Week 7 - Spain

I'm particularly excited about this week and only wish I'd started thinking ahead for it sooner. My family spent 3 years living in Spain when I was preschool age so this week's studies are close to my heart. I wish I'd taken time to go through my family's storage containers with some of the souvenirs we returned to the States with years ago, but the good news is we will be visiting them on Friday night and can look at the items after we've had a week to study them.

I've found some fun kid-friendly ideas to study about Spain this week thanks to other bloggers and Pinterest sites. My experiences in Spain were based on a 3-5 year old Navy brat's perspective so it doesn't include a lot of history or culture but it does include first hand experience about the sights, sounds, and smells - or at least what I can still recall of those.

Morning Warm-Ups

I decided we need to beef up in this area. B loves worksheets so I found a couple of free resources to grab some 1st grade level worksheets that go over an array of skills from vocabulary, phonics and math. Here is a link if you're interested: 

I combined a couple of worksheets to make this coloring sheet with Spanish colores for B. She did a great job, only asking for a little help when she got lazy. She was able to read the colors in English to figure out the color for each crayon, then use the crayons as a guide for the rest of the worksheet.

Morning Group Time 
We're changing up our morning group videos this week to incorporate Spanish. Instead of working on our days of the week, months of the year, counting, etc. we are learning all of those things in Spanish this week. Here is a link to the playlist or each individual videos are linked below: YouTube Playlist - BKS Prep Spain Week

• Pledge to the Flag

• Pledge to the Bible

• Say Hello with Basho & Friends
• Learn Colors with Basho & Friends
• Learn the Days of the Week with Basho & Friends
• Learn the Months of the Year with Basho & Friends
• Learn to Count with Basho & Friends
• What Time is It?
• Bible Books
• Cristo Me Ama

Vocabulary/Reading

Free Spanish Printables at MudPies & Make-Up

I found this FREE editable word scramble worksheet to use for vocabulary words this week at TeachersPayTeachers.com.

• Letter sounds - N
• Vocabulary Words:
  - bull
  - matador
  - flameco- portrait
  - Euro
• Spanish Colores
  - rojo
  - verde
  - amarillo
  - blanco
  - negro- anaranado- gris
  - cafe
  - azul
  - morado
• Spanish Days of the Week
  - Domingo
  - Lunes
  - Martes
  - Miercoles
  - Jueves
  - Viernes
  - Sabado

Bible Story

Our Bible verse was Matthew 5:14 - You are the light of the world. Last year we used Positive Action's Learning About God's Kindergarten curriculum for our Bible lessons and I went back to pull from that this week as we learned about Joshua and Jericho. The curriculum does a great job of summarizing the Bible story, giving a corresponding Bible verse and adding in a work sheet, life application lesson and other elements to make it complete. There isn't a whole lot of "outside" work or preparation required with it.

Reading

The Story of Ferdinand is about Ferdinand the bull who doesn't want to fight like the other bulls but finds himself in the midst of a bull fight by accident. Its a great book to introduce bull fighting, matadors, and other traditional Spanish culture. We watched Disney's Ferdinand the Bull on YouTube and used The Story of Ferdinand Lapbook - a full lesson based on the book that includes science, vocabulary, history, etc. I also found this  Ferdinand Lesson Complete which includes copywork, numbers, letters, etc. And in case you need it, here is a running of the bulls holiday description

  

Amelia's Show-and-Tell Fiesta is a book about a little girl named Amelia who shares her culture with the class during show and tell.

A kid-friendly story of the relationship between Pigasso and Mootisse (artists Picasso and Matisse),  When Pigasso met Mootise not only introduces children to art styles but the ideas of competition, friendship and commodore.
   Video: When Pigasso met Mootise

Eight Animals on the Town was a last minute addition to our library book stack. Its a great book to introduce some basic Spanish vocabulary without even realizing it. The author does a great job of using rhyming words by coming Spanish and English sounds to tell about 8 animals who go out on the town to get dinner and go dancing.

Learning Topics
We read and learned about Pablo Picasso this week and focused on his Cubanism style. Here are some activities and resources we used:

• Pablic Picasso: Cubanist Art Lesson - This video was awesome in teaching a little bit about Picasso and different art styles with an art activity at the end.
• Picasso Art Activity with Ms. Patti
  Ms. Patti does a great job of talking about Picasso and then introducing the art activity for us to do, but it ends in a irrelevant song that could be left off. I think its about donating clothes that you outgrow which is a good thing to learn, but not in the middle of art lessons or discussions.
• Picasso, That's Who song with Hope Harris
   Its the 2nd track on this album with the same name. You can listen to on the website for free or you can purchase the song from her site or Amazon.

- Biography for Kids
- Picasso Biography at Mr. Nussbaum
- Teaching Picasso ideas for K-3

Math
B worked on telling time by the hour. She got this surprisingly fast so we didn't spend much time on it and I didn't have the next section prepared to begin teaching minutes.  B and K have been watching What Time is It learning song during the morning routine this week so it must have been more effective than I realized.

B also worked on counting money with various worksheets and with coins that we found around the house. She really enjoys playing with money and pretending to buy things so we turn everyday conversations and play into learning about money.

Related Media

Justin Time - Ole, Ole
In this episode Justin, Olive and Squidy imagine that they perform the flamenco for the king. Children can learn about some of the Spanish traditions in this short animation and hear the traditional sounds of the guitar. 

Ideas and Resources

• DelightfulLearning.net
  This site has a lesson plan for The Story of Ferdinand that includes a lap book, learning about Spain and flowers,  and some fun ideas like making churros and watermelon flowers.
• HomeSchoolCreations.net 
  This blogger has 2 weeks of learning about Spain: Week 1 covers Magellan, Ponce de Leon, Picasso, and The Story of Ferdinand. During Week 2 they study currency, bull fighting and review lessons from week 1.
• MudPies & Make-Up
  This blogger has free Spanish printables that were exactly what we needed to make our Spanish board of colors, days of the week and months of the year. It also has a printable with the words to our Spanish greeting morning song.

See my BKS Prep - Spain for more ideas and resources for learning about Spain and the other topics we're using this month.