We are spending the whole week celebrating Dr Seuss birthday! Even though he is not a South American traditional author, his influence in the American Schools made me take the time plan a special class to celebrate his birthday! I used two books, Un Pez, Dos Peces….and Huevos Verdes con jamon both for sale at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I used the first book and planned a fish class, we went fishing with a plastic fish game with water and a bucket, they needed to go fishing and tell me the size, color and name of the sea creature, we used sea horses, alligators and crabs of different colors. We used pictures of large fish, whales and turtle in the ocean on the floor, they learned nadar, we also used speed and parar to guide movements.
We showed a video of bilingual reading of the books from youtube :
And the song I created: Yo soy un pea, yo soy un pea, yo soy un pez y me gusta nadar….repeat 2x and Nado rapido y despacio, nado rapido y despacio (3x), the kids loved going fast and slow.
We ate colored gold fish, they could eat the ones they could name the colors.
We also went fishing on a small water bucket where I placed twenty fish and they practiced: Yo tengo un pez (color) en mi mano. This was done at intermediate level classes.
We used this book during the class! A translated version of the original!
Can’t wait to share this and other class plans on our membership portion of our site which is currently being updated! Stay tuned!
Instead of just sharing holiday posts with suggested activities like we normally do, I decided to share my personal discovery and journey through Christmas traditions of my own country, Brazil and Hispanic countries, when I research the topic to bring to my classes.
My first stop will be the Shoe on the Window tradition!
The story I was told when I was a child was that Santa would come at night and drop off toys in the shoes left on the window….because of the safety issues, we would leave them outside our doors and Santa would leave the toys!
There is a song which has remained in all my wonderful Christmas memories! Deixei meu sapatinho
So, to bring this tradition to my son, I explain to him, since it is warm in Brazil, there are no stockings, we have shoes and I ask him to place shoes outside his door and every Christmas morning, Santa leaves stocking stuffers in them, along with new slippers! Fun! Divertido!
I worked a lot to plan the activities for our cinco de mayo classes this week, because I was tired of the same old…..muy cansada! I also grabbed some special ideas to do at home, since the date is on Saturday this year!
I am using the book Fiesta, which I have used before, but with a new spin, I take them through the Mexican Village to celebrate it the old way, the way small Villages still celebrate it! Come and join us!
So we travel through small town markets, looking at toys, games, we make anillos and exchange them for the ocho anillos game! We tried 8 instruments which are shown in the book and I purchased to bring to our classes, the children loved it, the challenge was to find Spanish names for some of them, like the rain shaker! We danced around the hat using La Bamba! Last but not least we look at the piñata and I placed candy, which falls at the end of the class, but we also look at the way they are homemade and serpentinas, we review colors, numbers which are added to the social aspect of the party!
I also show this video which reviews vocabulary as they ispy the video, looking for things we talked about before, I divided them in groups, they became so competitive! You will not believe it! Increible!
Researching good activities for earth day, April 22nd, I did not find out anything I really liked so I worked on some different ideas and totally outside la caja!
I think the vocabulary list should be:
Tierra – Earth, Sol- sun, Nubes- Clouds, Lluvia-Rain, Planta- Plant, Arbol- Tree, Flor-Flower and Aire- Air.
I showed some of my classes those things in their school playgrounds and they had a first hand experience of how to embrace, take care and appreciate madre tierra.
We played Pasa La Tierra game with blue and green small Plastic Balls, where they would pass the oceano y la tierra (which came from coloring page below, which they colored ocean blue and land green). They also alternated between pasa el ocean ( blue Ball) y vivo en la tierra ( green ball).
Think about Easter in South America is to think about food! Thinking back on so many Easter meals at my parent’s home! The most fun part was not the egg! In Brazil, they are ginormous! LOL Check it out!
It was all about sitting and eating ALL day! O dia todo! My family makes seafood dishes and yummy appetizers and desserts! My favorites listed under my pinterest account:
http://pinterest.com/easylearn/food/
Moqueca de Camarao ( shrimp stew), Farofa de manteiga (Cassava Flour with butter and onions and eggs), Vatapa ( bread pudding made from bread, cashews, dried shrimp and other ingredients), white rice and more! Sooo good! Tao bom!
Some good words for Easter in Portuguese: Pascoa (Easter), Feliz Pascoa (Happy Easter), Ovo ( Egg), Chocolate ( chocolate), Cesta ( basket)
The best memories are all the aromas coming from my mom’s kitchen, my dad’s jokes and all the talk around the table! After all, Easter means giving and looking back, that is what ours was all about!
Saludos! Easter is coming up and I wanted to share suggestions on activities we are using in the classrooms in the upcoming weeks!
Numbers – Bingo and Domino using Easter pics and dots on the other side for dominoes! We made our own dominoes on card stock paper, very easy!
Colors – Color Easter Eggs and have the child tell the colors or coloring page with them and have them name the color and learn Huevos (Eggs), other useful words are Conejo (bunny), Candy (Dulce), Canasta (basket), Easter Pascua, Feliz Pascua ( Happy Easter), Zanahoria (carrot).
I also purchased an over sized blow up carrot and the children will throw circles to fit them on the carrot! Also used for colors.
I also use some songs like los pollitos dicen and conejito an original song I created. You can find los pollitos on youtube:
I also use the book with the same name and Pedro conejito ( translation of Peter rabbit)
We are offering a free sample of one of Easter worksheets, flashcards, bingo sheets and so much more which are available for purchase at our new E-Store! Check them out at : www.easylearnlanguages.com/estore
I purchased the Eric Carle’s Book! Decided to use it as inspiration for teaching fruits and introducing my Spring Class topics! Well, I started reading the book! stopped before the fruits! I told the children the oruga was hungry! She needed to shout that out, we sang: Yo ten go hambre, Yo tengo hambre! Quiero comida, quiero frutas, with hand motions and the same thing with sed ( thirsty) and quiero agua and jugo! They loved it! We learned, when we ask for food, we say por favor and gracias!
We moved to an oruga game, they needed to crawl like an oruga and eat the fruits on the other side of the room, telling me the name of each fruit they were eating.
We added a coloring page with three apples (manzanas), they would color the apples the oruga would eat and draw the oruga and tell me how many and incorporate color to the apples! They passed with flying colors! Older ones also wrote on the page and filled out with number of apples.
We are spending the whole celebrating Dr Seuss birthday! Even though he is not a South American traditional author, his influence in the American Schools made me take the time plan a special class to celebrate his birthday! I used two books, Un Pez, Dos Peces….and Huevos Verdes con jamon both for sale at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I used the first book and planned a fish class, we went fishing with a plastic fish game with water and a bucket, they needed to go fishing and tell me the size, color and name of the sea creature, we used sea horses, alligators and crabs of different colors. We used pictures of large fish, whales and turtle in the ocean on the floor, they learned nadar, we also used speed and parar to guide movements.
We showed a video of bilingual reading of the books from youtube :
And the song I created: Yo soy un pea, yo soy un pea, yo soy un pez y me gusta nadar….repeat 2x and Nado rapido y despacio, nado rapido y despacio (3x), the kids loved going fast and slow.
We ate colored gold fish, they could eat the ones they could name the colors.
Can’t wait to share this and other class plans on our membership portion of our site which is currently being updated! Stay tuned!
We decided to do our technology unit using robots, gadgets and more! I’m so excited, because I am a tech person! We are starting the vocab this week with shapes which were described on the last post and following with robot week! We will build a robot! using shapes and body parts vocabulary to make the robot!
I have decided to use, construction paper, aluminum foil, paint and elmer’s glue on a tissue paper roll to make our robots! Can’t wait to see how cool they will turn out!
Body parts used to build our robot are: cara- face, nariz – nose, boca-mouth, brazos- arms, piernas – legs, ojos- eyes, cabeza- head – vocabulary listed in Spanish!
Try the craft at home and share how much fun you had with your child!
I was looking for a fun new way to bring shapes to our classrooms and I was hit by a technology wave when I looked at a robot made out of tissue roll tube….I decided he would be the centerpiece of our class!
We start by learning shapes, then selecting shapes which will go on our robot, we will paint and glue shapes on our robot and place arms and the antenna is a glued toothpick. Can’t wait to see all the amazing robots!
Then we will use a scale I have and balance shapes, telling what shapes, colors and which side is higher and lower for the more advanced classes!
A Larger scale picture of the robot placed on the wall will serve as background while children take turns finishing that robot with shapes for body parts!!
Classes are perfect for children 4 and older! I can’t wait to start!
If you are planning on doing some of those activities at home, here is a list of Spanish shapes: circulo, rectangulo, cuadrado, triangulo, estrella, rombo!
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