Cinco de Mayo Activities in SPANISH

Cinco de Mayo is fast approaching! Do you teach or celebrate Cinco de Mayo in your bilingual classroom? Today I'll be sharing my favorite videos, books, and activities to help you plan your Cinco de Mayo lessons in SPANISH! 

I have to begin by stating one important detail: Cinco de Mayo is NOT Mexico's Independence Day. This is a common misconception. Instead, Cinco de Mayo celebrates Mexico's victory over France at the Batalla de Puebla (Battle of Puebla). 

Fun fact: Other than in the state of Puebla, Cinco de Mayo is mostly celebrated in the United States!

Videos

In order to build background knowledge and make connections, I like to start my Cinco de Mayo unit with videos. A KWL chart (Tabla de SQA) can help students jot down: what they know, what they want to learn, and what they learn. In Spanish SQA chart stands for: Lo que sé, lo que quiero saber y lo que aprendí. This is a perfect tool to engage your students in the learning process. 

Here are a few videos you can use with your students. *However, please preview these videos yourself to make certain they are a good match for your students.

• Batalla de Puebla para niños | 5 de mayo: This video gives information on the history of the Batalla de Puebla and talks a bit about the celebrations nowadays.
• 5 de Mayo Batalla de Puebla Para Niños: This video gives historical information and then shows small clips of fun parades and celebrations. 
• Celebrate! It's Cinco De Mayo Bilingual read aloud: This English/Spanish read aloud is engaging and students can make connections with both languages. 

Books

Here are four books you can get from Amazon and get them just in time to celebrate Cinco de Mayo! These are Spanish or Bilingual books you can use. If you need books in English just enter it at the search bar on Amazon.

• ¡Es Cinco de Mayo!
• Celebramos Cinco de Mayo
• El Cinco de Mayo
• ¡Celebremos! ¡Es el Cinco de Mayo!

*Please note: these are affiliate links and I do earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Resources

The following resources in my TpT store can help you plan and get your Cinco de Mayo unit organized. Word wall resources, graphic organizers, Boom Cards, and directed drawings! Check them out HERE or click each image.

Thank you for reading this far! Sign up for my email newsletter to get EXCLUSIVE FREE resources delivered to your inbox! I also host surprise giveaways in my newsletter so make sure you sign up HERE. Until next time friends! ¡Hasta luego!

Earth Day Activities in SPANISH

Earth Day is a great opportunity to have conversations with our students about how we can all play a role in taking care of our planet! This is one of my favorite spring holidays so I'll be sharing videos, books, and freebies you can use in your classroom. Keep reading to find Earth Day activities in SPANISH!

Videos

I like to build background knowledge and preteach vocabulary by using engaging videos. BrainPop in SPANISH has a FREE video and resources about "Humanos y el Ambiente." It is a great resource that includes vocabulary organizers, questions, and related readings. I love using this resource since everything is ready to print and go! 

Other fun videos from YouTube are listed below.

El libro de la Tierra: a fun little read aloud that is BILINGUAL

El Planeta Tierra: short and cute read aloud for the younger students in SPANISH

¿Qué le pasa al Planeta?: a more in depth read aloud about how kids can help our planet in SPANISH

Día de la Tierra: engaging song/video about taking care of our planet in SPANISH

*Please note: Preview the videos as needed to make sure they are appropriate for and meet the needs of your students. 

Books

These are some of my favorite books in Spanish about recycling and taking care of our planet. I found these 4 on Amazon because you know I love their super fast shipping! I hope you find these useful and can add them to your classroom library. 

Día de la Tierra

Yo Soy Tierra

Los Guardianes de la Tierra

¿Por qué debo reciclar?

*Please note: these are affiliate links and I do earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Resources

I have a couple of resources in my TpT store to help you plan and get your Earth Day unit organized. Word wall resources, graphic organizers, flipbooks, and directed drawings! Check them out HERE or click each image.

Thank you for reading this far! Sign up for my email newsletter to get EXCLUSIVE FREE resources delivered to your inbox! I also host surprise giveaways in my newsletter so make sure you sign up HERE. Until next time friends! ¡Hasta luego!

Celebrating Day of the Dead in the Bilingual Classroom

Día de los Muertos is such a beautiful tradition. I love to teach my students about Day of the Dead and make cultural connections they can relate to. I'll be sharing some books, read alouds, and activities you can use in your Bilingual classroom! There's a FREEBIE for you too, so keep reading! 

Books and Read Alouds

What better way to teach about this important tradition than with books and read alouds. My favorite and a best seller is this bilingual book: El Día de los Muertos/Day of the Dead. I ordered this one from Scholastic Book Clubs. However, I also found it on Amazon and with prime shipping you can still get it in time to celebrate Día de los Muertos! Check out my top three favorite books with my Amazon Affiliate link AND check out the YouTube read alouds that are so fun for our students!

• Book 1: El Día de los Muertos/Day of the Dead
• See the book here on Amazon
• See the YouTube read aloud here

• Book 2: Day of the Dead
• See the book here on Amazon
• See the YouTube read aloud here

• Book 3: Día de los Muertos
• See the book here on Amazon
• See the YouTube read aloud here

Classroom altar

Create a giant classroom altar with mini altars created by students and their families. I like to have students bring in their own altar in remembrance of a family member or loved one that has passed away. Once they bring it, we create big altar made up of all of their altars. We add plenty of marigolds, plastic tea light candles, and our own papel picado we create using Astrobrights colorful paper. I like to incorporate as many meaningful elements as I can. I save all Día de los Muertos ideas on this PINTEREST board. Feel free to look around and save what you like!

Activities

I have created both printable and digital activities to help celebrate and teach about Día de los Muertos.

The printable Día de los Muertos activities include:

• Fold, Read and Learn book with comprehension questions
• Trifold with vocabulary, comprehension and writing tasks
• Flipbook for students to research and fill in information
• Craft for students to create their own Día de los Muertos marigold wreath
• PLUS letters to make a Día de los Muertos bulletin board with student work!

This Fix the Sentences resource is sure to be a hit with your students! They will look for the errors in each sentence, then retype the sentence correctly. It has a Day of the Dead theme perfect for this festivity!

Since some of our students are not in the classroom right now I have also created Boom Cards (digital task cards) to focus on Día de los Muertos vocabulary and context clues. These digital task cards are self-grading and interactive. They are super colorful, have the cutest Day of the Dead clipart, and will keep your students engaged! Check out the BUNDLE HERE!

• Día de los Muertos - ABC Order
• Día de los Muertos - Sentences/Context Clues
• Día de los Muertos - Syllables
• Día de los Muertos - Sugar Skull Colors

FREEBIE

Thank you for reading this far. I hope you found a few ideas of things to implement and help celebrate this beautiful tradition. CLICK here to download these adorable bookmarks to help celebrate and teach about Día de los Muertos. This is an exclusive freebie just for my blog readers which means it is not available for download anywhere else. Share the link to this post with your bilingual teacher friends so that they can come download their own set of bookmarks. 

Until next time friends! ¡Hasta luego!

*This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. This means I make a small commission at NO EXTRA CHARGE to you when you purchase through my links. Thank you for your support, come back soon!

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage - All Year Long

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month is super close to my heart! In my opinion, we should be teaching our students about influential Hispanics all year long. Can you tell I love my culture and heritage? Today, I am sharing a few things and ideas that can help you celebrate Hispanic Heritage all year long! Don't forget to sign up to receive my email newsletter and download a FREE Prefixes unit just for joining! 

Lotería

Lotería is a popular game played in Hispanic households. Have you ever played? It is a type of bingo with pictures and words that have become iconic over the years. Ask any Hispanic family about lotería, they probably know about it, own a set, and probably even have a t-shirt about it!!! Some of the pictures on the traditional lotería are not appropriate for the classroom. So imagine my excitement when I found a kid friendly version on Amazon. This Lil' Loteria is perfect for classroom use (pictures and words are kid friendly) PLUS it is bilingual. Such a great tool to build vocabulary in Spanish and English while having fun! You can see it on Amazon here with my affiliate link. 

Activities

You can use a variety of activities to teach or have students learn about influential Hispanics. I have created a bundle of activities that you can use all throughout the year and still be purposeful when teaching about these amazing Hispanic Leaders. 

• Hispanic Leaders Book and Activities with matching game cards and worksheets
• Hispanic Leaders Research Slides: Students can research, learn and complete.
• Hispanic Leaders Fact/Opinion: You can use these any time you are teaching a unit on fact/opinion
• Hispanic Leaders Fix the Sentences: You can use these in a grammar/writing center.

Click on any of the titles above to see this resources or click HERE to see the bundle. 

Videos

There are a few videos I've used to introduce and review Hispanic Heritage. Click below to be taken to the videos on YouTube. There are so many more amazing videos, these are just a few of my favorites. 

Hispanic Heritage Month

Hispanic Heritage Month | Disney Channel

Hispanic Heritage Month | Nick Jr.

Sesame Street Latino Festival

FREEBIE

Thank you for reading this far! I hope you and your students have a great time celebrating influential Hispanic Leaders all year long. Click HERE to download FREE bookmarks featuring 8 different influential Hispanics.  These FREE bookmarks are exclusive to my blog readers. This means they are not available any where else! Enjoy!

Don't forget to visit my TpT store HERE to see more activities for your bilingual classroom. Until next time friends! ¡Hasta luego!

*This post contains an Amazon Affiliate link. This means I make a small commission at NO EXTRA CHARGE to you when you purchase through my links. Thank you for your support, come back soon!

YOTTOY Productions

I recently received a YOTTOY Productions book and plush. Did you know that they are a woman-owned company that started in 1995? Growing up, Kate (the owner of YOTTOY) would see fancy toys in stores and dreamed of one day having her own toy business! She accomplished her dream. Now, YOTTOY has an impressive variety of books to choose from and you can also purchase a matching/accompanying toy to go with the book. The soft toys are high quality, cute, and a treasure to share.

I chose “No dejes que la Paloma conduzca el autobus” and the bus plush. YES! They have popular SPANISH books, too. So often these cute books and toys are only in English, but YOTTOY Productions does have SPANISH books available: Corduroy, El camioncito azul, and ¡No dejes que la Paloma conduzca el autobus! If you are looking for these books and a matching toy to add to your read alouds, I highly suggest visiting YOTTOY Productions. My own girls loved cuddling the bus as I read the book out loud to them! They are already deciding which book and toy plush we'll be purchasing to add to their collection :) 

Do you want to win your choice of SPANISH book and plush? To celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, I have teamed up with YOTTOY to give one lucky winner a Spanish book and toy plush of their choice. Head on over to my Instagram @mmbilingual to enter this amazing giveaway!

https://www.instagram.com/mmbilingual/

Until next time friends! XO

Linguacious Review and a Giveaway!

Hello everyone! I am back today with a fabulous resource you can use with your bilingual students or even your own kiddos. Have you heard of Linguacious? Linguacious is a company that provides language learning products in Hebrew, Spanish, French, German, Mandarin Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, English/ESL, Russian. I have been trying out a few of their products and am here with an in depth review AND a giveaway. 

Linguacious focuses on both the expressive and receptive language domains and their materials target all language skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Keep reading to see how I've used them.

~Flashcards~

We all use flashcards with our students, well, wait until you try these! The Linguacious flashcards have:

1) vibrant, real life photos

2) easy to read text

3) a QR code that you can scan to listen to the correct pronunciation from a native speaker

The flashcards include suggested games you can try at home or at school. It is a great way to practice and truly internalize a new language. I have used them with my 2nd graders in a word study center where they scan the QR code, listen to the word, then they'll try to use it in a sentence. I've also used these with my 18 month old baby girl. Of course, she's not speaking in sentences, yet! With her, I'll point to the picture, say the word, then scan it with the phone QR reader (she LOVES to listen to the word pronunciation).

~Posters~

The posters are a quick way to have the same words as the flashcards. I have these displayed around the classroom and they are easy to scan whenever you want students to practice their words. There are 3 posters which include: a side of things around the home and a side of animals. 

Giveaway & Coupon Code

Linguacious and I have teamed up to bring you a 10% discount using MMBILI10 on your Amazon purchase. Take advantage before it expires on February 12th! Furthermore, we will be giving away a poster set to one lucky follower. All you have to do is follow the rafflecopter instructions below. Good luck and until next time, friends!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Spanish eBook 2017!

2017 Spanish ebook, free Spanish lesson plans, games, activities, and teaching tips

Whether you're new teacher or a veteran teacher, the 2017 Spanish ebook, is a definite must-have for your school year.

What is the Spanish ebook you ask?  

It's a downloadable document with teaching tips and free resources from 25 top teacher authors.   Yes, you heard that right!  You get 25 free Spanish resources for your classroom.  And trust me - these lesson plans are really good!  We created 2 versions, one for K-5 Spanish teachers and one for Grades 6-12.

Grades K-5 Free Spanish lesson plans, games, and activities:

*Take Home Binder Labels *Los sonidos iniciales *Llama coloring sheet *Back to School Pennant in Spanish *Trabajo de palabras *La araña pequeñita *Scoot Numbers to 5 *Los Pescaditos Poem *Colombia Minibook *Adivina Quién Game *Los días de la semana reader *Transition Video *Repaso de sonidos *Goal Planning Worksheets *Back to School Games Sampler *Unit 1 Los Pollitos Dicen

Grades 6-12 Free Spanish lesson plans, games, and activities:

*Scavenger Hunt Activity *Present Tense Summary Chart *Interactive Notebook Flash Cards *School Supplies Vocabulary Puzzles *All About Me Infographic Activity *Reward Coupons *Imperfect Tense Task Cards *Readings for MovieTalk Extension *"Fotografía" Song Activities *Student Profile Sheet *Para Empezar Daily Bell Ringers *Transition Video *Interactive Reading Activity for Hispanic Heritage Month *Categories Game *50 Culture Project Ideas *Clothing Google Drive Activity *Preterite vs. Imperfect Graphic Organizer *Interactive Activities for September *Todo acerca de mi Build-a-Book *Spanish Adjective Bingo *Comic Strip Activity *Instagram Activity *"Paraíso" Song Activities *Digital Breakout Activity *Conjugation Game for -AR Verbs *Classroom Management Strategy

Not only do you get the free resources, but each of these veteran Spanish teachers shares a pro teaching tip.  Even though I've taught for many years, I always learn so much when I read these. Our K-5 2016 ebook and Grades 6-12 2015 ebook and 2016 ebooks have been downloaded over 14,000 times.  And guess what? Each of them has additional teaching tips and free Spanish resources.  Triple the fun! So you can get 80 free Spanish games, activities, teaching tips, and lesson plans for your class.  Amazing! Still not sure?  Here's a sneak peek at my page.  You'll need to download the actual ebook to be able to click on the resources.     

And for those of you who also teach French, be sure to check out the French ebook.

Hope that all these tips, tricks, and resources help you have the best year ever!

End of Year Tips - Blog Hop

Hello friends and welcome back to my blog! Today we are sharing a blog hop jam packed with helpful ideas to help you finish of the year strong. Keep reading and remember to visit all the blogs to collect all the letters for our giveaway!

My tip for the end of the year has to do with organization. I have file folders for each week of the year. My plan for the end of the year is to visit each folder and add or remove activities based on how helpful they were this year. *Hopefully* I find out soon if I'll be staying in the same grade level/assignment, if not whoever comes in to my classroom will pretty much be set up!

I realize there is so much to do at the end of the year, BUT the more organized you leave everything, the better prepared you will be come the beginning of the year. Slowly tackle your files, drawers, closets (eeek!), and school computer.

Here is a FREE End of the Year Planning Checklist to help you write down everything you need to do before closing up your classroom for the summer.

If you need any resources for the end of the year: I have my bestselling memory books HERE and a free summer bingo HERE!

My letter for the giveaway is:

Now don't forget to enter our giveaway! My Spanish teacher friends and I are giving away a $50 TpT giftcard to one lucky reader. Enter below :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway Thank you for reading and until next time!

An InLinkz Link-up

Scholastic - Let's Find Out Review

Welcome back to my blog friends! Today I am here to share about a fantastic resource you can utilize in your Spanish Immersion/Dual Language classroom. I was recently contacted by Scholastic to review their Let’s Find Out Bilingual Magazine. Imagine my excitement!!!

I have been trying these out with my kiddos for about three weeks and wanted to share with you this wonderful, highly engaging magazine and some of its components.

Magazine

First, I received magazines for each of the students in my classroom. I have been utilizing these in small group. I love the crisp photographs and easy to read format that my students can easily follow. There is an individual magazine for students and a BIG teacher edition. I love posting this BIG version on my wall to engage interest even before reading. The magazines are great for Pre-K – 1^st grade students. You can even use them like me – with my struggling 2^nd graders. The content aligns with the standards as shown below. 

Online Components

Let’s Find Out in Spanish is simple and effective to implement in the classroom. It has an online component which not only reads the magazine out loud to the students, it also includes a building background video, learning games, and even links to related printables. Students are making connections and recalling content with these high interest activities. 

Vocabulary

Building language and vocabulary is always of high importance in the classroom. Just look below at all the vocabulary students read and studied throughout this past year’s issues! My students immediately started adding words they were learning to their Libro de Palabras.

Printables

Last, but certainly not least, the printables are SO helpful and easy to access. There’s prediction charts, observation recording pages, following directions, patterns to cut/paste, and so much more. The reading is engaging and it is followed by an activity that is just as engaging for the students.

You can subscribe here and start planning for next year :) 

So now, time for a GIVEAWAY! Scholastic has allowed me to choose 1 of my blog readers to win a free class set of the May/June issue (limit of 30 magazines). If chosen, you must provide your full name and address to receive these.  All you have to do to enter is leave a comment with your name and how you would utilize these magazines. Winner will be chosen on May 5, 2017 and contacted by May 6, 2017.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this post and found helpful ideas for your classroom. Until next time!