Let's travel to a French-speaking city! ~ Paper bag suitcase craftivity

Today we are making a suitcase craftivity and planning a trip to a French-speaking city! We are sneaking some writing practice and cultural information into this fun craft.

First, take a paper bag and fold it into thirds. Now tape or glue an index card into each section of the folded bag. You can have the index cards pre-printed with the start of each sentence (like mine below), or you can have the students copy the text onto the cards themselves. Next, have the students complete the sentences.

Now it is time to decorate!
I used a paper fastener to close my example suitcase. You can also use velcro circles. Students can create a handle to the suitcase by trimming the edge of the paper bag or using construction paper. Finally, they will decorate the suitcase using markers and stickers.

Enjoy!

I was inspired by Inner Child Fun's blog post.

El día de los muertos ~ 5 Day of the Dead Classroom Activities

El Día de los Muertos is just around the corner. Here are five activity ideas for your classroom!


1. Make QUICK and SIMPLE {make in 20 minutes!} sugar candy skulls!

2. Want even more sugary treats? These marshmallow sugar skull pops by mom.me are sooooo pretty!

3. Learn what the Day of the Dead is all about. Then complete a sorting activity for what is typical & what is not typical on the Day of the Dead.

4. Let the students face paint Day of the Dead faces on each other. Here is an easy tutorial from mom.me.

5. Or if you prefer something less messy, make paper plate Calavera masks.

What's your favorite classroom Day of the Dead activity? Comment below!

Hispanic Heritage Month Activity Freebie & Bulletin Board Idea!

I'm excited to share this fun Hispanic Heritage Month activity with you! It is super fun and will get your students talking about important Hispanic Americans. You can download the activity here.

Print pages 1 and 2 front to back. You'll need one for each student. Have the students fold along the solid line (see #1 below). Next, have them open the page back up & cut along the dotted lines (see #2 below). Now have the students choose a famous Hispanic American and complete the clue sentences inside the paper (see #3 below).

Now provide each student with a copy of page 3 of the download. Have them glue, tape, or staple their clues to the right side of the ¿Quién soy yo? page. (See #4 below)

Print pages 4 & 5 of the download front to back. Fold the page down the middle & cut down the dotted line. You will give one "Me llamo" slip to each student. They will open the slip and write the name of the famous Hispanic American they chose to describe inside (See #5 below).

Have the students glue or staple their "Me llamo" slips on the inside of the last clue. They will want to attach it to the left side, without covering up the text of that last clue (see #6 below).

And now you are ready to play! You can have one student come up to the front of the class and begin to open and read each clue while the class tries to guess who it is. Or you can have the students pair up & work together to try to figure out who is being described. 

After everyone has finished the activity, they can draw on and color the person outline to illustrate who it is they used for their ¿Quién soy yo? page. The completed products make a great Hispanic Heritage month bulletin board!

Spanish Class Back to School Freebie Treasures

As promised ... the treasure hunting results for Spanish classes!

The new school year is just around the corner and I'm starting to think about lesson planning. I've spent some time treasure hunting for start of the school year freebies and I'm sharing the treasures I've found!

Today I will be sharing the goodies I've found for my Spanish classes. Last week I shared what I found for my French classes.

Let's start with one of my freebies. It is an All About Me Build-A-Book! Novice learners can cut and paste. Students ready to write on their own can just write on the pages of the book. The students will end up with a mini story book all about them that they can present to the class or read with a partner/in small groups. Find it here.

I love playing Find Someone Who at the start of a school year. It is another great way to learn about our classmates. I like this freebie from el Mundo de Pepita.


I always give my students Spanish names. I just love this back to school name activity by El Tesoro del saber. It is such a cute activity for working with learning new names.


I'll be ready to work with greetings and this greeting game resource from el Mundo de Pepita will make it so much fun!

I'll want to review colors and classroom vocabulary, so I've printed out this freebie from Peg Hutson.

And as I continue working with classroom vocabulary, I'll be excited to use this Spanish Back to School Mini Book from Doodles and Kreations. What an awesome freebie!


And I have one more of my freebies to share. My days of the week reader will get your students reading and talking all about what they do each day of the week. Find it here!

I hope these treasures help you get off to a great new school year!

French Class Back to School Freebie Treasures

The new school year is just around the corner and I'm starting to think about lesson planning. I've spent some time treasure hunting for the start of the school year freebie resources and I want to share the treasures I've found!

Today I will be sharing the goodies I've found for my French classes. Stay tuned for some Spanish class treasures! Coming soon!!

Let's start with one of my freebies. It is an All About Me Build-A-Book! Novice learners can cut and paste. Students ready to write on their own can just write on the pages of the book. The students will end up with a story book all about them that they can present to the class or read with a partner/in small groups. Find it here.

I love playing Find Someone Who at the start of a school year. It is another great way to learn about our classmates. I like this freebie from Dans la classe de Mme Sandra.
Mme Sandra also has another Find Someone Who for older learners & I spied an "I have/who has" game with a back to school theme too. Check out her store!

I just adore these get-to-know-you dice by for French Immersion. The students write questions on the dice and then they work in pairs, rolling the dice and answering questions. For novice learners, the teacher can write the questions and just have the students roll & ask/answer questions.

Students love to share what they did over the summer. And it is yet another way to get to know one another a little better. Check out this back to school writing activity from Mme McIntosh. I know my students will love sharing about their summer adventures!

Moving away from learning about each other and on to working with the French language and school related vocabulary, this Back to School Puzzle by Les petits singes de Mlle W looks like so much fun! Grab it here.

And I have one more of my freebies to share. My days of the week reader will get your students reading and talking all about what they do each day of the week. Find it here!

I hope these treasure help you get off to a great new school year!

Fighting the Second Language Summer Slide

Summer is almost here and our students will be stepping out of the language learning classrooms ... will they spend two months forgetting about their second language? Let's fight the second language Summer Slide!

We can give our students and their families suggested tasks to complete during the summer months.

1. Give a BINGO summer homework sheet like this and when they bring it back the first day of school give them a prize! List things the children have learned to do during the year like name 3 colors or name 3 school objects, etc on the BINGO sheet.

2. Give the families a few apps you recommend the students use. I usually suggest Duolingo or Rosetta Stone. What are your favorites?

3. Suggest to the families that they use italki.com to find a language partner or a low cost native speaker teacher/tutor. On this site you can find someone wanting to learn English and set up a time to talk on Skype (or using another way to connect if you prefer). Then speak one language for half of your exchange, and the target language for the other half. You can also find many low cost teachers or tutors to speak with or give you a lesson.

4. Suggest that the family uses lingoo.com and organize a language exchange! My family has used the site and we've welcomed a German girl to our home (she came twice!) and two French girls. We did a paid stay a couple of times and then an exchange. My daughter spent three weeks last summer speaking French at her language partner's home!

5. Encourage the families of your students to travel! And better yet, take language classes when they travel! My whole family has gone twice to Coeur de France in Sancerre, France, and we love it there! A friend of mine works at Prestige Idiomas in Rosas, Gerona, Spain, and it would be a great destination for Spanish learners!

6. Send home readers your students can read and re-read during the summer. Use audiopal.com or vocaroo.com to record yourself reading the stories and then send home links to the recordings along with the readers. Or post the links to your audio recordings on your class/school website.

What do you ask your students to do during the summer to not forget all they've learned? Comment below with your suggestions!

Spring Activities for Spanish & French Classes

With spring coming up just around the corner, I've compiled some fun spring related activities for French and Spanish class!

1. Take a nature walk! Have your students collect objects in nature ~ things like blades of grass, wildflowers, pieces of bark...

After the walk, return to class with the collected objects. Give each student a photocopy page with the numbers 1-5 on it (you can make the activity harder by using the number words spelled out without the numerals). Students will place the correct number of objects into each numbered area of the page. Have them glue the objects to their pages.

If you are not able to take the class outside for a nature walk, have available objects typical of spring for students to sort and count. They can use seeds, photographs of birds, paper or silk flowers ...

2. For Spanish class, learn a spring poem. For French class, make a Mardi Gras mask.

3. Spring is the perfect time to talk about gardens, plants, vegetables ...  As a part of a garden/vegetable unit, I love to do the celery science experiment. But this Walking Water experiment looks super cool too! It would be a great way to review colors.

4. Eat the parts of a plant! It would be quick and easy to create your own version of this activity in Spanish or French.

5. Play a game outside! In Spanish class you can play Rayuela and in French class, play la Pétanaque.

What are your favorite Spring lesson plan activities? Comment below!

Strategies for Reading to Language Learners

We've talked about why we should read to second language learners. But what are some good strategies for reading? What can we do to allow early language learners to participate in the read aloud?

1. Choose simple and basic stories. Complicated texts or stories with too much unfamiliar vocabulary will just discourage students.

2. Read stories the children are already familiar with. Since they'll already have the gist of what happens in the story, they won't get lost. They'll be more easily able to pick up new vocabulary and sentence structure.

3. Read the story multiple times during a week. Students need exposure over and over to new vocabulary. As you read a 3rd, 4th, ... time, pause now and then and allow the students to complete the sentence.

4. Use a variety of methods to help students understand the vocabulary in the story. Use gestures, your facial expressions, point to illustrations, provide extra illustrations and/or manipulatives when you can. During your 3rd, 4th, ... time reading the story, let the students be the ones to participate in the reading through use of gestures, facial expressions, or use of the extra illustrations and/or manipulatives.

5. Ask questions as you read. "Where is _____?" "Is she happy?" "Does she want to ____?" Give your students the opportunity to use new and previously learned vocabulary.

6. Once you've read the story several times, let your students act it out. They love this! Encourage them to retell the story.

7. Provide them with their own readers to read on their own. Or use audio books along with student readers so they can read along with the audio.

Why Read in the Early Language Learner Classroom

Why Read in the Early Language Learner Classroom

I've always loved to read to my language students as a part of almost every lesson ~ just like I always read to my daughters when they were little. I love it and so do my students ... but I did some thinking and reading about why reading to second language learners is important. Here are 5 reasons to read to your second language students:

1. Reading helps our students learn new vocabulary. Often stories repeat words and patterns and this is especially helpful to our students. Images in the stories also visually reinforce vocabulary.

2. Listening to someone read helps our students learn correct pronunciation.

3. Listening also helps students to pick up the rhythm of the language.

4. Reading to our students leads to conversation ... we can relate the stories to our own lives, describe illustrations, ask questions about what happens in the stories and make predictions.

5. Reading reinforces spelling ~ find simple stories your students can read on their own.

Why do you feel reading to second language learners is important? Comment below!

FREEBIE included! ~ Teaching Grammar in Context to Language Learners

Teaching Grammar in Context to Language Learners

Teaching students grammar rules isn't the only way to increase proficiency in the target language. The students can't just learn ABOUT the language. They also need to develop skills with USING the language. We need to make good decisions when choosing materials and classroom activities ... to first bombard our students with comprehensible input using a particular grammar focus, and then pushing our students to use the language.

1. Choose appropriate comprehensible materials for students to read, listen & watch the language being used in context. 

2. Play games using the new grammar structures. Here are some game ideas and I like these a lot too.

3. Provide students the opportunity to write in a controlled manner. I like using build-a-books ... and I want to share a build-a-book freebie with you! {including directions for how to use them}. Find the Spanish build-a-book freebie here, and the French build-a-book freebie here.

If you like the build-a-book concept and would like more, find all of my French build-a-books here and my Spanish build-a-books here.

Is there a build-a-book you need and don't see available? Comment below and I'll add it to my to do list!

How to Make Input Comprehensible for Early Language Learners

How to make Input Comprehensible for Early Language Learners

We know we need to teach in the target language and use comprehensible input --- language at the level of our students so they understand most of what we say ... just enough so they can understand the message, but adding new words and structures to push them to expand their knowledge.

So how do we do that with our early language learners?

1. Use songs. Songs can be repeated daily and reinforce vocabulary and sentence structure. Write your own, or purchase from others. 

2. Play vocabulary learning games. Let the students have a silent period where they are just listening to the new language being repeated over and over, and then move on to games where the kids need to speak. Find some game ideas here.

3. Use visuals - photos, images, videos, puppets, the actual item you are talking about. Are your students learning the vocabulary for school objects? Use a real book, pen, pencil, notebook ... Hold up your visuals while you are speaking to help students understand.

4. Read or tell stories ... But they need to be linguistically appropriate. Remember that your students should understand what is going on. Make up silly stories - I like to use a puppet and be silly. Maybe the puppet has packed his backpack for the first day of school and the students and I tell the puppet what he will need. But of course when we open up the backpack it is filled with unnecessary things like a camera, a chocolate bar ... Empty out that backpack and have the students help you refill it with what the puppet needs for school.
Is writing linguistically appropriate stories not your forte? I can help!

Whatever we choose to use as the content of our lesson, we should:

• Paraphrase - remember to make sure the message is understood. Use familiar structures and build on them.
• Slow down our speech
• Use our tone of voice to aid in getting the message across - in my silly puppet lesson I will use a tone of voice that says "Are you crazy?" when I pull the absurd things out of the backpack.
• Use gestures
• Use yes/no questioning to check for comprehension - I will ask in the target language "Is there a pencil in the backpack?"
• Repeat, repeat, REPEAT!!! Re-read, re-watch, re-listen, re-tell over and over and over and over again. With each repeat, try pausing and allowing the students to finish your sentences or do the retelling of the story. As we add an item to the backpack, one at a time, I will say in the target language, "Now Mr. Puppet has a pencil in his backpack." "Now Mr. Puppet has a pencil and a book in his backpack." "Now Mr. Puppet has a ______ (pause and allow the class to say it) and a _____, and a _____ in his backpack."

What strategies do you use to help your students understand the language you use in the classroom? Comment below!