Story Script - finicky baby

This is a story after telling this Peanut Butter Lips Movietalk.

So I needed one more story to finish out the over-the-top food unit for Spanish 2 (*cough cough* ridiculous vocab list *cough* cough*) before finals.

story structures (past tense for oral storytelling)

And I have been working on a song in my head for about a year and a half for my Youtube Channel that requires me to do some animation and play piano. So as I work on those two things, it's on the back-burner. But the story is about a finicky piñata baby who is hungry and a duck keeps bringing him food.

It's pretty fun and I hope to share it soon.

The oral story structures were to work on some things that we hadn't done a lot intentionally. So I needed to hit "they" forms more in the past tense and to highlight it a little bit.

It was actually a fun story. And I know the difference between "brought "and "took" in Spanish, but sometimes you have to use the structures you have to use to get them in the kids' heads.

Here's the mini-unit if sorts. I don't have any assessments for it since the final is coming up. But I tend to do exit slip quizzes in Spanish over what we have talked about with questions of varying difficulty.


Change for next year:
Change "era demasiado"(it was too...) to "sabía demasiado" (It tasted too...)

Spanish 2 - Broccoli story for daily routines / reflexives

Ever get locked into silly curriculum (or what others call curriculum which is really just a textbook)?

Well if you find yourself having to teach those pesky "daily routines", how about doing it in a new and sillier way?

In my Spanish 2 classes this semester, I am supposed to cover reflexives as well as foods. So I thought, why not combine them!?

So here is what I came up with.

It's about a piece of broccoli that aspired to something more.

I want you to be able to use it in your classes ABSOLUTELY free.  But I do ask that you don't delete the slides that tell that I am the author of the story because it did take me a LONG time and it would make me very sad if someone else took the credit for all of my work.

Click here for a version for Spanish teachers:

If you teach another language or if you'd rather a wordless version to do a picture-talk of sorts with your kids (describing each slide with your own target vocab) click here.

I'd love to hear if you end up using it in a class and how it is received!

If you'd like to use it in your classes but have no idea where to even start consider the following steps:
How to do a Picture Talk:

1. Look at the pictures and look for any underlying themes or words that could be repeated.
(needs, thinks, should, wants, goes, decides, is, etc)

2. Come up with a simple written version of the story that you can tell your students while you go through the pictures.

3. Tell the story to students.

4. While telling the story, to build interest, add dialogue, add voice inflection, ask the students questions about how the character feels, what happens, something parallel in their lives (who would put on a meat dress), etc. While staying in the language in a comprehensible way.

5. Perhaps tell the story again on a different day.

Other Options:
1. tell a super simple version of the story on day 1; a slightly more difficult version day 2; etc

2. tell the story in chunks depending on the length of your classes

3. have a student act out the story

4. come up with your own similar (but different) story about a character wanting to get into a club but maybe they don't have an id or they don't look old enough. So by the time you read this story, it is similar to them and you can compare and contrast the information in this story to their story.

5. have a reading version of the story on another day with fleshed out details; backstories; anything else that will make the story more compelling. I might for my classes add that the broccoli goes to different stores to buy the parts of his wardrobe.

Hope that helps and you're able to have great success in your classes with this story!

Fashion report - vocabulary filler

So I mentioned in a previous post that I am trying to do my best to teach lots of clothing words in a way that (while contrived) is a compromise for me without having to do a LONG vocabulary list.

Each day I do the following:

1. my stick-drawer (job) draws a stick with a name at random and I describe what the person is wearing to the class (including colors afterwards to describe)
2. I recently started asking that person to stand up; not sure I would feel comfortable doing this depending on the class, but my students this year know I am not there to make fun of them and so far have been great sports. I don't talk about them for more than 30 seconds to a minute anyways.
3. Then ask about the words up there that I have pre-determined and ask if anyone is wearing a certain thing.
4. Could ask a follow up question, what store did you buy that in ? (need to "cover" preterite this year... but that's actually an interesting question if you want to know!)

I know it's nothing earth-shattering. But I feel like it is going about as well as I expected.

Today I gave them a warm up where they were supposed to match the clothing words to the English counterpart and they did just fine.

So I am glad that this frees me up for teaching with stories and other things I enjoy in the rest of class and I can incorporate the clothing as needed.

Here's the template if you wanted to use something similar.

I don't change it every day, but might change the color of the socks, shoes, shirts, etc.

Oh silly vocab lists

Something that tends to always try to rear its ugly head in my class are vocabulary lists.

I resist and resist and resist, but this year I am working in a large department (various schools) and they have agreed on some various vocab that should be in common among the different levels.

So for Spanish 2, I find myself doing WHATEVER I can to not let my class be overrun by the common vocabulary activity, but instead to expose my students all semester/year to the words slowly adding in new ones.

I bring this up because one thing I COULD do is teach every single clothing word known to man. But I know that if I do that, I am wasting valuable time on actual class time that could be used for input-based activities.

My compromise is to try and do a "fashion report" every day in Spanish 2 where I just talk about what someone is wearing at random and we can move on with our lives.

It's completely experimental.  I'll let you know how it goes!

Wish me luck!

Comercial - Me voy de casa

So this year in Spanish two, I have certain vocabulary points I need to hit for a unit and I have wanted to use this commercial for years.

I decided to do a lot of TPR first with my classes to build up their understanding of some words for sure.

So this folder gives you all of the things that I used with the Argentine commercial: Personal - Me voy de casa. (Folder Contains: screenshots from movie, TPR, warm ups, readings, Movietalk slides, instructions & reflection)

Commercial:

Here is more or less what I did.

El muñeco viviente - the living doll (revised)

Last year I briefly mentioned a mini-unit that dealt with muñecas.

In the mini-unit, I wanted to spice things up and tell a story based on real life about a guy named Justin who has gone through body modification.

This is the second year I've used this presentation. I think it could work out great in a unit on body image and talking about how if kids are comfortable with their body. I don't really organize things that way quite yet, but I could see it being something to talk to kids about depending on your relationship with them and/or maturity/class level.

I like it because most of the kids don't know who he is and they really find the presentation fascinating and want to know what's going on.  So it makes for compelling and comprehensible (if we did our jobs right) input.

I want to share last year's presentation and this year's.  You might notice I revised the presentation and added a few different words. I made some language slightly more compex using various forms of dar (to give) to expose my kids more to the indirect objects (to me, to you, to him/her). Thus far they get that "le means to him or to her" (said in a southern accent).

But what I want is to make it so next year in Spanish 2, when the emphasis is more on grammar, these things will make more sense because of all the front-loaded contextualized and comprehensible language.

Here's the original presentation. you'll notice there was one version and it was a day long presentation + quiz. I also had some TPR to get them moving and scaffold some words (mixed new with old).



Here is the new one. You'll notice I made it into an embedded reading (to keep pushing my kids to read). Version 1 was the first day after some TPR* (and other class activities).  Version 2 will be with a partner (on day 1 or day 2 depending on time). And version 3 will be as a class. There is also a part in version three where we can get up and move around to vote on our opinions (movement is crucial in my class as a brain break and just something different).



Click here to see version 2 if you wanted to see the progression.

Let me know what you think!  It's one of my favorite stories in the year because one year a student was adamant about how much they hated silly stories. It made me realize that we have to mix things up with real stuff too!

*the first 3 TPR terms are from our last spoken story. "le da" is a review and for some reason this year, I never got to "el cuerpo" (the body) so I added it in and "piensa" (s/he thinks) will be great as we start expressing our opinions more with it instead of "en mi/tu/su opinión" (in my/your/his/her opinion).