that almost always take place during Specials. But a change in the schedule for next year does mean that band and orchestra won't be pulled from my class any longer - WOOHOO!
Aug/Sep
Classroom rules & Procedures
Unit One - Hola (Greetings)
Sep/Oct
Unit Two - How are you?
Hispanic Heritage Month - Flamenco
Nov/Dec
Unit Three - Nice to meet you
Jan/Feb
Unit Four - Please, Thank you (& Numbers)
Mar/Apr
Unit Five - Hungry, Hungry Caterpillar (Food & days of week)
May
Review - restaurant simulation where students have to greet each other, get their name, seat them, order using please and thank you, and pay.
No posts lately due to grad school and end of the year craziness combined and then the school year ended and I've spent the last week and a half taking some time to breathe and visiting friends and family out of town.
But now I'm back and working from my couch with Despierta America on in the background as I plan out next year. As I'm planning I'm using several documents to guide me:
ACTFL Can Do Statements: Most of my I can statements are direct quotes of this document (although a few are changed a little to fit my needs.)
JCPS World Language Frameworks and Curriculum Maps: Jefferson County just released their newly revised curriculum. I liked the documents they had before but these are even better because they have maps specifically for elementary school. They even suggest which vocabulary to teach with each unit. I won't use it exactly the way they have it outlined but it's a great jumping off point.
I also recently discovered that my own district had an elementary curriculum that I was supposed to be using but that no one had given me. I'm referencing that as well although it will also be revised this summer. There's no link since I had to have a friend email me her copy of it.
As I get more into things I will post what I hope my year will look like and how I plan my units. Until then please share in the comments what documents and curriculum you use to guide your unit planning.
So I finally tried centers with my third graders and I'm getting ready to do it again with second grade. Check out my previous posts, part one and part two in this series to see what mistakes I made in the past and the particulars of each center. Now that I've done a full rotation with all of the third graders I have some thoughts and reflections for using centers again in the future.
Pros of centers:
If prepared well, the centers can offer a level of differentiation that you don't get in whole group instruction.
We can play games in a whole group but it requires me to make more cards and have more dice and just more of everything. But in small groups it is easier prep for me game-wise and the students get more turns and chances to speak.
Because every student was actively engaged, just walking around and listening in could give me an idea of where each student was at in terms of learning the new vocabulary.
Cons of centers:
I would have liked to have modeled each activity in Spanish but since I
have so little time I resorted to English to give them the instructions.
This means I was under my 90% target but the students were speaking
more Spanish so that was the trade-off. This is a con but I think it's a worthy trade-off
at this point.
I need to figure out a system to make sure that MY expectations are the ones being observed in groups where the classroom teachers has a looser style.
It's a lot of prep beforehand because you're essentially preparing multiple activities for one class. The good news is that once you're ready you're good for several classes.
Things I will try to remember to do next time:
Make sure I have different levels at each activity so students can pick which level they need.
Add some sort of accountability sheet for at least one station so I can get a better idea of where each student is and that they are participating like they should.
Try to model in Spanish so I can keep to my 90% target language goal. If I do similar games with different vocabulary this should be possible the next time.
So what have been your experiences with centers/stations/carousel? Please share in the comments below. I love suggestions!
So after a disastrous first try at centers, I finally tried them again this year with my third graders during our Familia unit. We had three different centers each with a different game that had them practicing the new vocabulary. Everyone got one rotation at each center.
Center #1 Languages Online - I love this website and use it to play games, for worksheets, and it's posted on our school website so students can find and access it outside of Spanish class. Students got on their classroom computers and laptops to play the games. Since they love computer games, this was easily their favorite center. The only downside was getting them to the site, although I think if we did this more often they would find it faster and maybe even start getting on it during inside recess and at home.
Center #2 Dice Game - Students had big dice and a list of questions about how many brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins they had. There were also flashback questions that asked "How old are you?" and "What's your name?" Having the vocabulary available, either up on the SMARTboard or in the center box, was crucial for this center. Some students did this one with no problems at all and wanted more questions, and other students really struggled with the questions. I spent most of my time at this center, helping the kids who were struggling. If I do this one again, I will make different question sheets for different levels so kids can self-differentiate. Center #3 Matching Game - Students had cards with pictures of different families and other cards that had descriptions of those families. They first matched up the cards working in pairs, then flipped them over and played Memory. This was another center where some students struggled to make the matches (although I pointed out that they could look at the SMARTboard to help them) and others flew threw it and wanted more of a challenge. I solved the latter problem by having them combine different sets so that they had more cards to figure out.
So there's the particulars of each center. In the next post, I'll wrap up with my reflections on what worked and what I need to do differently and how I just might have changed my mind when it comes to centers in Spanish class.
So the first time I tried centers it was a DISASTER. I'm not being melodramatic here; it literally was the worst class I have ever taught. The students ran around the room like crazy people. They tore up one activity so that I couldn't have used it again even if I had wanted to. It was bad, very, very bad. I cried in the bathroom after it was over and swore I would never do centers again.
But upon further consideration I realized I had made a few mistakes...
Mistake #1 - And this was my biggest - I tried centers with one of my toughest classes to control. I barely made it through a regular lesson without issues so this was not the group to experiment on.
Mistake #2 - They weren't comfortable enough with the language they needed to be set free on their own. The SMART board was down that day as well so there was nothing up for them to reference to HELP them use the language on their own.
Mistake #3 - I didn't explain my expectations clearly enough. This particular class when they were confused on what to do would just goof off instead.
So it was very hesitantly that I decided I might try again this year with a new group. Because of mistake #2 I did push it back one week than I originally planned because I wanted the students to be comfortable with the language and I still have some things I would change but overall it went MUCH better this time around.
I had three game centers on Mi Familia that had students speaking, reading, and playing on the computer. It took 2-3 classes for everyone to get one rotation at each center while I walked around and made sure everyone was on track. This time I explained and modeled each game as well as left written instructions in each box. I also explained what the signal to change would be and how they should switch. And then I took their feedback at the end to see what they thought worked and what didn't. I got surprisingly good and honest feedback.
I had two classes that went perfectly, one where they got a bit loud and one where they had trouble following directions and staying on task (but that's pretty normal for both of those classes.)
In my next post I will outline each center in detail, what I would keep and what I would change.
I recently read a post from blogger LoveTeach about how to spice up your teaching with zero effort. Her suggestion to teach with a fake British accent reminded me just how often I use funny voices in my classes. You just can't underestimate the power of the funny voices.
My funny voices started in Japan. I wanted my students to practice questions and answers in English. Since I spoke little to no Japanese I had to act out what I wanted them to do. They also happened to sit boy/girl/boy/girl there so when I acted out the students having the conversation with the person next to them one naturally had a very deep voice and the other a very high voice. One day I acted it out without the voices and I got a very upset little 3rd grader who said, "sensei, sensei blah blah blah" which I translated as "Teacher, where are the silly voices?"
I use the same strategy in my Spanish classes when I want the kids to practice questions and answers during our Enseña period. And since we´ve started doing descriptions in 4th and 5th grade they have become invaluable when learning that gender agreement in our ajectives - Yo soy delgada said in a high pitched voice versus Yo soy delgado said in a deep voice. Do the students think I´m crazy? Yes. Are they having fun? Yes. Are they learning the difference between femenine and masculine adjectives? Yes.
Funny voices are also great for anything that require repetition. So when I'm introducing new vocabulary we say it quiet, loud, high-pitched, low-pitched, angry, sad, like robots etc. Let the students give you ideas. This past week in my after school enrichment program we sang Cabeza, Brazos, Piernas, Pies (or Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes) many many different ways, my favorite being as old men with canes and Tyrannosaurus Rexes, both student suggestions. As dinosaurs we roared after each verse and as old men we groaned when we couldn't reach our toes. I was almost in tears from laughing by the end.
Do you use funny voices in your classes? How and when? Share in the comments below!
.png)
