Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo, May 5th, commemorates the defeat of the French by the Mexican Army in 1862. It’s a national holiday in Mexico, and is celebrated by Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans in the United States.

Finding high-interest materials for students to read, and activating prior knowledge, are both good instructional strategies, so in that spirit I offer another “The Best…” list.

Here are my choices for The Best Sites For Teaching & Learning About Cinco de Mayo:

The Orange County Register has a good interactive graphic about the day.

EL Civics has a good Cinco de Mayo Lesson designed for English Language Learners..

The History Channel has a Cinco de Mayo feature.

Here’s a video presentation of a Cinco de Mayo Celebration by the San Jose Mercury News.

This is a simple historical explanation by Social Studies for Kids.

How Stuff Works has a presentation on How Cinco de Mayo Works.

Glencoe has an online slideshow on the day’s history.

For students who are not from Mexico (and for those who are) here are some accessible links for them to learn some basic information about the country:

Apples 4 The Teacher has a “talking book” about Mexico.

Here’s an interactive timeline of Mexico’s History. It’s from PBS.

Mr. Nussbaum has two good interactives for learning about Mexico.

Brainpop, Jr. has a movie about Mexico, though you need to have a paid subscription to view it.

MSNBC has a short article on President Obama’s celebration of the holiday.

A Brief History of Cinco de Mayo is a TIME Magazine slideshow.

Read Write Think has a number of good resources, including lesson plans, related to the holiday.

The Detroit News has a slideshow about a local Cinco de Mayo Parade.

Nation’s Capital Celebrates Cinco de Mayo is a video from ABC News.

ESL Holiday Lessons has a lesson for English Language Learners about the holiday.

The U.S. Census Bureau has a fact sheet on the day.

The Modesto Bee has a video of a local celebration.

Why Do We Celebrate Cinco de Mayo is a CNN video.

President Obama Celebrates Cinco de Mayo is a video of the celebration at the White House.

Cinco De Mayo History: 7 Must-Know Facts About The Annual Celebration is a slideshow from The Huffington Post.

Cinco de Mayo goes hip is a slideshow from The Orange County Register.

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, here’s a short excerpt from PBS’s profile of America’s first all-female mariachi band, Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles:

Remember, Remember, The Fifth Of May is a very good NY Times article on Cinco de Mayo.

Rethinking Cinco de Mayo is from The Zinn Education Project.

Cinco de Mayo a Mexican import? No, it’s as American as July 4, prof says is from CNN.

CBS News has a slideshow on Cinco de Mayo.

What to Really Eat on Cinco de Mayo is from Smithsonian Magazine.

Shared by Larry FerLazzo

Calendar activity steps

1. Write the name and the date.
2. Take Agosto and Septiembre calendar from the folder. 
3. Write the numbers.
4. Write the number words in Spanish.
5. Check your spelling. 
6. Color it.

This site if from PBS. Its about a boy named Noah. He is visiting his grandmother in a Spanish speaking country and he only speaks English, and he is getting in trouble for not understanding Spanish. 

Also, Noah has a website with tons of fun activities. 

Aprender la hora / Tell the time

My students and I were learning how to tell the time in Spanish.



Level 0: Great site to explain the time. It's a great starter!

Level 1: They have a digital clock to help them to figure it out what time is it.

Level 2:  Reading activity. It's a multiple choice game.























Level 3: Once students have been practising for a while, we use this game.

Level 4: Speaking or writing activities. It allows you to choose the level of difficulty.

Level 5:  Listening and writing activity.




Here you have some sites with worksheet to practice the time:

1. ¿Qué hora es? Fichas para trabajar las horas?

Sumas y restas / Additions and subtractions

Here you have this site to practice sumas y restas and the numbers.

Campanadas 2013

Here you have 2013 Campanadas

4 aspectos a recordar cuando escribimos / 4 things to remember while writing

1.                  Empezamos la frase con letra mayúscula.

Each sentence starts with a capital letter.

2.                  Ponemos punto al final de la frase.

Each sentence finishes with a period.

3.                  No tenemos faltas de ortografía.

Each word is spelled correctly.

4.                  Nuestras frases tienen sentido.

Each sentence makes sense.



Material escolar / School supplies

Students learn about school supplies vocabulary. We play several games in order to learn the new words:

1. Silent game

2. Quizlet game (Material escolar nivel I)

3. Quizlet game (Material escolar nivel II)

100 board

Póster de los colores / Color poster

Class dojo

ClassDojo is a tool that helps teachers boost classroom engagement and improve student behavior quickly and easily, with just one click! It also lets teachers communicate behavior data with parents and students. Best of all, it’s completely free!

Behavior management finally made positive

• Award feedback points for specific behaviors, learning habits, and accomplishments in class

• Everything is logged in realtime - with just one click.

See engagement in minutes

• All of the avatars, behaviors, virtual badges, and other engaging visuals are pre-loaded for you so you can hit the ground running 

• Everything else is also instantly and easily customizable for your classroom! 

Get beautiful, hassle-free behavior reports - with no data entry

• Track behavior and skill trends - with just one click! No after-school data entry, and without diverting attention from your class

• Gain valuable insights that might otherwise go unnoticed

Let students track their own progress

• Let students reflect on their in-class performance with their own accounts

• Build positive learning habits that last a lifetime

Send reports to parents with one click

• Share student progress with parents regularly

• Get parents informed and on your side quickly and easily

Track points with your smartphone, tablet, or iPod Touch

• Award points on the go, wherever you are: in a class, at home, on a field trip or anywhere else!

• No more lugging clipboards around, taking time or being tied to your computer.

Student Introduction to ClassDojo - YouTube

Check it our this handout! and this article!

Since I use Class dojo, my students behave much better, they are motivated and on task. Each class have their own file so I can check what class is doing better as well as those aspects that they need to improve as a class and individually too.

My positive stickers are:

- Be prepared ( When they bring their supplies)

- Participation ( When they participate actively)

- Citizenship ( Being a good citizen implies helping other students and being respectful to the teacher to the other students). My students get citizenship stickers when they allow others learn by participating, being quiet and respectful or by helping other classmates.

- Content (Students get content stickers when they show that they speak Spanish).

- Performance ( My classes involves a lot of speaking activities and language performance, so when they do a great job, they are rewarded).

-Being quiet in line: Sometimes students need to wait for their home teacher, so I have stickers for this time. It´s a amazing how well they behave now!

My negative stickers are:

- Unprepared ( Students do not bring their supplies). One of my goal as a teacher is to make them responsible for their own learning. This s a great starter even with lower grades!

- Disrespectful ( Students get this sticker when they misbehave by stopping me from teaching or other students from learning).

- Off task ( Students are not on task)

- Talking in line.

This my routine with Class Dojo:

First of all, we take attendance and students can see how many points they have. Those that have more points become my helpers by passing the folders, leading the activities, etc. My whole point is to show the rest of the classroom that this is the behavior and attitude I expect from them.

Obviously,  the rest of the class participate actively too. For instance, if Amaya is one of the top of the class, she can choose who is going to lead the next activity, do the calendar activity and so on. In my opinion, we need to make our students be an active part in our teaching because it´s not about us, it´s about THEM! 

THEY ARE THE MAIN ACTORS AND ACTRESSES OF THIS MOVIE!

At the end of the class, we have a look at the points and I reward verbally those that they have done a great job. Then, we choose those who collect the folders and everyone lines up. Then, looking at the scores, I choose the person that is going to monitor the line using my Ipad. This person is allowed to give Quiet in line or Taking in line stickers. Before implementing this, you need to train your students to make sure they know what to do.

It seems to have a lot of work, however using Class dojo, my classes go smoothly and I don´t have behavior problems anymore. If you have an Smartphone or an Ipad, you can move around the classroom while tracking points.

Actividades para dia de los muertos / Dia de los muertos activities

For lower grades, I have read the book titled "The day of the dead" / "El dia de los muertos" by Bob Barner and translated by Teresa Mlawer.

For higher grades, I show them a Power Point presentation and we talk about Dia de los muertos. Many pictures are shown, so students see real examples of Dia de los muertos.

Geografía / Geography

This is a great site to practice the learn about Central and South American countries. 　
　
　
　

Dia de los muertos

We discuss Dia de los muertos and I show them examples of Sugar skulls and decorate calaveras.

Here you can find the calaveras worksheet:

For lower grades:

Female version: Check out the girl version of this calaca, click here.

Male version: For a male version of this calaca, you can click here.

For higher grades:

 For 4th and 5th, we are using this site that has a good T chart explaining the differences between Dia de los Muertos and Halloween. Then, using the chart, students complete a Venn diagram comparing the two holidays.

Quizlet

We make simple learning tools that let you study anything, for free.

Colores / Colors
1. Colores

Los días de la semana / Days of the week
2. Los días de la semana 

Los días de la semana y los meses del año / Days of the week and months of the year

3. Los días de la semana y los meses del año / Days of the week and months of the year

4. Los meses del año

Números / Numbers

5. Los números del 0 al 10 

6. Los números del 0- 30 

7. Los números del 0 a 101

Cuadernos de español / Spanish notebooks

Hola,

My students are working on their cuardernos de español. I showed both sites to the students and they choose one. Then, we go to the computer lab and they make a page to decorate their cuadernos de espanol. The final work has their names, my name. Also they are given with a list of adjectives in Spanish for them to use to describe themselves.

1. Wordle

2. Tagxedo

Cristóbal Colón / Christopher Columbus sites

1. This is a UK site it has information about Colon. You can tell the story then go to the bottom right an click on games, and gives you a short version of while playing. Check it out.

2. Another site, this one has questions to answer in a game form like hang man. GREAT for 5th and 4th grades.

Portada del portfolio / Portfolio cover

My students use portfolios to assess their own learning and they take more responsability in their learning process.

LinguaFolio Jr. Materials


That's our portfolio cover:

1. Me llamo Señorita Castillo

Me llamo..............

2. Mi escuela es Central Elementary

3. Grado ...........

4. Mi cumpleaños es el 18 de Octubre

Mi cumpleaños es el.......de...............

Descripciones fisicas / Physical descriptions (introduccion video)

La yenka