Weeks 2-3:Gaming Trials

I have honestly not made time to play games for my class until this week. It's hard to find time to play games unless it's a game I can play with my students or my two year old. I was putting it off, but found that when I made a point to do it I enjoyed it and about one hour went by and I didn't know it. I have been attempting to find as many online games that would be suitable for my Spanish students to play in class. This is taking just as much time as actually trying out the games themselves. There are a lot to weed through!

Some of the games I played this week that I did not enjoy were found on a couple of websites. They were just too simple. My students might enjoy them more than me because they are for very low level Spanish learners. Some were simple crossword puzzles for the seasons, months, and such. Some were dot to dot, hearing the Spanish numbers pronounced at each dot. At the last dot the picture was displayed or animated and a song was played. This would be good for my students to practice seeing the number and hearing it in Spanish. Some of the pictures were good because they pertained to Spanish culture in some fashion. For example, on picture was of a certain hispanic country's flag and the song played was their national anthem. One interesting thing I found on these sites was an animation of a "cucaracha" dancing to the "La Cucaracha" song as the words came up on the screen. This could also be useful for students because they can follow along with the words and understand the meaning by watching the yucky little bug get down with the beat. Of course, I would need to explain the origin of the song to them and how it relates to hispanic history, which I would need to research further since it has been since high school that I have thought about the "Cucaracha" song. I think it has something to do with a battle in a certain hispanic country. My high school Spanish teacher would be sad! But I did remember that much and it has been a long time!

There were a few games that I found that I did enjoy, but would not neccesarily be approriate for the level of learning for my students. One game gave an english word and prompted me to type in the equivalent spanish word. This was fun because each time I typed the correct word a flower bloomed. However, each time I typed in an incorrect word the flower died, which was kind of sad. I typed in the translation I use with my class for the word "brown" and killed a flower. It did make me remember the other way to say "brown" though! It was also neat that you could change the background appearance to suit your taste from a "day" scene to a "night" scene. I liked the "night" scene because the colors were more appealing to me and the moon was rising as I played to show the time lapse.

I have been playing a game in class this week with my students that is the translation of "Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar". The kids love it. They are getting to play an active game, which involves everyone, especially the "Cookie Crook" and the "Detective". I love it because I get to hear all my students saying it even as they go down the hallways. They are not only learning to read the entire chant, but also have learned to pronounce and read the entire thing in Spanish!