Who else is excited to celebrate the Day of the Dead with their students!? This year I'm doing a long unit about Día de los Muertos, but I still want to teach my students about it. Tomorrow we will have a Día de los muertos inspired Música miércoles (thanks Allison Weinhold). Last year we listened to 'La Calaverita" by La Santa Cecelia. This song is awesome because it captures the celebratory nature of this holiday.   

This year my students are going to begin class by reading Martina Bex's articles on Día de los muertos. This is an awesome resource because Martina includes various versions of the Day of the Dead reading--perfect for differentiating the materials between different grade levels. After reading about the holiday, my students are going to read the lyrics to 'Día de los muertos' by El-Haru Kuroi.
This song is much more serious in comparison to the Santa Cecelia song, but I like that it shows real families celebrating and remembering their loved ones on this important day. After discussing the lyrics as a class, students will watch the video using this EdPuzzle activity. The EdPuzzle incorporates the song lyrics as well as information in Marina's Day of the Dead reading.   

I also want to incorporate footage from the Día de los Muertos parade in México City. Below I've posted are several videos that capture this awesome parade, as well as a beautiful ad from British Airways. 

What are you doing to celebrate Día de los Muertos with your students?

On Saturday my amazing colleague Rebecca Collora and I had a great time presenting our session Storytelling 101: How to Create Comprehensible Stories for Young Learners at the Illinois Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language (ICTFL) conference in Tinley Park, IL. During our presentation we focused on using narrow language (Terry Waltz's Super 7) to create comprehensible and compelling stories using digital storytelling platforms such as Storybird and Book Creator. Below is a pdf of our session in case you want to learn more about digital storytelling and assessment activities to use with stories. 

Here is the link for the Storybird story I used to backwards plan for Brandon Brown quiere un perro.

Rebecca and I are also thrilled to share that our book 'Daniel el detective' is officially available for purchase through TPRS Books. This level 1 reader (150 unique words) is a story about a boy named Daniel who lives in Spain. Daniel wants to go to the Tomatina with his friend and he is excited when his parents give him a ticket. One day he wakes up he finds that his ticket is missing! What happened to his ticket? Will he be able to solve this mystery and find his ticket before the Tomatina?   

We hope that you enjoy our book!