Me & My Community - Student Maps

 In my last post I talked about how I revamped my city unit and the results were fantastic. Not that my students haven't created awesome maps in the past but this time they did it with sustainability in mind AND they were able to write thoughtful and detailed descriptions of the neighborhoods they had designed. Here are some of my favorites...

This one not only is very nicely drawn, it has amazing and clever details. My favorite is of course the temple to Juan our class mascot. 

Me & My Community - Teaching Places in the City

The city unit has always been one of my favorite units to teach. See my posts here about using beebots and coding as a way to teach third graders how to give directions. However, in middle school I have had adapt how and what I teach for this unit. 

Some considerations:

This unit falls in 8th grade and programming beebots is a little babyish for them. They would still probably like it and I think I will add it back if I can, BUT the emphasis cannot be on giving directions. I will save that for the travel unit where it makes more sense AND we can spiral back to places in the city vocabulary.

I teach in an IB school which means I need incorporate certain things. For this unit we focus on sustainability and connections. They did background reading in English about the UN's Sustainability Goal 11 and then learned key terms in Spanish such as espacios verdes, uso mixto, transporte público, el reciclaje, paneles solares, sostenible, etc. 

There are multiple parts to their summative assessment - first they listen to a conversation about where someone lives and answer questions - interpretive listening. Then they write a description of their own neighborhood - presentational writing, and finally they work with a partner to plan a sustainable community  - interpersonal speaking - also with a written description - more presentational writing (although next year I think I will make this a recorded speaking assessment because they struggled with this kind of task on the STAMP test.) 

Unit focus:

sustainability

places in the city

the verb to go

frequency words

Review of Tiene, Hay, and Es

description words     

What we did in class:

We started out with this Basho and Friends video and students filled in a picture dictionary. They also took notes on the verb IR and we used this song from Real Language Right Away to reinforce the structure "Voy a..."

We played ¿A dónde va Juan? This game is one of my favorite ways to practice vocabulary. I picked a place in the city where Juan (our class mascot) was going and students had to guess using a complete sentence. This was also a way to practice the sentence frame "va a..." Later they played with a partner. You can also mix it up and guess where I'm going, where we're going, etc. to get in different verb forms. We also played scattergories where we spun a wheel and students had to list places in town that started with that letter. 

Students completed two different class surveys. One was a find someone who page where they asked if classmates went to different places. In the next one they picked one place and asked classmates if they went there and how often.    

 

La Casa Craftivity - Practicing Rooms & Furniture

 It's nearing the end of the year when kids are in out due to field trips, field day, and make-up testing and I need something that is fun and crafty and doesn't require a Chromebook (because they're sick of being on them and also because they'll be collected soon.) My 7th graders are making alebrijes that go nicely as an end to our pet unit (click here for that post) and 8th graders are making these cool house foldables. 

Students color, cut, and then glue their furtniture into their rooms. Then they label the items. Finally, they will write a description of the room on the floor

. I anticipate that some students will only have time and/or interest to make one room which is totally fine with me. Not everyone loves crafty things. These students will pivot to a reading assignment from Español con Randy. 

Here is the video I used to learn how to make the foldable itself.

And here are links to the furniture. 

Furniture Set 1

Furniture Set 2 - Scroll down to the individual furnture -  I also recommend printing at 80% rather than 100 so that the furniture fits in the house foldable.

What kinds of activities do you do to finish the school year? Share in the comments below! And check back later for pics of student work!

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Spanish Class Mascot - Engaging Students & Creating Classroom Community

I attended a session on Creating Class Lore at the beginning of the year and it was just what I needed for my too cool for school 8th graders. 

Getting started - First up, we co-created a character in class. I gave them the choice of a capybara or a llama because those were two animals from the target culture that I had stuffies for. Then we named it, decided how old it was, and what it liked to eat and what sports it played. Somehow both classes picked a capybara and named it Juan so Juan became the 8th grade mascot. 

The second day I pulled out my stuffed capybara and held it during class. The kids got excited and several asked if they could pet Juan. I told students that Juan was sad because he was lonely. He didn't have any friends or family. Then I handed out cardstock with black and white capybaras and told them to decorate them however they wanted and then name and describe their capybara. This took two class periods. 

Exploratory Spanish - What to teach for 9 weeks

 At my school all our sixth graders take exploratory language classes for a quarter. One quarter of Spanish, one quarter of French, and one quarter of Chinese. Then they choose their language to continue with the rest of middle school. This is our opportunity to showcase our classes and what they should expect if they continue on with us. It's also a great time to emphasize the basics so we can hit the ground running when they come back to me. 

So what do I do? 

I do a unit I call My Passport to the World. Students learn how to answer basic questions about themselves, calendar time, the Spanish-speaking countries, colors, numbers, and if there's time clothing. All in 9 weeks! At the end we do a passport control role-play and they take a virtual field trip to a Spanish speaking country. 

Here's the breakdown - click the links for the videos that I use!

Week 1 - expectations, Sí se puede bubbles & proficiency levels, ¿Cómo estás?, and calendar time - months, numbers, days of the week, and weather. 

Week 2 - ¿Cómo estás?, calendar time, ¿Cómo te llamas?, Greetings - Buenos días, Buenas tardes, & Buenas noches, Hasta mañana, Hasta luego

Week 3 - All of the above + Spanish speaking countries, ¿De dónde eres tú?, & ¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños?

Week 4 - All of the above + colors, Spanish speaking country flags, & ¿Cuántos años tienes?

Week 5 - All of the above + clothing in calendar time, passports & their function, ¿Dónde vives tú?

Week 6 - All of the above + students create their own passports and research countries that have the strongest and weakest passports. 

Week 7 - All of the above + Clothing for different weather, packing lists, ¿Qué necesito?

Week 8 - Passport role play and virtual field trip - students "pack" a paper suitcase that they've drawn their clothing on, "fly" in a paper airplane that they make to their country of choice, "arrive" and go through immigration with me, showing their passport and answering all of our questions, and then "visit" with a virtual field trip. 

Week 9 - It never works out to be exactly 9 week so most of the time by this point we are catching up, playing review games this week. 

Making it work

The trick is to create routines and then each week add on, building their vocabulary while always reinforcing what they have already learned. 

I start with the calendar routine - I have songs for months of the year, numbers, days of the week and the weather. We practice greetings and ¿Cómo estás? by repeating after me and then practicing with our shoulder and face partners, then doing Kagan structures like Hand Up Pair up, and Mix Pair Share. At some point in the week we do listening practice with a video, and we fill in a page of our Spanish notebooks (a stapled packet of all our worksheets for the quarter.)

I repeat that formula for each week. We start class by practicing all the questions we know how to answer. We do a new song for the latest question, Kagan structures and games to practice, listening practice, and a page or two in our notebooks. 

Additional Notes

Students get really good at answering the questions and introducing themselves. Some of them get really good at knowing the countries but it's not something I test them on because labeling a map is not considered an authentic assessment for Spanish class. The same goes for colors. 

 

I usually do 3 formal assessments in the 9 weeks - a calendar and greetings quiz in week 4. It's multiple choice and on paper. And then two speaking tests - one just me walking around asking questions while they work independently and then our passport roleplay. Unless a student has goofed off all quarter or has a ton of absences, everyone gets an A or a B for the quarter. They also get a feel for my class and when it comes to the first unit in 7th grade we can hit the ground running because they already know how to introduce and talk about themselves. 

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