I have been a fan of Rockalingua since it started. This small company is run by Cesar Chinchilla, a talented elementary Spanish teacher based in California.
I have firsthand experience using the songs in my classes, and they truly engage my students. I was pleased to learn that Rockalingua released a DVD that includes 13 fun songs. This DVD has colorful and live animations that students love. The songs are well paced and allow space for repetition in class. Some of the tracks even include a karaoke version!
I have used this DVD as a warm up in my classes or as a way to support my units. This DVD has become my students’ favorite, and many of them ask for it every class.
Rockalingua has a great collection of songs and videos in their online store. You can purchase the songs and videos as you develop your lessons or get everything with a yearly membership.
Giveaway Time!
I am lucky enough to own my very own Rockalingua DVD. I would love one of my readers to own a copy too! To participate, enter below. Winners will be announced on Monday, September 29th, 2014. World wide participants are welcome! ¡Buena suerte!
It doesn’t matter if it’s the first or the 20th year teaching, the feeling of the butterflies in the stomach always comes back on the first day of school, and I had mine this week!
Every year I have new students so I put together a book or a powerpoint. This year I decided to go with a Prezi presentation – I used the free version. I included pictures of my family and Colombia and shared them with my students. I used this with my second and third grade classes. At the end of my presentation we played a game called “Falso o Cierto,” and it was basically questions about my presentation. I asked questions such as ¿Es tu maestra de español de Costa Rica?, ¿En la familia de tu maestra de español hay 5 personas? and the children had to answer if it was false or true. They seemed to enjoy playing this game. Many of them participated, and the new ones got to learn something about me.
After the game we played “pasa la bola,” and students had to answer, using full sentences, when asked ¿Cómo estas? and also ¿Cómo te llamas?
They needed a little bit of movement, we reviewed colors and the shared about their favorite color before playing the “color, colorcito ” game.
(image taken from the Boston Children’s museum website)
It was time to settle down and talk about the rules in class. Toward the end of last school year, I started using “Whole Brain Teaching“in my class. I had great results, so I decided to implement it from the outset of this school year.
We went over the first 5 classroom rules and practiced them a lot!
At the end of class, I used an oral “exit ticket” about the rules and then they went to line up to go back to their classrooms.
It was a simple lesson, but it seemed to be a good fit to start the new school year. If you were wondering if this all happened in Spanish, yes, it did! Modeling a lot, using TPR, and tons of visuals help! It was a 45 minute period too!
Have a wonderful school year!
Carolina
ABOUT ME
¡Hola! I am Carolina, a Colombian elementary Spanish teacher based in Boston, MA. Fun for Spanish Teachers is the result of my passion for teaching Spanish to children and my desire to inspire collaboration and creativity in a vibrant teaching and learning community. It’s the perfect stop if you are looking for songs, games, teaching tips, stories, and fun for your classes.
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