Today's post is a project level 2 students did for the 6th 6 weeks theme Beauty and Aesthetics after students had been exposed to the 3 artists: Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Frida Kahlo in the Museum Gallery Walk (see post here). After the "Museum Visit", students learned about each style in more depth and then did their an interpretation of each style while representing characteristics of themselves.

For Autorretrato, students took a selfie as a modern day self portrait. We talked about how selfies have a message and that Frida's autorretrato's had a message. Students watched this YouTube video on Selfies and wrote down the Spanish name for the one they wanted to do. They took a selfie of that style and wrote its name in Spanish with 3 Spanish hashtags.

For Cubismo, students created a face from magazine clippings that represented various characteristics of themselves. We watched this video and students were reminded that having various angles and points of perspective is exactly what they want as that was what Picasso did! I only showed from 1:50-2:41. For their collage they cut out at least 8 parts to represent their face. For example, they cut out a blue eye to represent their blue eyes and brown hair to represent their brown hair, etc.

For Surrealismo, students used their real face but had images floating around dreamlike that represented things about them (hobbies, favorite food, etc) . I reminded them that it has elements of reality but in a dreamlike way and all images don't necessarily seem to go together. I showed them this video before they started so they could become familiar with the style.

Of course I did add an element of Spanish writing. Since students had just learned the present perfect they had to write sentences what they HAD DONE to represent characteristicss about themselves in their art pieces.

Many students said this was their favorite project of the year! What a great way to finish off the year!

I hadn't meant to take so long to write a post but as always the end of the year gets crazy.

I wanted to share a few things I did the last couple months so today's post I'll focus on an activity I did for our Beauty and Aesthetics theme. In my level 2 class we focused on 3 artists: Frida Kahlo, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. At a conference I went to this past fall I had gotten the idea of doing a museum walk at an integrating AP themes in lower levels session. I was excited to finally be able to use this idea. I printed off paintings in color from the 3 artists and put them in page protectors and taped around the hallway. My school library had some posters of these artists too so I was able to have some larger pieces. I had 3 paintings per artist. Next to each painting I posted a set of 4 questions and a list of art related adjectives.

The students were told we were going to visit El Museo de Bowie to see great works of art. They numbered their papers 1-9 with 4 spaces between each number and then went out to the hall with their papers and writing utensil and could start in any order. I told them if more than 3 people were at a piece of work to go to a different piece. They examined each piece and aswered questions that got them analyzing the art.

This activity took about 20-25 minutes and as they worked I would walk around asking them simple Spanish questions about each piece and pointing out certain interesting things in the artwork. I also kept them on track by saying about how many they should have every 5 minutes.

All of the other level 2 teachers used this "Museo" for their classes which was great!

The students marked on their paper their favorite 2 pieces of artwork and when we came back to the classroom I asked them about which were the favorite paintings.

This was a great activity to get them up close to the artwork and to introduce them to the theme. The following class we got more in depth about the styles but I will blog about that lesson another day.

Have your own Museo de _________________
                                         (your school name)
Artwork that was in El Museo de Bowie - print out in color and place in sheet protectors and post all up and down hallway. Also great to put on your website for any students who miss the museum visit can still do at home.

Art related adjectives - place next to each piece of art.

Higher Order Art Questions for lower levels created by my department chair, Sr Ruiz (follow him on Twitter @SrRuiz). I took his questions and used four questions per piece of art - see worksheet I created. I cut the questions into strips and placed the questions next to each piece of art.

This was a project I got from my cooperating teacher who always had so many great ideas. With some tweaking, I was able to use this with my level 3 students for our unit on food and commands. It was such a fun way to include presentational speaking, culture and eating food! This project had them practicing informal commands but you could easily adapt this to use formal commands.
Students chose a traditional Spanish tapa to make for the class and signed up for a day to present (we did a few each day (50 minute period) and then I did a mini lesson after presentations finished). They brought the food on their day and laid it out on a table like a mini tapas bar so that after presentations students could get a sample.

Click here for INSTRUCTIONS & RUBRIC

Videos
Each day at the beginning of class while the presenting students got ready I would show a short video. Here are some I showed. I did show one of these the day I introduced the project to give the students a picture of various tapas.

The students had to show proof of them making the tapa. For the PowerPoints, students included at least one image with their faces and the food in the presentation. Those who did a presentation using Snapguide, were to show me a picture off their phone as to not post a picture online.  For these PowerPoint Examples I have removed any pictures with student faces so just imagine they included this. :)

PowerPoint Example #1

PowerPoint Example #2

Snapguide Example

This year my department was so awesome to be up to reenacting Las Posadas. It was all our first time and turned out excellent. This is a great hands on way for students to experience culture. I made a rotation schedule having students rotate clockwise to visit to classrooms. In each class we had a few students stay inside to be the posaderos and the rest went out to the hallway to be peregrinos and go to their first classroom door.
Prior to this day, I handed out the lyrics for the song and we practiced the song, first listening to the first couple verses to get the tune and then joining in to sing.

On the day of Las Posadas, all teachers did the following:
15 minutes - hand out lyrics and practice song with your kids. Have 4 kids stay inside classroom at door to be the Posaderos (teacher goes in hallway with rest of group).
10 minutes - We will all go with our classes and proceed clockwise to our first door (have doors open but posaderos inside and peregrinos remain outside). Push play on boombox. Everyone sings in unison first 2 verses. After the posderos say "Los voy a apalear", pause the song. We move onto next door as we don't want to get a beating!! Hit play once al are at the next door and sing remainder of song!
At second door sing verses 3 & 4 and then the posderos and peregrinos sing the todos part all together. Students have a seat in that classroom. Teachers go back to their own classrooms to do an activity with the group in their classroom. 
15 minutes - Begin activity of teacher’s choice with the group of kids in room. (All the teachers in my department had kids make a Flor de NocheBuena...see the PowerPoint below for instructions. Once I got the students started on cutting/gluing, I played the villancicos in the PP starting with Feliz Navidad. It was so neat hearing them sing this song while keeping their hands busy making their flor!) After 15 minutes release kids back to their classrooms.
50 minutes - Teachers does their own activities with their own kids (food, movie, etc.). Watch Las Posadas: Christmas in Mexico about Las Posadas if desired.

We have a 90 minute periods but this can be easily accommodated to 50 minutes by having the students return after the procession and watch 10 minutes of the Las Posadas:Christmas in Mexico video starting about 8 minutes in where they talk about La NocheBuena and then show a procession and some typical foods.
I played only the 10 minute portion myself while I got the food ready that students had brought. Then we had our fiesta and I played villancicos videos from YouTube.