Introduction: El Ekeko

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 for each country   To start, I had students read some of my news articles about Bolivia.  I used this article on Gran Chaco and a biologist working there.  I used this article about movies in Bolivia.  Finally, I also used this article on Morales.  I wanted an overview of the country, and I used this article, but I cut out half of it to make it more feasible for my level 1 students.  I like to throw in a menu as well, so I found this one.

On our first day, I asked questions about each article.  I put the answers into a crossword puzzle (which is why I haven’t shared it here!)  But many of the questions include: who the president is, key words in Spanish from each article, different tourist places and food highlights.  For example, I asked which dessert costs 6 bolivars.  Again, I hope that students have an introduction to a country that they haven’t really studied.  (Plus, when we print out the papers, we can go outside to read and complete the puzzle!)

On Mondays, I have started each week with Kara Jacob’s story listening for songs.  I am obsessed, and I have been seeing big gains with my students.  With El Ekeko, I read this post about using the song Latinoamérica by Calle 13.  I decided to take a crack at making my own story script.  On the doc, I shared the script with an idea for four corners activity throughout the story.  I also created a short Kahoot Jumble activity and a translation sheet.  I look forward to using this on Monday!