Posts

Showing posts from October, 2013

Dia de los Muertos en México (Day of the Dead in Mexico)

Image
On November the 2nd the Mexicans celebrate a very special day called "The Day of the Dead". I am in a Dual Immersion School teaching Spanish and we have a lot of students from Mexico so I decided to do something special to teach different cultures around the world and how different or similar are with Halloween. El Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead), a Mexican celebration, is a day to celebrate, remember and prepare special foods in honor of those who have departed. On this day in Mexico, the streets near the cemeteries are filled with decorations of papel picado , flowers, candy calaveras (skeletons and skulls), and parades. In order to celebrate, the families make altars and place ofrendas (offerings) of food such as pan de muertos baked in shapes of skulls and figures, candles, incense, yellow marigolds known as cempazuchitl (also spelled zempasuchil) and most importantly a photo of the departed soul is placed on the altar.  I have found a lot of activities i

Seeds month

Image
I have been working on seeds during all last month and I want to share some photos and activities we did during this unit. As you already know one of the activities we did is guessing... "which seed is it?" in order to know some characteristics of the seeds, how are they, where can we find them... There is a freebie with the activity in case you like it and here is one photo while the students were working on it.  We also worked on this booklet I made with the information I want them to know. When we talked or worked about something we went to the booklet to do an activity related with it. We read a nice story about seeds and how can be transformed in something big!! even for winning a prize! We did some crafts about dandelions and we learn about how seeds can travel. In Theatre Arts we were seeds and we grew up very high to become a plant... My students love to play a game with fly swatters and I use it with every goal I want them to learn. The game co

Doubles

Image
In the Math Core for first graders we have to teach how to do doubles plus one or doubles minus one... but they must know doubles by heart to start learning the other goal!! So I have done some activities to study doubles from 1 to 10. I ask them everyday before going to the recess one of the facts. If they already know what I ask they can go to the playground but if they count with their fingers or they don't know the answer they go to the line again. It is funny for them and it is a good practice to learn these facts. I have uploaded one activity about doubles with pictures about Fall and Halloween. You can download them for free in my tpt page. Enjoy it!!

Let's talk about... HALLOWEEN

Image
Math and Halloween are great topics to put together. Children love this day and they enjoy a lot doing any activity related with it. So, let's take advantage of it and let's work on Math having this topic as the main idea. I am working in reading and comprehending math problems. It is extremely important the students guess if they have to do an addition or a subtraction. It is important also they do this fact in the correct way and fast. I have prepared some pages that focus on this Math Activities. In the pack there are also flashcards so the children can trace, write, read and learn some vocabulary about Halloween. All the materials are in color and black and white so you can decide how are you going to work with them. I use them doing centers and the students can work on different tasks while I am with the students who are reading and doing the math problems because I want them to read and think what do they have to do. In this pages they are divided. One page is

Seeds, seeds, seeds...

Image
Freebie included about seeds in my new tpt store. As you know I teach Spanish and We are talking about seeds. One of the activities I did with my first graders was comparing and guessing different seeds. I worked this unit in different ways. This activity was done while we worked in centers. One group was doing this fun worksheet while the others worked on these other ones: Art: We made a dandelion from an idea I saw on pinterest. Reading and coloring: I prepared a book about seeds and with the information I wanted them to know. One group was reading it with me and another one colored after reading.  Finally, another group worked with the seeds we were growing... They competed to see which group has the biggest plants... If you'd like to get the freebie about the first activity go to my tpt store and take it. It's free. Enjoy with it!! http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Seeds-Semillas-920593 Freebie linked in... <cente

SEP Conferences

Image
It's great to meet with parents but it's exhausting... I have to meet with 60 parents and I have to evaluate their children in front of them, this way they can see how their child is learning Spanish. This is how my English partner and me do the SEP Conferences... First of all I start doing the Spanish evaluation. In this first meeting, because the children has been in Spanish only since August, I have prepared the next: 1. We have learned to say... I like and I don't like so I show the children one face (happy or sad) and one color and the child has to say "I like red" or "I don't like green" depending on what I show to them. 2. I show them some flashcards I have prepared about animals for them to count and say the sentence... There are ....(number)... (animal) 3. We have been working in addition and subtraction in maths so I prepared some flashcards for them to count and add or take away (and also read the number sentence and tell me