This simple slideshow reading and accompanying reading & comprehension activity worksheet will inject authentic culture into your Spanish classes as early as the first week of school! These materials are entirely in Spanish, and students will be able to read the texts with reasonable ease if the...
Resources for teaching with novels in Spanish Class. All of Mis Clases Locas Blog posts for teaching with novels.
I love Katie Baker’s novel El Ekeko. I read it once it came out and immediately knew I HAD to teach it!! (Could it be because my birthday coincides with la Alasita?) I will be teaching thi…
Today I started reading Ekeko: un misterio boliviano with my 8th grade Spanish 1 students. Although I enjoy writing novelas, I'm not a great blog writer, so I'll be keeping these posts concise. This is the first time I've used Ekeko with students, and I want to chronicle lesson plan ideas I have, students' reactions to the novel and insights I gain. A bit of background on my classroom. I teach in Meridian, Idaho in a fairly homogeneous, suburban, upper-middle class district. I'd say my students are generally pretty "easy" to teach, although one of the main challenges I face is getting them interested in world cultures and getting them to put themselves in others' shoes. I'm hoping reading El Ekeko will help! I have 42 minute class periods, and my class counts for high school credit. To introduce the Andes region, I showed the video for Calle 13's song Latinoamerica. The students first read and translated the chorus of the song, which uses several words from Ekeko, as well as weather words familiar to my students. "Tú no puedes comprar al viento Tú no puedes comprar al sol Tú no puedes comprar la lluvia Tú no puedes comprar el calor Tú no puedes comprar las nubes Tú no puedes comprar los colores Tú no puedes comprar mi alegría Tú no puedes comprar mis dolores" The full lyrics sheet I made is available here: Calle 13 - Latinoamerica After translating this chorus, the students discussed the meaning of the chorus and predicted what the song might be about. They generally decided the song meant that money can't buy happiness. Next, we watched the video, which is just gorgeous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkFJE8ZdeG8& It shows many different beautiful facets of Latin American cultures and geographies, including views of the Andes mountains and the people who live there. The song and video also feature Susana Baca from Peru, Totó la Momposina from Colombia and María Rita, from Brazil, so it mixes more traditional South American music with the rap/reggaeton style of Calle 13. The students really loved the video, and most of their discussion afterward was sincere. I was surprised that one of the main themes of their conversation was the poverty of the people in the video. I thought the houses and lives of the people seemed pretty typical, but for kids who've never been out of Meridian, Idaho, I guess they seemed jarringly poor. However, despite their (perhaps a bit blunt) initial reactions, the students had insightful discussions about how sometimes their own lives are not all that great, because everyone's too wrapped up in their cell phones and themselves. Several students mentioned that the Latin Americans in the video seemed proud of their land and their families, and happy with their lives. My favorite quote of the day: "Me: So, who do you think she's talking about when she says 'You can't buy my life' and 'My land is not for sale?' Student: I'm pretty sure it's me. An American. She was staring me down." I hope I am able to build those discussions throughout our reading of the novel! After watching the video, we began reading Chapter 1. Since it's the first chapter, I didn't get too fancy - the students followed along while I read, and we paused often so I could check their comprehension. We're only about 4 pages in, so we'll finish Chapter 1 tomorrow. More updates then!
Pre Columbian Casas Grandes Poly Chrome Olla, #1117 Description: Pre Colombian Casas Grandes Poly Chrome Olla, #1117 Dimensions: 10" H x 9" D Condition: Very good condition for age. Provenance: Liz Claiborne and Arthur Ortenberg The Estate of Liz Claiborne and Arthur Ortenberg COLLECTION OF ETHNOGRAPHIC ART INSPIRED BY FASHION COUPLE’S WORLDWIDE JOURNEYS At the height of their success, Liz Claiborne and Art Ortenberg retired from the fashion business to focus on environmental and wildlife conservation issues. The couple’s journeys took them to Africa, inspiring their interest in collecting ethnographic art. Claiborne passed away in 2007, Ortenberg in 2014. They started Liz Claiborne Inc. with a partner in 1976. The company grossed $2.6 million in its first year, and went public in 1981. Five years later, the business became the first company founded and headed by a woman to be ranked on the Fortune 500. When they retired in 1990, Liz Claiborne Inc. was the largest women’s apparel maker in the country, with $1.4 billion in sales. Paquimé, better known as Casas Grandes, was a major cultural and trade center in the northwestern region of today’s Chihuahua state for hundreds of years before the arrival of the Spanish in northern Mexico. Culturally affiliated in many ways to Mesoamerica to the south, Casa Grandes acted as an intermediary between Central American peoples and the Mogollon and Hohokam peoples to the north. Its area of influence reached from central New Mexico in the north to central Chihuahua in the south. Its peak of development occurred in the 13th and 14th centuries. Trade items included shells, copper, pottery, and macaws. The ruins of Paquimé include more than 2000 rooms, indicating the importance of this settlement. Casas Grandes is known for its remarkable pottery. Today, residents of the neighboring village of Mata Ortiz create pottery inspired by Casas Grandes work, and this pottery is in high demand. (Source: university of Texas at El Paso). ----- “Pueblo pottery is made using a coiled technique that came into northern Arizona and New Mexico from the south, some 1500 years ago. In the four-corners region of the US, nineteen pueblos and villages have historically produced pottery. Although each of these pueblos use similar traditional methods of coiling, shaping, finishing and firing, the pottery from each is distinctive. Various clay's gathered from each pueblo’s local sources produce pottery colors that range from buff to earthy yellows, oranges, and reds, as well as black. Fired pots are sometimes left plain and other times decorated—most frequently with paint and occasionally with applique. Painted designs vary from pueblo to pueblo, yet share an ancient iconography based on abstract representations of clouds, rain, feathers, birds, plants, animals and other natural world features. Tempering materials and paints, also from natural sources, contribute further to the distinctiveness of each pueblo’s pottery. Some paints are derived from plants, others from minerals. Before firing, potters in some pueblos apply a light colored slip to their pottery, which creates a bright background for painted designs or simply a lighter color plain ware vessel. Designs are painted on before firing, traditionally with a brush fashioned from yucca fiber. Different combinations of paint color, clay color, and slips are characteristic of different pueblos. Among them are black on cream, black on buff, black on red, dark brown and dark red on white (as found in Zuni pottery), matte red on red, and poly chrome—a number of natural colors on one vessel (most typically associated with Hopi). Pueblo potters also produce un decorated polished black ware, black on black ware, and carved red and carved black wares. Making pueblo pottery is a time-consuming effort that includes gathering and preparing the clay, building and shaping the coiled pot, gathering plants to make the colored dyes, constructing yucca brushes, and, often, making a clay slip. While some Pueblo artists fire in kilns, most still fire in the traditional way in an outside fire pit, covering their vessels with large potsherds and dried sheep dung. Pottery is left to bake for many hours, producing a high-fired result. Today, Pueblo potters continue to honor this centuries-old tradition of hand-coiled pottery production, yet value the need for contemporary artistic expression as well. They continue to improve their style, methods and designs, often combining traditional and contemporary techniques to create striking new works of art.” (Source: Museum of Northern Arizona)
On Monday, we are going to start with El Ekeko in Spanish 1! I am really excited to start this book! Many people ask how to use news articles. One way is to find a collection of news articles fo…
Inca Symbols. The Inca Empire existed in South America, in the area that is modern day Peru and Bolivia, from the early 13th Century until it’s last city was taken by the Spanish conquest in 1572. It was the largest and most developed empire in the Americas before the arrival of the Spanish.
I am finally going to use the Fluency Matters reader: El Ekeko: Un misterio boliviano! I love this novel by Katie Baker (another favorite of mine is also by Katie Baker: La llorona de Mazatlán). The reader will be a small part of the unit. We will read it together, act things out, and do some "listen and draw." According to Fluency Matters, the reader is "Advanced Beginning", but I am going to use it in my first unit for Cultura y Civilización (Spanish 4/5). That class has a very wide range of proficiencies, so this novel will help everyone feel at ease and it is engaging with a ton of cultural tangents to go off on... Fortunately, Arianne Dowd has created a ton of resources that will accompany this novel perfectly! Her resources would make an excellent stand-alone unit too. The resources that she created will help me to reach all levels of proficiency levels, particularly because there are so many activities that are connected authentic resources (you can see them all on this page), such as articles, news clips, PSAs (about children's rights), and other videos. There are so many AP Themes in this unit as well and six of my students will have AP Spanish second semester this year, so this will be an excellent introduction to some of the tasks they will have to do on the test. Also, Arianne's depth of cultural knowledge is amazing! I learned a ton as I was preparing this unit and I can't wait to do this unit with my students. Here is the UbD document that has the details of the unit, the Essential Questions, the Enduring Understandings, the order of the unit, the practice activities, and the assessments (all of wich are dound in Arianne's resources below). These are the four resources that I will be using:
¿Quién no ha visto alguna vez un Ekeko colocado en una casa o en algún establecimiento? Pero se han preguntado realmente por el significado de la presencia de este objeto, el cual muchas veces llama
I have loved reading El Ekeko this year! Of all of the Spanish 1 books that I have used, I found that this one was the richest in culture. I feel that I too learned a lot about Bolivian culture. …
I am having fun planning for my new prep of Spanish 2 this coming year. We are starting the year off with the novel “El Ekeko” so I wanted to find a few Movie Talks to go with the nove…
Today is the last day before spring break, and the last day we spend with El Ekeko. I wish I had one more week to spend on Bolivian culture, but that will have to be a schedule adjustment I make next year. There's never enough time for everything! Because it was the last day before a vacation, the kids were very, very distracted. I tried a different order of events each class period until I got it right. 8th period was the best, so you get to see 8th period's order of things. First, we briefly reviewed Chapter 11 and some of the previous chapters with circling questions. I wanted it to be fresh in their minds before I had them evaluate the novel and communicate what they learned about Bolivia. Next, they filled out said evaluations, answering the following questions. I'll post their answers once I sort through them. 1. What are some things you learned about Bolivian culture? 2. What was the most interesting part of the book to you? 3. What was the most difficult part about reading this book? 4. What do you wish we would learn about next? 5. Any other comments about the novel? As our last activity of the day, students created their own Ekekos and decorated them with gifts for their friends and family. Using the template from the teacher's guide, students colored an Ekeko and drew miniature items that represented what they would like to give to their families. The problem was, they couldn't remember multi-step directions today, so I broke it up into steps. Step one: draw 3 or more mini-gifts you would give your family or friends (5 min). Step two: label the gifts in Spanish (5 min). Step three: color and decorate (10 min). Last weekend John Oliver had a funny segment about the Bolivian zebras, the young people who wear zebra costumes and help teach citizens about traffic laws. It is a really positive segment that doesn't make fun of Bolivian culture or swear at all, so I decided to show it in class. There IS one mildly inappropriate moment around 2:40, so I downloaded the video and clipped it in Movie Maker before showing it to my middle-schoolers. We watched this five-minute video while the students finished up coloring their Ekekos. Last, students presented their Ekekos to each other, using the phrase "Me gustaria ____________ para ________." I don't have art-loving kids this year, so a lot of them were honestly pretty terrible, but the writing and speaking part was fine, and it was a fun activity to keep them engaged the day before a break. Here's a sampling of some of the better ones:
This simple slideshow reading and accompanying reading & comprehension activity worksheet will inject authentic culture into your Spanish classes as early as the first week of school! These materials are entirely in Spanish, and students will be able to read the texts with reasonable ease if the...
Introduce your students to El Ekeko from South America. The Ekeko represents abundance and prosperity in the mythology and folklore of the people from the Peruvian and Bolivian Altiplano. Use these ready-to-use Google Slides in Spanish and English for them to bring cultural traditions to your classes. This presentation deck includes: Presentation in English (to introduce the traditional aspect to Novice students) Presentation in Spanish (to introduce the traditional aspect and expose Intermediate to Advanced students to the target language) Brief background history Country flag Video Práctica con frases – Fill-in-the-blank sentences Comprehension and discussion questions Extension activities Reflection questions Bibliography Check out our other Cultural Traditions Presentations here. ************************************************************************************************************* Connect with us! Follow our TpT store to hear about our newest resources. Join our World Language Teacher Lounge group on Facebook with 6,500 teachers ready to support you in your teaching journey. Access our vault of Spanish Class freebies with materials and resources, updated monthly. Click here to get free access. ************************************************************************************************************* Do you have a product idea or suggestion? We'd love to hear from you about any product requests or suggestions you have. Diana or I read every email sent to us. Just write to [email protected]
En Bolivia para desear la buen fortuna a otra persona les regalan un Ekeko. Este tradicion viene de la mitología de un hombre indigeno quien viene del altiplano de los Andes en Bolivia. Los Ekekos son figuras miniaturas de un hombre en donde le cuelgas regalitos que uno quiera recibir de regreso. Por ejemplo si le agregas dinero, es para que tengas mejor financias. O si le cuelgas una casita, puede ser para que le cuide su hogar, o lo que le significa al dueno del Ekeko, quisas una casita simbolisa una familia. Etcetera. Para celebrar el Ekeko Bolivia tiene una fiesta cada ano en enero que se llama la Feria De Alasitas en donde la gente pueden celebrar, y comprar Ekekos y cositas para agregarles. Es una tradicion muy interesante y bonito y ojala un dia yo pueda ir a la Feria De Alasitas para comprarme un Ekeko para que me de suerte con un ambundancia de buenas notas el la escuela!
Today is the last day before spring break, and the last day we spend with El Ekeko. I wish I had one more week to spend on Bolivian culture, but that will have to be a schedule adjustment I make next year. There's never enough time for everything! Because it was the last day before a vacation, the kids were very, very distracted. I tried a different order of events each class period until I got it right. 8th period was the best, so you get to see 8th period's order of things. First, we briefly reviewed Chapter 11 and some of the previous chapters with circling questions. I wanted it to be fresh in their minds before I had them evaluate the novel and communicate what they learned about Bolivia. Next, they filled out said evaluations, answering the following questions. I'll post their answers once I sort through them. 1. What are some things you learned about Bolivian culture? 2. What was the most interesting part of the book to you? 3. What was the most difficult part about reading this book? 4. What do you wish we would learn about next? 5. Any other comments about the novel? As our last activity of the day, students created their own Ekekos and decorated them with gifts for their friends and family. Using the template from the teacher's guide, students colored an Ekeko and drew miniature items that represented what they would like to give to their families. The problem was, they couldn't remember multi-step directions today, so I broke it up into steps. Step one: draw 3 or more mini-gifts you would give your family or friends (5 min). Step two: label the gifts in Spanish (5 min). Step three: color and decorate (10 min). Last weekend John Oliver had a funny segment about the Bolivian zebras, the young people who wear zebra costumes and help teach citizens about traffic laws. It is a really positive segment that doesn't make fun of Bolivian culture or swear at all, so I decided to show it in class. There IS one mildly inappropriate moment around 2:40, so I downloaded the video and clipped it in Movie Maker before showing it to my middle-schoolers. We watched this five-minute video while the students finished up coloring their Ekekos. Last, students presented their Ekekos to each other, using the phrase "Me gustaria ____________ para ________." I don't have art-loving kids this year, so a lot of them were honestly pretty terrible, but the writing and speaking part was fine, and it was a fun activity to keep them engaged the day before a break. Here's a sampling of some of the better ones:
On Monday, we are going to start with El Ekeko in Spanish 1! I am really excited to start this book! Many people ask how to use news articles. One way is to find a collection of news articles fo…
Today is the last day before spring break, and the last day we spend with El Ekeko. I wish I had one more week to spend on Bolivian culture, but that will have to be a schedule adjustment I make next year. There's never enough time for everything! Because it was the last day before a vacation, the kids were very, very distracted. I tried a different order of events each class period until I got it right. 8th period was the best, so you get to see 8th period's order of things. First, we briefly reviewed Chapter 11 and some of the previous chapters with circling questions. I wanted it to be fresh in their minds before I had them evaluate the novel and communicate what they learned about Bolivia. Next, they filled out said evaluations, answering the following questions. I'll post their answers once I sort through them. 1. What are some things you learned about Bolivian culture? 2. What was the most interesting part of the book to you? 3. What was the most difficult part about reading this book? 4. What do you wish we would learn about next? 5. Any other comments about the novel? As our last activity of the day, students created their own Ekekos and decorated them with gifts for their friends and family. Using the template from the teacher's guide, students colored an Ekeko and drew miniature items that represented what they would like to give to their families. The problem was, they couldn't remember multi-step directions today, so I broke it up into steps. Step one: draw 3 or more mini-gifts you would give your family or friends (5 min). Step two: label the gifts in Spanish (5 min). Step three: color and decorate (10 min). Last weekend John Oliver had a funny segment about the Bolivian zebras, the young people who wear zebra costumes and help teach citizens about traffic laws. It is a really positive segment that doesn't make fun of Bolivian culture or swear at all, so I decided to show it in class. There IS one mildly inappropriate moment around 2:40, so I downloaded the video and clipped it in Movie Maker before showing it to my middle-schoolers. We watched this five-minute video while the students finished up coloring their Ekekos. Last, students presented their Ekekos to each other, using the phrase "Me gustaria ____________ para ________." I don't have art-loving kids this year, so a lot of them were honestly pretty terrible, but the writing and speaking part was fine, and it was a fun activity to keep them engaged the day before a break. Here's a sampling of some of the better ones:
I use this product with my Spanish 2 class while we read the book El Ekeko! This product takes students through a virtual walking tour, video, and article about the Witches' Market in Bolivia. It helps students understand the setting where El Ekeko takes place! This product can be used for distance learning or in-person classes. Includes: 1. El Mercado de Brujas Webquest Google Docs worksheet 2. El Mercado de Brujas Google Forms multiple choice assignment 3. El Mercado de Brujas Google Forms typed answer assignment 4. El Mercado de Brujas Webquest answer key 5. Lesson Plans Check out my store for more distance learning and in-person products! Click here!
Al suroeste de Bolivia, en el departamento de Potosí, un desierto salino ?tan amplio que puede verse desde el espacio? se extiende por 12 000 kilómetros cuadrados; es el depósito de litio más grande del mundo: el salar de Uyuni.
Página Siete. Sergio A. Miranda / La Paz – 20/01/2012. Hace tres años lo cargaba en una bicicleta, ahora lo deja botado en el suelo durmiendo su borrachera. Así es la imagen de la Ekeka 2012,…
El Mercado de las Brujas... the name just rolls off the tongue and straight into the cauldron. For some, it conjures up images of elderly ladies with sun-withered skin, charms strung around their neck who beckon you into their small, gritty stall decorated with shriveled animal parts for fortunes told.
Let's learn a new batch of common words and expressions used in Peru!
You probably have a list a mile long of new things that you want to try this semester. Is BreakoutEDU on your list? Whether Santa brought you breakout box supplies or you are still waiting in queue for your official BreakoutEDU box to arrive…or whether you are just hearing about this for the first time…I…
Paula Dear visits the Alasitas festival, where thousands of Bolivians turn out to buy everything they want - in miniature form.
I love Katie Baker’s novel El Ekeko. I read it once it came out and immediately knew I HAD to teach it!! (Could it be because my birthday coincides with la Alasita?) I will be teaching thi…
Después de escuchar detenidamente la letra de la canción “Latinoamérica” del grupo puertorriqueño calle 13. Les… by luzmar
