I’ve posted about this before, but I wanted to share this again because it continues to hold true. The easiest way I’ve found to “teach” vocabulary is to give them something authentic with lots of pictures with the vocabulary. 
I just started to teach about ordering in a restaurant. I’m sending them to Telepizza to sort out their vocabulary. In their notes, they will have a “love it”, “like it”, and “hate it” page. They are going to look at the website to decide where to put each topping in their notebook. This would be good to do a categorizing activity too. I’m always surprised how much they learn so quickly!
Has any one found a good site to use for school supplies?
I like this one: http://www.lumen.com.mx/
If you mean vocab for ‘en mi mochila’ (cuaderno, libro, boli, goma, etc…) then go to http://www.elcorteingles.es and then to papeleria! I did a great lesson where the students had to go onto the website and search specific items and write down theirs prices. Was very rewarding 🙂
I have used these before…
https://www.prisa.cl/home/
http://www.librerianorma.com/categorias/categoria.aspx?p=3Ekx5W6R6abVEGy687aWwnv0tIXr4KTG
I have used these…
http://www.librerianorma.com/inicial/inicio_general.aspx
https://www.prisa.cl/home/#
Would you happen to have any ideas for “la casa unit”? if you do please let me know. I aslo wanted to ask if your school has a language lab?
Think about sites that sell furniture like IKEA, El Corte Ingles, etc. then find their sites for a Hispanic country. We’ve even searched on Pinterest for home ideas.
And no language lab. We have iPads an desktops to use in class.
I’ve used http://www.famsa.com. Our chapter also includes numbers over 199, so I took advantage of the prices in Mexican pesos to practice those and do some culture/cross-curricular math.
And from Pintetest, I found and used The Make Room-http://www.urbanbarn.com/Room-Planner. Though it is in English, it has images of pieces of furniture that you can move around in basic room styles.
Thank you, I will do some searching. Our district just got language labs. They are awesome and the kids seem to be very motivated to speak. One teacher wrote a grant and that is how we got them. You should look into Steve Learning Systems. They do not advertise so its a little hard to find them. If anyone would like more information about the language lab I wil be gald to provide more information.
I am getting a new room next year that will serve as the language lab when other teachers need it. I would LOVE any ideas you have for lessons, management, etc. I am having a difficult time trying to figure out how to adjust my notes/activities/lessons in general for next year when all my students have computers every day.
We just got the lab and I don’t have much experience using it. The lab is up in the ceiling and comes down with the touch of a button. It includes headphones and a microphone only. I guess it’s different than an actual computer lab, but we use it for speaking and listening activities. My students don’t have to get out of their seats. Sorry this is not much help.
Any good ideas for teaching stores or city vocabulary? I was thinking maybe a scavenger hunt?
Scavenger hunt sounds good. Where else might you see names of places and pictures? I started with the vocabulary that they might hang out and added more “touristy” ones as we went.
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For the house unit my teacher intern and I had them create and advertisement for the house, including #of rooms, floors. Then they had to “shop” for the house. We did and inside/outside circle for two days. One group (sellers) displayed the ad and their “shoebox” house (if they built one). The other group (buyers) visited at least 4-5 sellers and asked questions, which were developed earlier. Afterwards, they decided which house they would buy and write one or two statements using TL explaining which house and why.