I usually create materials for the classes that I am currently teaching. However, upon seeing so much beautiful Valentine's Day clipart and spending time with my kinder and pre-school aged nieces and nephews during the holidays, I decided to create a product for elementary Spanish students for Valentine's day. I have to admit, there are some days when I miss teaching the elementary kiddos. Additionally, I have donated both products to a flash drive giveaway that is being held by Rocking Teaching Materials. You can find the giveaway
here. The unique thing about this particular giveaway is that there are great resources for each grade K-5, plus cute flash drives :).
The first product that I donated is for kindergarden or first grade. I wrote a cute counting story to accompany the precious penguin clipart. I mentioned that over the holiday break one of the things that I did was spend time with my nieces and nephews, and my niece in particular is working on counting, grouping, and learning about the numerical relationships. I wanted her to have a cute Spanish Valentine's activity that would continue her number practice.
The second Valentine's Day product, focuses much more on learning the vocabulary words associated with Valentine's Day. I have added this product to the third grade giveaway, but really it could work for any grade 3-6. In this packet, there are numerous vocabulary activities, including a matching the words to the pictures activity, a set of cards that could be printed on card stock, laminated, and used for
mata moscas or memory. Additionally, I have had my elementary students (back when I taught K-5) use the cards for a cut and paste matching activities. This way, I could assist the classroom teachers by focusing on developing these types of skills. Finally, both packets contain a valentine that could be given in class to a special friend or given to parents, siblings etc.
Both of these activities should be useful for the elementary Spanish teacher, or for any teacher who would like to incorporate a bit of Spanish in his or her Valentine's day lessons. Given that this blog and the majority of my products are for the middle school and high school student, I do want to mention that I have also created a Valentine's Day packet for Spanish I students, which also involves some verb work in addition to learning the holiday vocabulary, and I am excited to be able to use it in my Spanish I class this year.
I donated my Navidad y más for this giveaway. I always want to include some celebration of the holiday season into my lesson plans without losing sight of my teaching goals. One of my goals is to address the Comparison standard of ACTFL. The first two activities in this packet are meant to allow students to both share about their own holiday traditions and compare their traditions with another student's. Additionally, students do a webquest to learn about the holiday traditions of another country. The webquest also allows me to discuss generalizations with the students and emphasize that articles talk about the majority of the people from the author's view-point, and that not every person in the country is going to have the same traditions, just as not every student in the classroom shares every tradition. This item also address a more superficial type of learning and that is learning and using the vocabulary that relates to the holiday season. There is a page that includes pictures and words to assist students with their discussion of the holiday activities. Finally this activity also includes two mad-libs. I find that using mad-libs is a good way for students to apply their knowledge of Spanish grammar without them really realizing that they are working. For example, students need to be able to recognize that bonito is an adjective in order to be able to fill-in the blanks of the mad-lib. The main difference between the mad libs is that I wrote one for my Spanish one students and one for my Spanish two students. The second one contains vocabulary that is a bit more complex, and it expects students to use both the preterite and the imperfect ( I am always looking for ways to review these two concepts). What are your favorite holiday activities?