Adding a Little More to Cinco de Mayo

Tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo and the beginning of my school's book fair week where the theme is "Reading Fiesta."  I know...I know... Other cultures should be celebrated everyday, but I'm taking the opportunity to veer from end of year library knowledge assessments and focus on learning with my students about another culture.  I searched the public libraries and the Internet for resources trying to find fun and simple ways to teach students about Mexican culture.

Keeping it simple with my younger students, I read Just a Minute by Yuyi Morales to focus on numbers in Spanish.  This week, the project we are working on is a counting book that includes numbers in English and Spanish and then a visual representation of those numbers.  On Discovery Education, there is "The Hello Song" which is in English and Spanish and I've been playing that during class time, too.

2nd grade students will be watching a video of Yuyi Morales reading Nino Wrestles the World. 

I was so excited when I found this because I really needed someone fluent in Spanish reading the story to students.  What's even better?!?  It's the author!!

4th and 5th graders will be watching a short video from History.com about the history of Cinco de Mayo.  It's succinct and entertainingly informational.  Students will recall information cooperatively by creating lists of words/phrases they remember from the video as a team table.

I wonder what else my students and I will learn...




Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono/freedigitalphotos.net
Video from youtube.com/Scholastic channel