Spanish Heritage Month Part 2

I don't know if it is the changing of the weather around here. Or just that calendar turned to Oct. and students are already getting excited about Halloween.  But I am exhausted!  I am so looking forward to having Monday off for Columbus Day.  I could use a three day weekend.

Well here's another post on Spanish Heritage Month by Virginia Duran.

On Thursday I took my students to the public library, we are really fortunate we are a parking lot away.  And as we were getting our tour, we stopped by the Spanish book section and I a book catches my eye.  I find another book on Celia Cruz!.  I immediately grabbed it and checked it out.  I read it to my students.  Well I didn’t have to read it since there was a listening CD in the book!  It was in English, not Spanish, but the narration was great.  It included Celia’s music in the background as it was being narrated and it in included one of her song on the CD!  So my students heard this book, the Me llamo Celia, My Name is Celia, “Let’s Dance”, and I played salsa music.  I did purchase a cd from Scholastic a few years ago with Salsa music for cats and dogs.  I don’t have the title, but I will post it later.  I invited our 2^nd grade class and they loved it!   They were repeating “Azucar” and got up and danced with my first grade students.   During recess I had my students make maracas ( see pictures).  I used empty water bottles, beans and corn kernels, and construction paper.   The students decorated their maracas, I either used beans or corn kernels, placed them in the bottles!  They loved them. 

Next week I will try to squeeze Cesar Chavez, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo!  My goal is to have them make a piñata with the help of their fifth grade buddies.   We also want to meet with the second graders again and play Loteria ( similar to BINGO) since they read Jugando Loteria/ Playing Loteria.

 

       

 

                

 

 

Hope a great rest of the week.

I'm Back! Spanish Heritage Month Ideas

Sorry it has been so long this I last posted on this blog.  I guess I'm not doing  a great job with my New School Year Resoultions so far.

Spanish Heritage Month by Virginia Duran

We are very fortunate to have a multicultural committee at our school and every month we acknowledge different cultures.  This month we will be celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month.  Since I teach in Spanish and my students are from Mexico I try to incorporate as many lessons as I can all month long.  I try to expose them to both fiction and non-fiction texts.  I have been finding more and more books each year.  There are teachers like Mrs. Castro who have used them as part of books to read in the beginning of the year.  Mrs. Castro included a few of them in her back to school packet ( Marisol McDonald doesn’t Match Marisol McDonald No Combina  and Rene has two last names/ Rene tiene dos nombres). 

Mrs. Castro's Blog

I try to find themes and do one each week.  This week ( since will be a short one for me since I will be out for training on Tuesday and Wednesday) will focus on Latin music.  I will read Salsa, Bailar and Celia Cruz.  We will listen to music from mariachi to salsa.   In our Tesoros reading basal we used to use, there was a cute activity to make maracas out of water bottles so we will be doing that on Friday.

Next week I want to introduce famous Latina women.  A great book is  “Quiero ser famosa”.  I found a book appropriate for children on Sor Juana,  Ellen Ochoa, and Frida Kalho ( to name a few). 

 

I also like to have students learn about famous latinos in the arts.  I found books on Diego Rivera, Pablo Neruda and Frida Kahlo.  Scholastic books had a Hispanic Heritage Month calendar on sale or for points and I purchased it.  Turns out there are 4 activities on the back of the calendar.  One is a picture of Frida.  If we have time, I would like to have students do a self-portrait or a picture of a bird.  Last year, the art teacher has them do this during art class. 

There are great children authors and illustrators.   Gary Soto, Rene Colato Xavier, and Antonio Sarce ( I love the book, The Barking Mouse).   We make connections to self and play loteria, a popular game played Mexico.  It is similar to Bingo.  I will be teaching the lesson this week, so I will take pictures. 

I like to end with  stories/ fables “cuentos”  or leyendas.   My students love when I read “La llorona” or “El Cucuy” since are stories they are used to hearing at home.

Click on the picture below to check out the class book writing activity to go with the book  “Quiero ser famosa”.  If you download the file preview you can get the booklist for free.  I have come up with a list of books by topic. There are great books you can use to compare and contrast. Others can be used to teach Spanish words. 

 

 

Be sure to come back soon for more ideas.  Coming Soon a Halloween Punctuation Booklet and 6 Traits - acitivities for the trait Ideas.