Monday, November 30, 2015
Christmas Color by Subject Pronoun
I don't know about you, but I'm always scrambling for activities to keep my students busy during the holiday season. I focus on the skills we need to address but also try to provide some fun holiday themed activities that keep my students engaged. When I taught 6th grade, I used to give my students coloring worksheets all the time and they loved them. I thought that my high school students might be too old for them though. Boy was I wrong. When I gave my kids some fun Thanksgiving activities and allowed them to color, they were so excited! They specifically requested more coloring pages so of course I got right to work creating! I can't wait to give this activity to my students sometime this month. It's a great way to practice verb conjugations and you will get some cute colored owls to decorate your classroom! My store is currently on sale for 20% off. If you use the coupon code SMILE on November 30 or December 1 you will save an additional 10% on top of my sale which gives you 28% off!
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Yo Tengo, Quién Tiene
One of my biggest struggles with my students this year is vocabulary acquisition. I try to give lots of practice in a variety of ways but I feel like they struggle to make the connections necessary to internalize the vocabulary. I decided to try something new to help my students practice family member vocabulary in a way that would be meaningful. I created a set of "Yo Tengo, Quién Tiene" cards that encouraged my students to use the vocabulary repeatedly as well as think about the relationships between the family members. For example, one card might read "Quién tiene la madre de mi madre?" They would need to connect it to "Yo tengo la abuela." I thought this would help them make more connections with the terms in a fun way. It definitely worked! I got great feedback from the kids and they told me that studying this way was a lot more fun than a worksheet.
I decided to print several sets of the cards and have the students work in small groups. In my experience, kids have trouble with "I Have, Who Has" games when they are playing with a whole class because they don't stay focused and find it difficult to hear everyone's card. I encourage my students to connect their cards like dominoes until they get to the end.
This was a really successful approach. I really heard my students interacting with the vocabulary and I think that applying the relationships of the family members helped to internalize the words,
What are some of your favorite ways to practice vocabulary? I definitely plan to create more "Yo Tengo, Quién Tiene" games but am always looking for new ideas as well.
If you would like to use this game in your classroom, check it out at my TpT store.
I decided to print several sets of the cards and have the students work in small groups. In my experience, kids have trouble with "I Have, Who Has" games when they are playing with a whole class because they don't stay focused and find it difficult to hear everyone's card. I encourage my students to connect their cards like dominoes until they get to the end.
What are some of your favorite ways to practice vocabulary? I definitely plan to create more "Yo Tengo, Quién Tiene" games but am always looking for new ideas as well.
If you would like to use this game in your classroom, check it out at my TpT store.
Friday, November 20, 2015
High School, Task Cards, + A Freebie!
For the past 7 years, I have been an elementary/middle school teacher and have always taught core content areas (math, science, reading). Most recently I taught 6th grade math and science. It has been quite a change for me this year as I have moved to the high school and also started teaching Spanish. This move leads me to my dream job and I am so thrilled to be teaching foreign language at the high school level. I am responsible for Levels 1 and 2 and it has been a blast so far.
One of the things that has been a lot of fun for me so far has been incorporating some of the engagement strategies I used in elementary/middle school for my high school students. I wasn't sure how receptive they would be to some of my ideas but so far they seem to be enjoying them! One of my favorite ways to have students complete a lot of practice without a lot of whining is to use task cards. I am able to get students to collaboratively practice a skill for at least 30 minutes and achieve some awesome results. They are allowed to move around the room and work together which encourages them to speak more comfortably in Spanish with each other. Since they are traveling around the room, they aren't just stuck in their seats becoming bored with translating sentences. Here is a picture of my students working on these new task cards I created for comparisons of inequality.
Another hit with my students was this Chutes and Ladders Game I created to practice the conjugations of regular -ar, -er, and -ir verbs. I printed out 6 copies on card stock and laminated them so that I will have this game for years to come. To play this game I just cut little squares out of colored craft foam to serve as their game pieces. I gave each group 2 dice: 1 to determine the subject pronoun and the other for the number of spaces. 1 = yo, 2 = tu. 3= el/ella/ud, 4= nosotros, 5= vosotros, and 6=ellos/ellas/uds. They took turns rolling the dice and whichever space they landed on they needed to conjugate it to the corresponding subject pronoun. They seemed to really like this activity! We just used it for present tense but you definitely could use it for other verb tenses. Download this game for free from my store and let me know what you think!
Do you use task cards in your high school classroom (or middle or elementary)? What are some other activities or strategies you use to keep your students engaged and on task? Let me know in the comments below!
One of the things that has been a lot of fun for me so far has been incorporating some of the engagement strategies I used in elementary/middle school for my high school students. I wasn't sure how receptive they would be to some of my ideas but so far they seem to be enjoying them! One of my favorite ways to have students complete a lot of practice without a lot of whining is to use task cards. I am able to get students to collaboratively practice a skill for at least 30 minutes and achieve some awesome results. They are allowed to move around the room and work together which encourages them to speak more comfortably in Spanish with each other. Since they are traveling around the room, they aren't just stuck in their seats becoming bored with translating sentences. Here is a picture of my students working on these new task cards I created for comparisons of inequality.
Another hit with my students was this Chutes and Ladders Game I created to practice the conjugations of regular -ar, -er, and -ir verbs. I printed out 6 copies on card stock and laminated them so that I will have this game for years to come. To play this game I just cut little squares out of colored craft foam to serve as their game pieces. I gave each group 2 dice: 1 to determine the subject pronoun and the other for the number of spaces. 1 = yo, 2 = tu. 3= el/ella/ud, 4= nosotros, 5= vosotros, and 6=ellos/ellas/uds. They took turns rolling the dice and whichever space they landed on they needed to conjugate it to the corresponding subject pronoun. They seemed to really like this activity! We just used it for present tense but you definitely could use it for other verb tenses. Download this game for free from my store and let me know what you think!
Do you use task cards in your high school classroom (or middle or elementary)? What are some other activities or strategies you use to keep your students engaged and on task? Let me know in the comments below!
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
New Blog Contest!
Hola y bienvenidos! I am thrilled to be starting this blog and joining an awesome community of Spanish teachers. I am looking forward to sharing lesson plans and activities with you and gaining some new friends and ideas for myself as well. I love teaching my students Spanish because I get to listen to and speak Spanish all day long...what could be better than that!?!
One of my most popular activities is this Ser vs. Estar Maze which helps students practice choosing between Ser and Estar as well as with the correct conjugations. My students loved this activity and I think yours will as well.
In honor of my first blog post, I am holding a giveaway! The winner will be able to choose any product from my Teachers Pay Teachers store for FREE as well as a $5 TPT gift card to use anywhere on the site. This will be a Rafflecopter giveaway so the winner will be completely random!
I truly appreciate your support of my blog and look forward to connecting with you and working to become an awesome community of Spanish teachers!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
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