8 Ideas for Spanish Club

Last year I started cultural explorations of a specific country spread out over 6-8 club meetings. We learned about Spain in the fall and Mexico in the Spring. This year we'll study Peru in the fall and probably Panama in the Spring. The nice thing about this format is that I can keep it basically the same and just plug in specific country activities. Read on to see what kinds of activities I include in each semester.

1. Paint a flag - elementary kids love painting and yes it's messy but they're actually pretty good about cleaning up after. I just use butcher paper and tempura paint and if the flag has a seal then I print it out as big as I can get it on a piece of paper and we glue it on. You could also make this an individual activity with smaller flags but I like the teamwork aspect. Since it's the first thing we do it helps the club members get to know each other.

Don't forget to eat a flag snack! Toothpicks and fruit and marshmallows in the color of your flag!

2. Learn a dance - for Mexico we learned el jarabe tapatio or the Mexican hat dance. For Spain we did el flamenco. There are TONS of videos youtube showing the steps or easy enough dances to copy. I just googled "name of the dance + for kids."

For Peru we will learn an easy version of the La Marinera. I actually attended a session on La Marinera at ACTFL 2 years ago and I'm excited to finally try it out. Here is the video we will use.


We practice our dance at the end of each meeting when the kiddos are starting to get a little crazy. Sometimes we just have 5 minutes left and sometimes 15 but either way it's a good way to wrap up Spanish Club.
3. Make some art - For Mexico we made Frida Kahlo self portraits complete with construction paper cejas glued on. For Spain we made Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali self portraits. For Peru we will make construction paper arpilleras - maybe one depicting our city and our school! We are also going to make our own Nazca Lines. 

This is where Pinterest will be your best friend. It's kind of funny but I now get a lot of art teacher pins in my feed but if you search for "country + crafts for kids" or "country + activities for kids" you should get tons of ideas. And I think even high schoolers would like some of them!
4. Go sightseeing - I didn't do this last year but I used to do "sightseeing" club meetings where I would project different landmarks on SMARTboards around the school and the kids would take their pictures in front of them. It was hilarious and fun. This year I plan on doing it using a green screen. We will learn about Machu Picchu and then have our picture taken as if we were there. Later I'll print the pictures and the kids will get a souvenir of their "trip." Here are some tips to get you started!
5. Learn a few words of another language - most kids no matter their age don't realize that there is more than just Spanish spoken in many Spanish speaking countries. This is another thing I'm adding this year after spending a week in Mexico this summer and learning a few words in Maya. This video is a cute way for my students to learn a few words in Quechua. 

6. Do some math - This one kind of falls under learn a few words of an indigenous language. I wish I would have done this when we studied Mexico but it would have been cool to play with numbers using the Maya writing system. For Peru I'm thinking we might make our own quipus. Learn more here. 

7. Make some food - This one is a no brainer. I used to actually do nothing but cooking. It was like a cooking club but with Spanish flair. Not surprisingly that got expensive and stressful so now I just do one a semester. For Mexico we made pico de gallo - super easy for elementary kiddos. For Spain we made gazpacho. Not sure about Peru yet. I need to check with my Peruvian friends to see what they suggest. (If you have ideas for something easy please comment below!) 

I had a Donors Choose project that was just for cooking supplies!

8. Invite a guest speaker - this is also something I haven't made happen yet but I really really want to. If you have someone that is from the country you are teaching about see if they can visit your Spanish Club for the afternoon or do a skype call. Have students brainstorm and practice questions they want to ask before the visit. And later you can have them make thank you cards! 

Other things to consider - what are your club rules? How and when can a student be asked to leave your club? Do you need a permission slip? What are your school's policies regarding after school clubs? How often and where will you meet? Will your school reimburse you for supplies? Will members be expected to pay dues? Will you have officers? A secret handshake? You get the idea. Make sure you have thought through all that and include it in your sign up form.

Of course it depends on what level you teach to. At the elementary level I limit mine to 3rd-5th graders and a max of 20 kids. Everyone must have a permission slip with parent contact information on it and all of our clubs have a three strike policy in regards to behavior and late pick ups. 

So that will be Spanish Club this year for me. What are your favorite Spanish Club activities? Share in the comments below!

I make my forms in Canva -  it's easy!

Calendar Notebooks for Spanish Class

Earlier this year I wrote about how I set up and do calendar time in my elementary Spanish classes. You can read Part One here and Part Two here. I also mentioned that I was trying something new with having calendar notebooks. It was an idea I found on either Pinterest or Instagram from a second grade teacher who did it daily for calendar math.

I implemented them in the last two months of school and they were a such BIG hit in first and second grade that I think I might expand to other grades.

What you need:

Three ring binders - enough for each student plus a couple extra
Sheet protectors
Dry erase markers - I sent a quick email to the other teachers at my school and the general consensus was the smaller ones are better for this kind of thing.
Calendar pages - get your copy here.
Other pages with song lyrics or writing pages with things you want practiced regularly

I quickly made this title page with my bitmoji and google slides

How I used them:

Firstly, I was lucky to have a student teacher around the time I was implementing these so I was able to assemble them while she did her solo week. I have two different versions of the Mi Calendario pages - one for first grade and one for second grade. I printed them on different colored paper so that students could easily find which page they should be on. I also included the song lyrics to most of the songs & chants we sing on a regular basis or that I want to introduce. Just having the words in front of them is good for literacy and it's wonderful for visual learners like me!

First grade calendar page

I keep my binders in six different tubs under my SMART board so I can quickly pass them out. In the tubs are the binders and socks for erasing when they're done. I used to keep the markers in there too but my kiddos were having a hard time putting the caps on and I had a lot of dried out markers. So now I keep them in a cup on my desk and quickly pass them out.


The students LOVED filling out the pages. I filled one out as an example and walked around to make sure everyone was on task and getting the right answers. The first grade page is simpler and just includes days of the week, weather, and clothing. The second grade page has the day, month, date, season, weather and temperature. On the back side was clothing and they even had their own bear to dress!

Second grade calendar page

They do take some time - about 10 minutes, which in a 25 minute class is an eternity. If you have a longer class however these are a perfect way to start the lesson. They were also great for those random classes at the end of the year where one group is off schedule because of field trips, assemblies, parties etc. If one class was way ahead I could pull these out for a fun review. When they're done they simply wipe off their answers and put their binder back in the box!

One thing I realized while doing them was that I hadn't included enough clothing - specifically warm weather clothing so I had to update those pages and will make new copies before the start of the year. I was also tasked with making sandals, a water bottle, and hot chocolate for our class weather bear - this after I'd already made pajamas, slippers, a hoodie, and sweater. 2nd graders can be very demanding!

So those are my calendar notebooks. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions! How do you do calendar in your class? Share in the comments below.

Hispanic Heritage Month - Resources & Ideas for Spanish Class

So every year I am frustrated with myself because I haven't done enough for Hispanic Heritage Month. The only year I did something big was the year we did flamenco. Read about that here. But that was because I had gone to a Arts Integration Academy over the summer and planned it then.

And then it hit me - duh! I planned it over the summer. If I want to have a meaningful celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, I need to plan it NOW.

So here are my plans...

- Highlight a Hispanic American leader on the morning news show (in English) each day for a week. Create a bulletin board for students to read about each person. If you prefer clip art and/or a short biography in Spanish then I suggest the calendar set from Fun For Spanish Teachers. I plan on using her posters alongside one I created that have photos of notable Hispanics.

         
                Famous Hispanics Calendar Set from Fun For Spanish Teachers
                Notable Hispanics Biography Research Project & Bulletin Board Posters by Señora Speedy

- Have older students color this collaborative mural to hang in our front hallway.

               Hispanic Heritage Famous Faces Collaborative Mural from Art with Jenny K

- Make a list of books for the librarian to read to younger kids. Talk to her about having the older students do a research project on a famous Hispanic leader using these infographics that I created. Get your copy here.

              Notable Hispanics Biography Research Project & Bulletin Board Posters by Señora Speedy 
              Famous Hispanic Americans Coloring Pages FREE
              Hispanic Heritage Month Coloring Pages & Quotes from Classroom Doodle FREE
             

- Ask my principal if we can get The Salsa Center to do a dance workshop for kids during specials one day. We did this a couple of years ago and the kids STILL talk about it. They taught them merengue, mambo, and some salsa steps.

-We also do a school wide movement break on Wellness Wednesdays so I'm also thinking                      salsa or merengue music for that time.

- Sneak some reading passages (in English) about famous Hispanic leaders into my morning reading group. Every special area teacher at my school has to do a reading and a math group during the day. Normally I do what the third grade teachers ask me to do but I'm sure they would be happy to not plan for me one week (or two!)

                 Hispanic Heritage Month Nonfiction Reading Passages

- Take the people we highlighted and make a persona del mes to talk about during calendar/warm-up time FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR. Learning about famous Hispanic leaders doesn't have to end in October!

Fun for Spanish Teachers's awesome calendar set has informational posters and masks. AND each month has a person already on it so deciding who goes when is already DONE! I'm thinking I'll highlight someone new each month with a poster next to my calendar and a persona especial style interview but with the famous people so that the kids can get practice asking personal questions. I´ll use her posters and masks and my mini posters on my bulletin board throughout the year.

I know that's a lot but I'm an overplanner. The main thing for me will be the Persona Especial del mes, bulletin board display, and research project in Library class. What are your plans for Hispanic Heritage Month? Share in the comments below!

Places in the City - Resources for Spanish Class

My fourth graders are finishing up our Welcome to Our Community unit where we talk about places in the city and describing where we live. This unit is really supposed to be about community helpers and where they work but if you read my last post on spiraling you'll know that I'm having to modify parts of my curriculum. In order to get to Novice High in our Let's Explore our City unit in fifth grade, my kiddos need to learn places in the city at a Novice Mid level in fourth grade.

With that in mind I changed around what I did last year. Below are some activities and resources that my students and I particularly enjoyed.

1. I introduced the different places with pictures and describing Lexington. I started with size - students listed cities of different sizes. Then we talked about what Lexington is famous for (horses and UK basketball.) I have this landmark matching game I bought at the Dollar Tree that next year  I hope to use so we can go more global with talking about what cities are famous for but honestly we didn't have time this year.

Get your own posters here.

2. This video is great for introducing places in the city. I love it because it is authentic - it's made for native speakers (really young ones) and my kiddos get genuinely excited to try and guess in Spanish.






3. Google Tourbuilder is a great way to introduce students to different cities around the world and get in some comprehensible input. You can add pictures and text to different places on the map. I had students tour Santiago, Chile. They loved being able to explore the different places by moving around the street view. Check out my tour of Santiago here.

#highlightreal - I did this with fifth grade as well and then had them create a tour of Lexington. Major fail! We wasted two class periods and got very little done. They just weren't ready for that much output. I was asking for sentences when I should have been asking for just labels. If I try this again I will scaffold it better. 


4. I love following teachers on Instagram and Twitter - I get so many great ideas for class. Recently I saw an awesome activity from @MaestraPlata. She had students using spinners to create longer sentences.  I had my students using three spinners to write silly sentences about what they wanted to do, where, and with whom. My students LOVED this activity. Once they wrote several silly sentences, I had them write more serious ones. Get your spinners here!

5. And finally since I didn't get a chance to do Hour of Code this year I took part of this unit to practice not only places but a few direction words and had students code our Beebots around the city. I made large maps from butcher paper and clip art I found online and borrowed the robots from our STEM lab teacher. The kids had a paper that told them where they should start and where they wanted to go. They wrote the code and then tested to see if it was right.  This was another favorite of students.

I will probably make some adjustments next year but overall I'm happy with how my students progressed during this unit. Most could perform at a novice mid level. Next year in fifth grade I hope to continue to spiral places in the city with Berto y Sus Buenas Ideas. Stay tuned!

How do you teach places in the city? Share in the comments below!

Spiraling in the FLES Classroom

Last year my district implemented a new K-5 curriculum that included benchmark assessments for K, 2, and 5. I'm not a huge fan of standardized tests but the data from these benchmarks did give me some really valuable insights into my students' learning.

So what did I find out? Well, I realized that my kiddos could perform at a Novice Mid level during a unit and at the end of the unit but months later they could barely list a word. I know that spiraling is important and I thought I was doing it but it turns out that I wasn't super effective at it.

One of the things I noticed with my smaller students is that they have to hear things OVER and OVER and OVER before they get it. One of the areas my kindergartners struggled with last year was body parts. So starting on day 1 of class this year we got some wiggles out by singing Cabeza, brazos, piernas, pies.

At a session on the Brain and Learning at SCOLT from Greta Lundgaard, she told us that "Rote memorization can lead to superficial learning" and the "Rote memorization wears many disguises." One of those disguises is a song. My kinders could only name their body parts if they were in the same order of the song.

If you ever get a chance to see Greta present - GO! She always has great information. 

So I also made sure that we practiced body parts along with our rules. Piernas cruzadas, manos dobladas, bocas cerradas, ojos en la maestra - still rote memorization but in a different context and order. Later when we actually reached the body part unit, I told them the story of Caperucita Roja. We played Diego Dice where they had to touch the different body parts and they labeled a worksheet with a character from Caperucita Roja.

Get your Caperucita story and labeling worksheet here.

I did the same things with animals. Instead of waiting to introduce the animal names during the animal unit I had students say Hola and Adios to stuffed animals during that first unit where we practice greetings. Every few weeks I added an animal to the growing zoo on my desk. By the time we reached the animal unit my students already knew the names and it was much easier for them to add Me gusta/No me gusta and describe them.

For both topics, what started out as rote memorization in the initial practice phase was heard and applied in different ways in later units and it worked! My scores this year (if you take out the kiddos who showed up in the middle of the year) were 93% Meets this year. This is actually better than last year's scores when I saw my students more frequently!

I also have benchmark assessments in 2nd and 5th grade and seeing how well my kindergartners did this year I now need to figure out where I can spiral and reinforce vocabulary and language chunks so that they actually do remember them.

For example in third grade students are supposed to learn numbers 1-100 so I've introduced it in 2nd grade during calendar time for temperature. It's not something I spend a lot of time, emphasize or even informally assess but it should give them a jump start next year because it won't have been the first time they've seen the numbers.

And Greta is right. I can't teach as fast. I'm supposed to teach 4 units a year* but I think I'll be taking that down to 3 next year - especially in 3rd, 4th, and 5th. If I want my students to get to Novice High then we need to go deeper rather than broader.

It also means that we need to be singing ALL of our songs from previous years and bringing back content where it makes sense in later units or even introducing it earlier than I would have before so they can go deeper with it during the actual unit I'm supposed to teach the content.




So there you go - not only is spiraling SUPER important but also HOW you do it. How do you spiral content? How do you assess your students' performance? How do you analyze data from assessments? Share in the comments below!

And if you ever get a chance to see Greta present I say go! Here is a post from last year's SCOLT also inspired by a Greta Lundgaard session.


*This curriculum was designed for 90 minutes a week so it's no surprise I don't have time to teach all 4 units in a 6 day rotation. 

La Casa Centers- Ideas for Spanish Class

My third graders are in the middle of our Me and My Home unit, learning the rooms of the house. We started by looking at houses around the world and read The Three Little Pigs. But because I´m back in the Specials rotation this year we didn't have enough time to do the Tres Cerditos STEAM challenge - read more about that here.

Instead we moved onto to the inside of the house with rooms. I introduced the rooms of the house by telling the story of Cenicienta (Cinderella.) Cenicienta has to clean ALL the rooms of the house so it's great for lots of repetitions. This is also where I start introducing adjectives that they'll need next year - rich, intelligent, handsome, nice, mean, strong etc. It's not a focus but it helps that they've heard and seen them before when they get to fourth grade.

We also warmed up each class by playing ¿Dónde está abuela? where one person puts abuelita somewhere in the house and the other person guesses. I changed this up to different family members for a nice review of family vocabulary.

Then we moved onto centers.

Center 1 - Gapminder.com

I LOVE this center. Mostly because I love this website. It features houses from around the world. Students got a worksheet with different items in the house. They had to find the picture of the item and then write what room in the house it went in.

Get your free worksheet here!

Center 2 - Magnetic houses

I won these sets of magnetic houses three years ago at the NNELL breakfast at ACTFL. Students take turns asking each other ¿Dónde está? with the furniture and their partner answers with the room. The first time I tell them to make una casa normal. The second time they can make una casa loca with the bathtub in the living room for example.

I photocopied the back cover so if kids wanted to they could actually practice the furniture vocabulary as well as the rooms of the house. If they didn't then they just ignored the paper. Instant differentiation!

Center 3 - Reading center

Because we started with Los Tres Cerditos and Cenicienta I have students read our Tres Cerditos books and our Cenicienta Readers Theater in groups of 2-4. At the end of Cenicienta there was a survey that asks who in their family cleans the different rooms of the house.

Get your copy of Cenicienta here. 

Center 4 - Cut and paste

I put out these cute houses from Fun For Spanish Teachers. Students cut out and pasted the labels. When they were done I had a bucket of books in Spanish on houses that they could look at. Later they cut these out and put them in their notebooks.

This unit is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Students really love talking about their own homes and looking at homes around the world. What activities do you use to teach about the house? Share in the comments below!

Groceries Around the World - Food Unit for Spanish Class

I recently sat in a presentation by ACTFL Past President Jacque Van Houten on the Can Do Statements for Intercultural Competence. One of the things I really like about the new Can Do statements are the inclusion of the phrase "in my own and other cultures." It really facilitates students looking at their own culture - even realizing that they have a culture. It puts culture as global instead of "other."

I also went to a great session by Matt Coss at SCOLT on teaching authentic culture. One of my main take aways from this session was that instead of making blanket stereotypical statements like, "People eat tacos in Mexico" we should turn it into questions like "Do people in Mexico eat tacos?" From there you can ask more and more probing questions. "Where and when do people eat tacos?" "What do people put on tacos?" "Where can I find the best tacos?"

All of this great PD has been bouncing around in my brain and I'm starting to make adjustments to units I am already teaching. One of those is the my supermarket unit in kindergarten. Read that post here. It was one of my favorite units last year but there is definitely some room for improvement in terms of interculturality.

For this particular unit that means asking "Where do people buy food?"  Al restaurante, al mercado, y al supermercado. Like last year we'll make a list together of the places my students buy their food. Then we'll look at some places around the world. That fits perfectly with the Can Do statement of Investigate - In my own and other cultures I can identify where people buy food."*

We'll also read Peppa Va al Supermercado and make our lists like last year but it also means asking "What do people like to eat?" and "What food do people buy?" I made mercado, supermercado, and restaurante posters as well as ¿Qué te gusta comer? posters that include some photos from my local Mexican grocery Aguascalientes. You can get your free set here.

These are pictures I took at our local Mexican grocery store

But more than just showing WHERE people buy food, I want to show students WHAT foods people buy. This is where photographer Peter Menzel comes in with his awesome What the World Eats photos. His photo series is a treasure trove! You can click on different galleries by continent and then by country.

Each country has the groceries for a week image but then even more - where they bought the food, their kitchens, tables set for dinner, etc. I plan on showing these different images and we can compare and contrast where we buy our own food. This site is seriously amazing! You can also get his book What the World Eats on Amazon here.

I printed a few pictures and made a bulletin board. The white cards are our food vocabulary that students can look for in the photos. I've already seen and heard some very interested students in the hallway!

Like last year at the end of the unit, if there's time, we will play el mercado. Students will write their own grocery lists and go shopping for those items. This activity was one of their favorites last year. One kid told me he was, "so excited I can't sleep!" and it fits perfectly with the Interact Can Do, "I can act appropriately when  grocery shopping."* You can get worksheets, food cards, extension activities, and grocery role play activity set here. 

So those are my updates to my food unit. How do you teach food in your classroom? Have you used How the World Eats with your students? Share in the comments below!

*Both of these are pulled from the ACTFL Can Do statements and simplified for kindergarten.