I am so happy with the series of activities that I did with my PS,PK and K students. Here is a sequence of activities:
I bought small gourds at Walmart and I took pictures of each one. I printed the pictures and laminated them. The following day I put them in the center of my classroom.

When the students came in I asked them to sit in a circle and choose a gourd as I called their names (or the color of the dot on the carpet). Next, we talked about color, smoothness of the gourd and we lined them up according to size. Finally, I showed them the pictures and had them identify the same picture as the gourd they were holding. As we did, I described the attributes of the gourds.
The following class, I gave them a picture of a gourd and a bag of Cuisenaire rods. I asked them to measure the length or width of their gourd. With PK, I asked them to use only red rods because I wanted them to practice counting under 10 if it was possible. With K I let them choose the rods. 
As I called their names, I wrote the name and the number of rods on the board as I repeated the numbers for them to hear. 
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Another class, I showed the kids two videos: Alina Celeste: 
 www.youtube.com/watch?v=40ivxEBg9d4
Contando Calabazas: 
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyY-LUeiLbs&list=PLbT3_q7FKpzK8XfsFpG_IVYbs4efNrzuG&index=56&t=0s
​After talking about the pumpkins and what they had on their faces, I gave each student a laminated picture of a gourd and a dry erase marker. I showed them how to draw a Jack-O-Lantern and set them free! I took pictures to upload to  Seesaw and describe later. I may even use some of them in stories...
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Finally, I read in a Facebook group about a book called The little old lady who wasn't afraid of anything. I decided to act out the story with props. It was a hit!
We practiced clothing vocab, is afraid/not afraid, goes to plus feeling words. 

Here is our scarecrow, chilling in the back of the room. I will definitely use him in a story in November.

Recently, I read a Facebook post that talked about Glide. In his website, Richard Byrne also posted a tutorial and a review of this free tool that allows you to create an app from a Google spreadsheet. The more I investigate how to use Glide, the more blown away I get! This morning, I had an amazing idea: I will use Glide as a digital portfolio to allow students to share their work with parents during Open House. 
The plan is this:
1. At the beginning of the year, I will have students in fourth and fifth grade create their own spreadsheets. For students in the younger grades, I will create a template and keep track of their work.
2. As they read novels, complete OWIs or do Persona Especial, I will have them upload a comments, a summary or a picture of all the major activities we complete in class. 
3. In March, before Spring break, we will look at the spreadsheet and decide what stays and what goes. The survivors will be uploaded into a Glide app. 
4. We will use the week between break and Open House to troubleshoot and do the final edits.
5. Students will share their app with the parents and visitors using a QR code.
6. Parents will get to see their amazing children in action!

Would you like to learn Spanish in Kansas? Join me for a fun time of learning and growing! You will acquire Spanish the Natural way, based on Comprehensible Input and highly engaging activities. We will be using a variety of techniques to make the lessons meaningful and relevant. Please, bring a notebook and a pen. Lessons are 50 minutes long and the cost is $25. You can pay each class or book several in advance. Please, use Venmo to pay. These are the dates for January and February. I have chosen a variety of times and days. We will decide which one is better for the majority of students once we meet in January. All lessons will be at the Johnson County Central Resource Library, 9875 w 87 street, Overland Park, KS.

Date Conference Room Time
Jan 15 3 6:00 pm
Jan 23 1 7:00 pm
Jan 29 3 6:00 pm
Feb 6 1 6:00 pm
Feb 13 1 7:00 pm
Feb 19 1 6:00 pm
Feb 26 1 6:00 pm

For more information and to register please send an email to mmeli62@gmail.com

After a super long hiatus, I am back. I was trying to respond to a new teacher on Facebook and the post got longer and longer, so I decided to go back to blogging. Here are some basic games I play with my elementary school classes.
1 Trece
Students stand in a circle and go around it counting 1,2 or 3 numbers at a time. Whoever says 13 is out. There are many variations. With Kindergarten I have them say only one number until about December. Then they can say 1,2 or 3 numbers at a time. With the second graders on up, they can count 1,2 or 3 numbers at a time but they can´t repeat the same number of digits the person before them said.

2. Heads up, seven up. 
Only with fifth grade I have seven students. I usually have four. Instead of saying the students´names when guessing, I have them hold a vocab card or we use one of the colors they are wearing.

3. Four corners
To practice vocab I put four vocab words in four walls of the room. When music plays, the students dance around. I count 3,2,1, and on cero I stop the music. All students must be near a picture or they are out. I have a second set of cards with the four vocab words in my hand. Then I draw a card. Whoever is in that corner sits in the middle of the room. The last student standing will call the words on the next game.
 
4. Soft, Loud
I love this game to practice hard to pronounce words especially.  We choose a vocab card and a student to go outside. Then, we hide the card somewhere in the room. When the student comes back we guide him-her to the card by getting louder as he-she gets closer. 

5. Cake walk
To practice colors with the little ones. Or it can be used with numbers or any other vocab. Put cards on the ground with the vocab word. Play music and students walk around. When the music stops, make sure everyone is on a vocab card and call one. The winner (s) can get a sticker if you want. 

I found this post with incredible reading activities. Enjoy!
​https://comprehensibleantiquity.com/2018/06/20/find-the-sentence-little-to-no-prep-way-to-create-reading-reps-to-review-a-passage/

Yesterday, I played this well-known game in Argentina called Tutti-frutti. Each student gets a piece of paper, a clipboard (if you are deskless) and a pencil. The first few times we play, I choose the categories, later on, you can have your older students choose them. So, my categories were: Name, Color, Action, Food, Animal. There is always a thin column for points. The teacher says Ready, set, go and the students have to write down one word IN SPANISH in each column. Spelling doesn't count and I don't check. The first kid that finishes yells STOP and everyone else has to stop writing. They can finish a word if they have already started writing it. The next part goes slow until they catch up. Ask the person who yelled STOP what they wrote under NAME. Ask everyone else if anyone wrote that same name. If only one person wrote that name , she/he writes a 10 next to the word. If someone else wrote the same name, all who have the same response write 5 next to it. Keep calling students until everyone has either 5 or 10 or 0 next to the words in each column. Have students add up their points, write them in the P column and then draw a line across the paper so you can play again. 

Today I did this activity from SpanishSpot with Kindergarten. I printed the boys and girls , enough for my Kindergarten class. I asked them to choose one and color the clothes. Then, I asked them to write the name of their character on the paper. As they finished they brought their drawings to the board and I put them up with some sticky tack. Next, as I pointed to the pictures, the owner of each one of them said the name of the character out loud.  I explained that I was going to choose one of the characters and that they had to ask yes/no questions until they figured out who I was thinking of. I wrote on the board ¿Es un chico? ¿Es una chica? ¿lleva _____ ______? I have a poster with the clothes names under my board to help out with vocab. Then we played! As the questions were answered, I took down the pictures that did not fit the category until we guessed who I was thinking of. The whole class was engaged! ​

The original game in English is called Ships and Sailors. I adapted it to my elementary school students. Here are the instructions in Spanish. I have them on the Smart Board during the game until the students (and I) become familiar with all of them.

Left-stand on the left side of the room A la izquierda
Right-stand on the right side of the room A la derecha
Captain's coming-stand at salute (with your hand near your head standing straight)Viene el Capitán
Sharks-all players lie down on the floor, face down and make a fin with their hand behinf the neck. Tiburón
Periscope
Hand overboard-one player kneels and the other puts his/her hand on their partner's shoulder and pretends to look overboard Hombre al agua
Three hands rowing-players get into a group of 3 and mime rowing furiously Abandonen el barco

OK, I did it. I went to Walmart and bought 23 Merge Cubes for $1 each. I joined the hundreds of teachers who bought truckloads of these cute cubes with no idea of how to use them. Now that they are sitting on my shelf staring at me, I need to figure out how to implement their magic in my Spanish classes.I have not gotten very far, yet, but this technology is way too cool to let it pass. So, if you have any ideas, please share them in the comments. Of course, there is a Facebook page for Cube Educators. The Merge Cube website is full of resources for all teachers. Also, I found this blog that has some great information on how to get started. 

 If you print this mat, you can scan and upload your own objects so when you point your phone or tablet to the cube you can see your object in Virtual Reality (VR).  Once again, not sure how I can use this in the future, but I am exploring. If you have any ideas, please, share in the comments. Happy Exploring!

In order to prepare my fifth grade students for middle school, I am  expected to teach three units of  Realidades. In chapter 2A, we are talking about ordinal numbers. Well, I posted a question in the CI LIftoff Facebook group and a teacher suggested using Sr. Wooly's "Las Excusas" video and embedded readings. So, I went to his website and looked at the embedded reading. I remembered a game that I saw in the Brandon Brown teacher's guide. I can't remember if it was the "dice la verdad" or "quiere un perro" TG. The game is called Anteojos, I think. I modified that game to use an online spinner instead of post-its simply because I hate throwing the post-its away after the game. I printed the long version for principiantes of teh reading and I cut the story in half. I printed each half on a different color paper to make it easier to explain. I also wrote A, B, C, D, E on each paper. When the kids came in, I numbered them 1,2 as they came in. I asked the 1s to stand in line on one side of the room and the 2s to stand in a line facing the 1s. Next, I gave one part of the story to the 1s and the other part of the story to the 2s. I instructed them to get in their group (1 or 2), read the story and make sure that everyone understood all the paragraph. I set the timer for 10 minutes and then I asked them to get in their letter groups A, B, C, D, E. Students numbered themselves within each group. I gave them a couple minutes to make sure everyone in the story understood the reading. At that point, I explained that I was going to ask a question and say who would answer in the name of the group. For example: I would ask, "what is the name of the girl? #2 will answer for your group".  The whole team has to make sure #2 has the correct answer. As I call on each team, if the answer is correct, student #2 comes to the smart board and spins the wheel to know how many points the team get. We write the scores on the board and, at the end, we add them up. The points are just for fun and we get to practice numbers, too. 
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