Race with "la ROPA"

I did the FUNNEST thing with my Spanish 2 classes today and they LOVED it!

LA ROPA RELAY

(You could do this in a classroom, but I try to take them somewhere in the hallways on in the quad or commons area where they can run around)

1. Prep: Fill bags with "ropa" (la chaqueta, los calcetines etc...), for however many teams you want during your relay. Make sure each bag has the same items in it. Here's mine:

2. For however many teams you have, create strips of vocabulary words with the Spanish vocabulary word for each item you included in the bag. Place each team's word strips into a separate cup or bag.

3. Divide up the teams up and line up each member in the relay line on one side of the room and then place the bags and cups of words across from them about 15 or 20 feet away (if possible).

4. Designate a person who will be the "wearer" of the clothing.

5. Start the relay. First person in the line runs and grabs a Spanish vocab word from the cup. They must find that item in the bag, grab it, and run it back to the person who is the "wearer". That person must put it on. (And so it goes until all the words run out of their cups).

6. "Wearer" of the ropa, must run over to the cup, grab it, and hold it up in the air to complete the relay for their team and win the game!

SO MUCH FUN!!!!!

¿Quién es Señora Osa?

I grew up in Central and Southern parts of California for most of my life where I grew up hearing the Spanish language spoken and participated in cultural community events that pertained to those of the Spanish-Speaking world. I had the desire to learn to speak to the people of the culture I found so interesting and began taking Spanish classes as a Freshmen in High School and began to devote time inside and outside of school learning the language.Knowing I wanted to be a teacher, I started college and BYU-Idaho and determined that Spanish was the subject I wanted to teach. In 2009, I spent a semester living in Mexico, where I served as a volunteer devoted to establishing schools for Spanish Speakers ages 4-11 years old in Mexico who had the desire to learn English. 

 Besides studying and teaching Spanish and other languages, I LOVE to compose music, sing, play piano and guitar, and ukelele.

GAMES AND ACTIVITIES to get 'em CONJUGATING and become Spanish conjugating pros!

Last year when one of my students said to me Señora Bair, "I actually REALLY enjoy conjugating", was one of those proud and triumphal moments as a teacher and made me wan't to cry lágrimas of joy!!!!!

I'm always telling my Level 1 Spanish students, "You ABSOLUTELY MUST be able to conjugate verbs if you want to be a successful Spanish reader, writer, speaker, or listener!"...and then I get that weird look once I say that word, "CONJUGATE". Once a student understands that "conjugating" means "changing" a verb to make sense for the subject pronoun being mentioned, much of the time it often "clicks" and for many students it can be hard, but if a good process is established, along with some practice, they will become GREAT conjugators and start to ENJOY IT.

Most educators have had an experience or two where they saw that the activity they had planned or the lesson they prepared was a complete success (WOO HOO!). I decided that rather than just "blab their heads off" that I would create something that would have been useful to ME when it was my first time being introduced to "verb conjugating" and voila, I created THIS:

"Señora Bair's Guide to Spanish Regular Verbs"

This guide was SUUUUUUUUUPER helpful because it is "to the point", but provides the steps broken down visually for them and gives them a chance to practice it with the steps hand in hand. I am happy to say that each time I have taken this approach they have ROCKED their conjugation tests!!!! (Scoooore!!!)

Also...

SUPER FUN GAME I use in my classroom to trick them into practicing and learning these verbs:

"Carrerra de Verbos"
 1. Set up students teams that consist of ROWS that go from the FRONT of the room to the BACK of the room (Preferably in groups of 5) facing the whiteboard.

2. Students will each need something to write with and a couple of lined pieces of paper per group.

3. The paper begins at the desk of the person seated in the BACK of the row. (I figured this out long ago that it works better safety wise and logistically to have the person seated in front of team run up).

4. Teacher shouts a VERB and the student in the BACK seat will be responsible for the "Yo" conjugation. Once that person has written the YO conjugation, they pass it to the person in front of them who is responsible for the "Tú" conjugation, and it goes on and on up until the front person in their row conjugates the "ellos/ellas/ustedes" conjugation. That person will run up to the board and write what their team got EXACTLY as it appears on the paper. Once they finish writing it on the board, they must cap their pen, turn around facing the teacher, and place their hands at their sides to lock in their answer. Teacher checks both board and paper to make sure they were both consistent. If it is correct, that team gets a point. If it is incorrect, teacher will check another team's board and award the point to that team if their's is correct! (I usually award the winning team with "pesos", but if you don't do fake money in your classroom you could do candy).

5. Be sure for each round (verb) that they switch spots within their team, so they get a chance to practice conjugating verbs for different pronouns given.