Confession #1: I don’t really want to take the time to “teach” numbers to my students. In other words, I do not provide a lot of comprehensible input with regards to numbers. First of all, they are not high frequency, and second, numbers are not the most exciting thing. We do A LOT of counting in class, but really, that's about it.
However, they are important, and I do need to talk about them in some sort of meaningful and authentic context in class. Enter: El que sabe, sabe (he who knows, knows). This is a "numbers" game that helps me deliver comprehensible input to students using numbers in context. Confession #2: I purchased my first El que sabe, sabe game on TeachersPayTeachers from the Comprendes Mendez SpanishShop, and tried it out over a year ago with my students, but it didn’t go well. It was completely my fault, either by not dedicating enough time to it faulty directions on my part, or any number or other reasons. After all, Nelly Hughes has fantastic resources in her TpT store, and her game did provide clear directions, and great, cultural information. I just couldn't make it happen for whatever reason. I saw El que sabe, sabe again on a post by Martina Bex, and thought I should give it another shot, because FAIL means Fist Attempt In Learning, and my students still do need additional input with numbers. Well, here goes. I am going to be playing El que sabe, sabe again, this time with slides I developed about Thanksgiving! Here are the basics of the game, although Martina explains it much more succinctly in her post.
Again, Martina explains it in much more detail than I do here. You may want to check out her post if you need some additional clarity. Pro Tip: To answer a question I had, yes, teams can vote for their own answer with BOTH a star and a triangle. (At least the way I play.) Of course, there is a big risk in doing so, but if it pays off, the reward can be great. I will be playing this game this week based around Thanksgiving statistics. Here is a google slides copy of the Thanksgiving game in Spanish. If you would like to edit anything, please make a copy of the slides. Also, if you see any errors, please let me know and I will fix them ASAP. (All information about Thanksgiving is sourced in the speaker notes.) Here is a google slides copy of the Thanksgiving game in English. Have fun talking turkey with your students!
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What started as a Fast Finisher activity, has been transformed into something more. It has provided rich texts and colorful illustrations to go along with them that are a rich resource to add to our FVR library. And the best part is that students are using their originality and creativity to do so. I introduce you to: Complete the doodle. Step One. Find some very simple doodles. Google search, “complete the drawing” and click on the images that result from this search. You will see a lot of images that look like scribbles, or single lines. That is the beginning of a drawing. Step Two. Let students create. Based on the doodle, students will use their imagination to add on to the doodle and flesh out a drawing of something that incorporates the original doodle. For example, I have had students create an elephant, a fairy and a flower from the same initial doodle. The key is to ask students to use their imagination. And color. Bold color. Use lots of color to make memorable pictures. Step Three. Create a text. Once students have completed their drawings, collect them. Redistribute each drawing to a different student so that no one has their own drawing. Now, students create a story for the drawing they have in their possession. This gets interesting because I do not allow students to ask questions of the artist. Students have to imagine what the drawing is for themselves. Sometimes it is pretty obvious, and other times, it is a complete guess. If your students are familiar with Invisibles, have them create a character sketch when they write. This reinforces high frequency vocabulary such as characteristics, origin, likes and dislikes. To go further, have students create a story. Using structures such as has, can (or can’t), wants, goes also reinforces high-frequency vocabulary. Step Four. Follow up. Once students have written a text, you can choose to collect the text and drawings as-is, have students type them, or type them yourself (correcting any grammatical errors as you go. This is really dependent upon the amount of time you have to dedicate to this activity.) Once again, collect all the texts and drawings.
Step Five. Create a book for your FVR library. Finally, put all the drawings and texts into a single bound text. (I use sheet protectors and clear front report folders.) Add the text to your FVR library. Students LOVE reading texts they have created, and these are no exception. Calling all Señor Wooly fans. I created a breakout that mashes together five of his songs: No Voy a Levantarme, Puedo Ir al Baño, No Lo Tengo, La Dentista, Pan.
The inspiration for creating this breakout is from my amazing Spanish III students. Before the last month of school, I asked my Spanish III students how they would like to spend our time together in May. They were all seniors, so I felt that giving them some choice in what we did in the classroom would help alleviate the senior slide. All the students said they would like to watch more Sr. Wooly videos and many said they would like to do a breakout box. Great, I thought, I can combine the two. Needless to say, my students and I had a blast as the end of the year was nearing, and we were still acquiring language, but doing so in a way that was meaningful and enjoyable to all. Before the seniors left to embark on their new adventures, they did one more breakout box...with great success. They truly enjoyed it , and I hope your students will as well. You can find the google drive folder with everything you need here. Happy escaping! I am currently using Martina Bex’s SOMOS curriculum in my classroom (which I love!). This year, during Unit 4: La Universidad I chose not to storyask, because I felt my students had already acquired 2 of the 3 structures. Instead, I chose to do a few supplemental activities to get in the necessary reps of the target structures, and spiral the others. One activity that I did is called Sentence Diagrams. I learned about this activity years ago when I attended a workshop with Barbara Snyder. She was presenting a workshop centered around interactive, learner-centered activities.
Sentence Diagrams is designed to get students talking with one another. It also helps to create the repetitions of vocabulary needed for acquisition. The caveat is that the conversation is canned, and not spontaneous. However, I like to use this activity sparingly in my classroom because it does provide a nice break for me. I can take a 10 minute break from providing constant CI to the students, and get them to listen to each other. There is some prep involved, as you must create the sentences diagrams. Basically, it consists of three columns of text and/or images. The example I used for this unit is here. Here’s how it works. First, each student needs their own paper. They fold the paper down the middle so that there are now two identical sides. On one side, students draw lines connecting each column. In the Universidad example, students connect a name to a class image to a profession image. There is no correct way to connect columns; students can and should connect columns that do not “make sense.” For example Student A draws a line connecting Paco to Spanish class to veterinarian. (This may or may not be considered a logical connection.) Now, students pair up. Student A will “read” the sentences they “wrote” to Student B. Student B will listen and on the side of their paper where they have not drawn lines, they will draw the lines their partner reads to them. Student A reads all of their sentences while Student B draws lines. So, in the example above, Student A would read/say: “Paco toma la clase de español porque quiere ser un veterinario.” When Student A has read all their sentences, Students A & B can compare. Their lines should be identically drawn. Repeat with Student B. They now “read” their sentences and Student A “draws” the sentences. As a follow up, together, students can find the most logical or illogical sentence. Students can actually write out a few sentences. To increase proficiency level, students can add “because” to their sentences. Students could draw their sentences and complete a gallery walk, etc. The sentence diagram activity can be used in varying contexts also. Here are few that I have used throughout the years:
We all have those days. Homecoming days when there are only morning classes since the afternoons are dedicated to activities. Days at the end of the semester when you don’t want to start something totally new. Late start days when classes are cut short of minutes. Days when we just need a break to recharge. Today was one of those days for me.
Today a science field trip left me with half filled classes throughout my day. I didn’t really have enough students remaining in class to move forward, so I was left with the question...what do we do today? And better yet, what do we do today with minimal prep? Thank goodness for Zach Jones and the amazing resources he has on his website, zambombazo. (side note: If you are not yet familiar with the site, it is filled with incredible, FREE activities. I would, in fact, encourage you to stop reading this blog and visit the site - it is that awesome and worth your time.) At any rate, with the students I had in class today, the plan was to do a stand alone lesson but yet engaging and CI worthy. I chose to base the lesson plan today around the one of the students favorite talking points: movies We began class with some general PQA about what movies they liked to watch, who they went to the movies with, which movie theaters they preferred, etc Students then paired up and completed a pelipareja activity from zambombazo. Pelipareja is an activity where students match a brief description of a movie to its poster. After most pairs had finished the work, we shared the answers to make sure everyone was on the same page Next, I asked students to choose one of the descriptions and work with their partner to translate it to English. This was a great activity to see how students were able to identify cognates and unknown words through context. My Spanish I students were able to translate a description of their choice without any problems To extend this further and get more reading practice, I asked each pair to identify two words they did not know the meaning of, but were able to figure out through context. They could choose the words from any of the descriptions other than the one they chose to translate. Students shared the words they learned from context while I wrote them on the board and personalized each one through personalized question and answer (PQA) With the minutes we had remaining, we played strip bingo with the words identified by the students. Overall, a pretty successful CI lesson plan with minimal prep. My favorite kind of lesson plan for “one of those days.” Recently, I came across two different blog posts that have opened up a number of possibilities for my classroom. The first post was from Martina Bex; she was discussing the endless possibilities of using the Fan N Pick activity, a Kagan strategy, in the classroom. The second post was from Alice Keeler; she was sharing how google slides can be used cooperatively in the classroom. Alice’s post got me thinking about using more technology in my classes, while Martina’s post gave me the concrete idea of how to do so.
Here is the result of the inspiration. With a few minutes of class remaining one day, we began the storyasking process and outlined all of our characters. This was as far as we got. No plot, no conflict. Just the creation of 4 characters that would be in our story. That evening, I went home and created a google slideshow (here) that included instructions and a number of slides - enough for each student. My goal was to have students search the Internet for images that could represent the characters we described in class. For example, one of our characters, Greg, was a 9,000 year old vampire and father of 2. Their task was to find one image of one family member. When students arrived to class the following day, they were instructed to visit google classroom and open the slideshow I had posted there. I reviewed the directions with them, assigned each a number corresponding to the slide they were to work on, and gave them a time limit to accomplish the task. The results were AMAZING!! They LOVED seeing everyone else’s submissions in live time. Once the work time was over, I instructed everyone to close their Chromebooks and the real work (disguised as fun) began. Since I have classes of about 20, there were 4-5 images of Greg as well as the other three family members from our story. For each family member, we looked at all the images that represented him/her while I circled each one (hair color, attitude, etc.). We then voted on which image would represent each family member in our story. As a follow through, when students came to class the next day, I had a typed version of their story, complete with the images they had selected to represent the characters. The students loved seeing the images they had chosen to represent each character of our story. They were also more enthusiastic and engaged with reading the story with the addition of their images. As I mentioned earlier, Martina’s post gave me the inspiration for this idea, but it also got me thinking about how else I could use google slides collaboratively in my classroom. Order of events List 4-5 events that could be placed in logical order. Create a “master” slide that has the events listed, but out of order. Ask students to make a copy of this slide and rearrange the events so they are in chronological order. If you are familiar with Carol Gaab, she uses a Reading Action Chain that is requires one to sequence events, but allows for a “multiple chronology.” This would be great to use collaboratively so that everyone can see all of the various chronologies that they can come up with. Follow up option: add details to each event and create an original classroom story. Describe an image Choose an image and have students describe the image. They could do so by listing 3 adjective or writing a set number of sentences about the image. Follow up option: teach students how to combine simple sentences to create more complex sentences. Translate Ask students to translate (L1 to L2 or vice versa) a few sentences. Yes, they can all translate the same sentences. When used as a warm-up or quick activity, you can see - in live time - which students are translating quickly, meaning acquisition of language, and which don’t start until others have posted, meaning acquisition has perhaps not been completely attained. Follow up option: pop up grammar explanations. Details Ask students to recall two details from a story you have been working with. Oftentimes, if they see what someone else has written, they will choose a different detail to share. (sidenote: When I ask students to do this on paper, I get very little sentence variation, but using this method, I get a lot of variety.) Follow up option: “before or after.” Ask students if “Event A” happened before or after “Event B.” Personal Question and Answer Ask students a few personal questions and have them respond. Follow up option: an extended PQA session Enjoy collaborating! |
Jessie Oelke
#deptofone providing compelling and comprehensible input Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
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