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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