Top 3 Comprehensible Activities for Teaching about Las Posadas
Feels like this for the whole month of December!
Have you seen the meme going around that says December in the classroom feels like the last few minutes of Mario Kart when the music speeds up and people keep throwing things at you?
For me, this is spot on! Despite the craziness, I feel compelled to push through and teach about Las Posadas celebrations in Mexico.
Yet the struggle is real. How can I keep the lessons in the target language - even for level 1 students?
Enter my go-to solution - tell a story and then GAMIFY the content!
1. The Story:
Knowing our brains are wired to remember content through stories, I wrote a comprehensible-text slideshow about Pilar, a girl living in Morelia Mexico who describes her family’s celebration of Las Posadas.
This slideshow is my primary teaching tool. It’s colorful, fun, and compelling!
Sometimes I use my ACTFL-aligned products, practices, and perspectives graphic organizer, and other times I use the word cloud.
After this slideshow content, I dive right into the activities.
2. The Scavenger Hunt:
Hang the clues (common products used during Las Posadas ) around the room.
In teams, students work together to read the prompts in comprehensible Spanish. They search for the clue and write its answer by the prompt.
First team done wins! AND gets to be a grader for the remaining teams (they love this power!)
This is great to inspire movement and collaboration in the classroom!
3. Lotería
Distribute the bingo cards.
Read (or have a student read) descriptors from the call sheet. These are the same clues they’ve been using in both prior projects so they are now familiar. Students can use their scavenger hunt recording sheet as a resource, which gets them to re-read yet again!
Now, even when I feel like Mario navigating the December racetrack of my classroom, I know my students are learning valuable content and growing in their cultural awareness.
Wishing you all the very best,
Catherine
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