Día de Reyes Magos/New Year resource again!

FELIZ Año nuevo mis amigos!!!!

I took a MUCH needed break from my YouTube, Twitter, and Blog over vacation. I still managed to work the entire time but it was amazing how much more relaxed I feel. I had to reset before coming back yesterday to 6 classes/6 preps back to back! It is going to be a crazy semester but I am prepared and have some ideas and time saving tricks up my sleeve!!!

Yesterday I spoke about “Nochevieja” in Spain. I did the SAME thing in every  class I just leveled the vocabulary and structures I used for each.

• Their Do NOW was to explain WHAT traditions they have in their families to celebrate New Year’s Eve. (upper levels spoke about this and lower levels wrote it)
• We shared those traditions and I wrote it all up on the board as they spoke so they could see the Spanish written. It was SUPER fun to hear how they circumlocuted “fireworks”
• We watched this video. They found it hysterical.  We watched it at a slower speed in all but my most advanced class.
  • Recently, on the iFLT Facebook Group,  Ms. Rita Marie started a post about  how INCREDIBLE the “SPEED Setting” feature on YouTube is. Her excitement was EXACTLY how I felt when a student introduced me to it a month ago!
    • “So, may of you are probably already aware of this, but I just discovered it today on accident and I am SO excited! I was watching a “DreamingSpanish” video on YouTube lamenting the fact that he was still probably too fast for my kiddos — so I clicked on the little wheel and noticed that it was at “Normal” speed, so I slowed it to .5 and suddenly, Dreaming Spanish videos are now pretty darn comprehensible for my kiddos! How did I not know about this before?!?!”
  • Here is a video of how to change the speed setting. 
• We watched some of this video (from 17:30 onward) so I could show them Puerta del Sol and compare it to Times Square.
• I put this final video up and told the kids that the girl who “set the camera” is my friend Sara, in Spain. They believe everything remember?!  I told the kids that Sara had sent me grapes from Spain so that we could do the “countdown” with her and her family when we came back to school! They half way believed me until I pulled out the bag of raisins (using Ms. Elvira Rebate’s idea) and told them that they had all shrunk and become super old and wrinkled in the shipping process. SOME 6th GRADERS STILL BELIEVED ME!!!! (One even took me aside after class, politely asked if he could speak in English, and proceeded to tell me that he was concerned that I was SO gullible as to have believed my friend, and that they were for sure raisins and he is SURE of it, and that he thinks I need to call her and tell her she is “mentirosa”)
  • I passed out 12 “old grapes” per child and we ate them as we watched “Sara’s”  family do it!
  • I am annoyed that this video is sideways but it was TOO funny not to share. These were my favorite reactions. ALL of my other classes thoroughly enjoyed it! These are my drama kings….

Tomorrow I plan to teach the same thing I did last year for Día de Reyes. You can find the presentation I made with Sara Broussard’s embedded reading last year right here.  The 6th is an INCREDIBLY important day in my family. It is the start of MARDI GRAS here in New Orleans, it is my Grandparent’s anniversary, it is my PARENT’S anniversary, and most importantly it is Isla Rose’s (my soon to be step-daughter’s) 4th BIRTHDAY!!!

I hope that this isn’t too late and you haven’t already created something for yourself, and if you have I hope this can supplement it! I just wanted to write something to reflect on the New Year and make sure I had it all in one place for next year!

YAY!!!

Until next time,

Happy Teaching!  AND….

Peace, LOVE, and HAPPINESS, to you and yours, my dear friends!

Love,

La Maestra Loca