Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday! Food, family, football, friends and leftovers. I have described my traditions in Spanish several times to new friends. Here’s a little about what I do in class.
I can talk about Thanksgiving.
This year I gave this goal sheet to my students. They are working on each of the goals at their own pace and putting evidence of their learning on their blogs. If you don’t have blogs, try Edmodo or another share site. We have done some of the activities together, like the Cena de Pavo song and talking about their favorite foods. On the last day before break, I’ll give a presentational writing or speaking assessment to see what they have learned.
I can sing “Cena de Pavo.”
Here’s the video of the “Cena de Pavo” song (lyrics by Megan). PLEASE DON’T show this in your class! This video is for teachers only! Deal?? Afterwards, students add a second verse (with actions) and share with the class. Always a fun day!
Cena de pavo
I can say what I’m thankful for.
I’m going to do a day on “saying thanks” by first showing some “gracias por” images from Google. Next they will find their own and put on their blog. Finally they will write “Thank you” letters to someone (correomagico.com) or write it on a leaf for the “Arbol de gracias” (Thanks tree) bulletin board that one group of students made.
I can say what I love, like and hate to eat on Thanksgiving.
I found some infographics that show the vocabulary. I’ll never give a vocab list again now that I have these. I will do a “four corners” activity first. I will hang one sign in each corner of the room (“I love,” “I like,” “I hate” and “I don’t know”). I will show a picture and say it, and then they will go to the corner that represents their feelings. Once there, they will talk with their group to come up with reasons why and write it on the dry-erase board. Then I’ll say another word. Lastly they will “sort” the foods into the four categories in their notes.
I can talk about traditional activities.
I will show them some input using tweets about Thanksgiving. There are also some videos about cooking turkey in Spanish that I may play. Then they will find tweets, videos and/or infographics that represent what they do with their families and friends.
We hope you have a wonderful time with your family and friends! We are very THANKFUL for our awesome community here on CLC!
If you want the unit, ready to teach, click on the image.
You ladies are so creative and amazing!! I appreciate your refreshing ideas. THANKS a million.
You’re welcome! It’s all about exciting our students to learn.
¿Patatas? ¡Qué castellana! 😉
Of course that can easily be changed to papas!
Thanks for all the sharing that you do. You guys have given me so many great ideas. I wish I could have gone to ACTFL and met you.
We wanted to meet people there, but it was so huge and there were so many sessions. I agree though! We will figure out a way to meet.
One question…I am having trouble finding infographics beyond the one above. What search terms did you put in?
The more specific, the better: infografia + “dia de gracias” “viernes negro” “verduras” “futbol americano” “maiz” http://www.laprensa.com.ni/infografia/2514 http://twitpic.com/7j69ts
I want to have the students create an infografia in Spanish about something based on data they get from the school. I can see a picture of a pie with different slices that shows their results of what kind of pie people prefer. Or shopping bags saying where they shop on Black Friday. Or where they go to celebrate.
I just noticed the Infografia talks about making the turkey for the “end of the year.” That detail will make a nice cultural comparison! Also I’m putting most of these “visuals” on my class blog so they can look at them on their own. I ask them to respond by saying one fact that is interesting or one opinion.
Alligato suggested this good site http://app.piktochart.com/home to make them.
Great article and list of other sites: http://edudemic.com/2012/08/diy-infographics/
For those of you French teachers out there, I have been looking on Twitter to see what is out there in French. I found that if I searched “Thanksgiving dinde” many came up. You may want to get on Twitter and put some vocabulary combinations in to see if any other tweets come up about Thanksgiving. I also found some articles on google about Black Friday. I searched “Black Friday aux etats-unis” and several articles came up in French, some tweets came up under that search as well. To have your students send “thank you” notes they can go to http://www.linternaute.com/cartes/
Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy!!
Thanks Rachel…. I teach both!
Chicas- como siempre- genial! Este año no puedo usar sus ideas por falta de tiempo pero Zjones tiene un montón de actividades también del DAG…
My bad… I was hoping to get them up earlier, but with traveling, a new trimester, and life in general, Sunday was my first open day to do it. Thanks for the info!
No te preocupes! Yo tengo un montón de actividades también pero lo que pasa es que perdimos 2 días por el huracán y quedé atrasada. Sin embargo en diciembre hago mucho con los estudiantes acerca de sus tradiciones y a veces escogen hablar del DAG.
I have a question about your goal sheets.. Do you have the students do all or just a certain number of activities? How do you grade?
Use them however you want! We did all the “turkeys” in class. The boxes were their optional homework and I asked them to do half of them. I assigned each one as 5 points.
Love, love, LOVE the Infographic!
Hi, I went to “adiostextbook” but it looks like I cannot purchase the Thanksgiving unit separately, correct? Thank you!
Hi, Wendy! That is right. AdiósTextbook is more like a buffet – you get access to everything for the month! You could probably teach two full units in a month and it would include lessons, student goal sheets, homework options, assessments. Let us know if you have any other questions.