TPRS year 5 - Mi mascota es _____.

Here's a video/song to get you to talk about your students' pets and also get a little brain-break and music all in one.

While it might seem silly, yes I would probably do this in a high school class because in my opinion, high school students are often nostalgic for those activities they used to do in classes as kids.


Step 1: PQA (Personalized Questions and Answers)

Depending on the level of class, here are some Spanish 1 questions I would consider asking to practice some basic structures... in upper levels, you could use more complicated language:

¿Quién tiene una mascota?
¿Cómo se llama?
¿Es pequeño/a, grande o mediano?
¿Es bonito/a o feo/a?
¿De qué color es?
¿Te gusta tu mascota?
(maybe target action word you could ask about: what does it eat? / why is it special? /etc)

TPRS Year 3 - Piratas - Chapters 5-6

So we're still working on reading a chapter or two of Piratas del Caribe y el mapa secreto.  This week we needed to read two chapters because my seniors are leaving in the second week of May!  And we are only in Chapter 5 this week.  So Wednesday, my afternoon classes read through chapters 5-6 (which are not too long and can be lumped together).

Since it was a half day and the afternoon classes aren't always incredibly excited about reading, I noticed that the phrase, "Preparen los cañones." (Prepare the cannons!) was used various times throughout chapter 5 and once or twice in chapter 6.  On a whim, I decided to let them know that every time it came up we had to run to the window and prepare our cannons and fire them at different targets.  I teach high school students ranging from freshman through seniors and I saw most of them thought this was awesome for the first few times.  By the last few, not as many were as enthused, but I was still frantically yelling to them, "Preparen los cañones." and trying to prepare my cannon.  I figured it would add to the intensity of the action in the chapters as well as help us connect to the story.  Oh, and it would keep my students awake.

Maybe it was more of a distraction for some, but I thought it was great.  I even saw a student I haven't been able to connect with much this year grin each time we ran to the window to prepare our cannons.

That definitely made it worth it!