Rooms in the house - La casa. Part 2

More photos:

Rooms in the house - La casa. Part 1

This week we learned rooms in the house. Monday we learned: bathroom, living room, kitchen and bedroom. We use the family members and asked: Donde esta la mama? Some children were just pointing at the rooms, others were answering with the correct Spanish name: la sala.
Today I draw the rooms of the house, printed some furniture; the children pick, for example a bed and tape it in the correct room: the bedroom.

Here are some pictures:

Mi Cancionero in 3 volumes!!

I decided to break the Mi Cancionero book in 3 volumes, making it more affordable!
There are 15 songs in each volume. For more information visit my website.

New Song Book and CD!!

I am very excited!!
I just finished my new song book, it includes 50 songs (yeah 50!!) that I learned as a child. It comes with a CD. Some songs are very easy to learn, some are more complicated.
You can buy Mi Cancionero in my website.

Things to keep in mind before teaching a song to children

Before you teach a song to children keep in mind the following:

Know the song.
You should know the song yourself! Become familiar to the words and melody by listening to the recorded version of the song. practice the song over and over until you know it well.

Ask yourself:

• How can I capture the children attention? Perhaps with an object, a picture, an experience, or even a whisper.
• What questions can I ask that will encourage the children to listen to the song? ask questions that help the children understand the song. For example, Who?, What?, Where? Why?. State questions in such a way that children can discover the answer as you sing the song.
• How can I encourage the children to sing the song? Invite the children to sing the phrases that answer the questions.
• Vary the tempo and the volume to add meaning.
  

Christmas song drawings. Part 3

And the drawings for the last verse:

I hope you find this helpful, i had lots of fun making the drawings :).

The other songs I picked for this year's Christmas program are:

Fum, fum, fum and El abeto. both included in my Christmas song book, you can download it for FREE here!

Christmas song drawings. Part 2

Here are the drawings for the second verse:

Christmas song drawings. Part 1

The first song I am going to teach the children is Campana sobre campana. I won't teach them the whole song, just the following part:

Campana sobre campana

y sobre campana uno ( I will use uno instead of una)

asomate a la ventana

veras al nino en la cuna

Belen, campanas de Belen

que los angeles tocan

que nuevas me traeis?

(we'll probably repeat this part twice)

Campana sobre campana

y sobre campana dos

asomate a la ventana

porque esta naciendo Dios.

I made one drawing per line, below are the drawings for the first verse:

Christmas songs

Just updated my website, I have a Christmas songs booklet you can download for free here.
Also mp3 digital audio downloads for some of the songs included in the booklet. For the mp3 files click here.

Enjoy!

Christmas

Yep, Christmas...
That means I have to start practicing songs for the Christmas program. I need 3 songs; looked through my song book and picked Campana sobre campana, one of my favorites.
I decided to just teach the children a couple of verses. Here's what I did to teach them the song:

• I started by singing it to them, then I translated the whole thing to give them an idea of what the song is all about.
• Then I read them the first sentence on the verse and draw them a picture (it was easy, I draw a bell on top of a bell :)), I asked them to tell me what the picture was and they got it!
• After that we just sang that first sentence a few times, we will continue to do the next sentence (y sobre campana una) next week.

I also recorded a Cd for the lead teacher to play to the kids when I am not there.
I am working on the drawings for the whole song, I'll post them when they're ready.

I also put together a booklet with 14 Christmas songs, you can download it here.

Day of the dead. Part 3

Here are more pictures:


We added a picture of el abuelo since some of the children said their Grandfather had past away.

Finally I made a big skull for all the children to color, they all took turns picking the crayon they wanted, naming it in Spanish, here's the end result:



Feliz Dia de Muertos!!!

Day of the dead. Part 2

Today we did our day of the dead celebration. As I said in the previous post, I explained all the elements and the history behind the altars, then we made our own paper version. Here's what I did.

I printed the following pictures:

1. Traditional Mexican food: pollo con mole, papas con chorizo, tamales, etc.
2. Flowers
3. Drinks
4. Skeletons
5. Sugar skulls

I previously cut tissue paper (papel picado) to use as our base. then, I asked each child to pick one item to put in our ofrenda; I had enough for them to pick twice.

Here are some pictures: