I Love the Educreations App!

I am making a conscientious effort to s-l-o-w-l-y add new vocabulary in my Spanish 2 classes.  The first focus words on Day 1 and 2 were: quería, había, and fue.  Today I added the words encontró, tenía, and estaba triste. 

Instead of writing a new story with the 3 new words/structures, I retold the original story but expanded it by saying what Dan did/didn't find a cat at the 3 stores; said what he had or didn't have; and what the stores had and didn't have; and how he felt each time when he left each store.  

One of my service learners this semester (a senior that comes to my class every other day to assist me), created an 11-page story w/ sketches and photos from the internet.  I reviewed the story with the students and added the new vocabulary at the appropriate places, and then circled the new sentences.  Following the review w/ the new vocabulary, I used the Educreations sketches for a partner retell activity.  First, the students listed the above 6 structures. As I  showed the first sketch on the Educreations and students worked in groups of two and had to take turns with their partner saying a sentence about the sketch in Spanish.  Each time they said one of the focus words, they put a tally mark behind it.  As soon as I went to a new sketch in the story, they had to stop immediately and say a sentence for the next sketch.  

After that we had a practice pop quiz.  In all three classes, there was only one student that didn't get at least 8/10.  

If you have an iPad and haven't used the Educreations app in the MFL classroom yet, I strongly recommend it to you!

Here is the link to the story:  Dan quería un gato   

SHOUT OUT to "Juan" Stovall for the putting the sketches and photos together on Educreations.