Starting the Alfabeto

Today I introduced the Spanish alphabet to my level one students.  (It felt good to be teaching something after several days of pre-assessments!)

We warmed up by looking at the alphabet and noticing the four extra letters (which I know aren't all technically letters any more but I still want the students to be aware of them).

Then I read through the alphabet with the students repeating after me.  I grouped the letters a few at a time so we got a lot of repetition in.

After that I passed out cards, one to each kid.  I went to youtube and clicked on this song "Cadence" credited to Barbara MacArthur.  It plays through the alphabet three full times and there is repetition of most of the letters each time.  We listened to the first singing of the alphabet and each kid had to hold up his or her card when the letter was said.  I paused the video and had the students "cambien" their cards with each other.  Once again they held their cards up when the letter was sung.  Before the third repetition I paused the video for one more switch and this time I could hear kids naming which letters they wanted to hold up.  Also, in addition to working on learning the alphabet, the students picked up the phrase "Olé" from the video; they were shouting that part out by the end :)

We finished the alphabet practice by me spelling out students' names in Spanish and the class writing them down.  When I was done with a name, the class would tell me the name, check their spelling as I quickly wrote it on the board, and then tell me who that student was.

I did also have the kids walk around with a letter card in one hand and their alphabet guide sheets in the other hand and name the letters to each other.  Not sure if I will keep that part in this lesson (may shift it to a later day) for two reasons: 1) some kids are still struggling with their letters this early and 2) I also introduced Cómo estás today as the second part of class and would have liked a little more time with that concept.