Last week, my students were very excited about Easter. Of course, they asked questions like, "Can we bring in treats on Friday? Or can we, have a fun day?" I wanted to do something not too complex, but still have them use higher order thinking skills. I decided to do a compare/contrast lesson about Easter traditions primarily focusing on Easter traditions in Spain. To get the students thinking about their own traditions, we did a little brainstorming. What I found that many students are very passionate while elaborating about what they do during Holy week and Easter weekend. We filled out this concept map together. It was great because our theme this month is events and celebrations so we were able to use a lot of the focus vocabulary.
Then, we read a short article about Pascua de Mona, the bread that children eat in Spain. The students couldn't believe that they don't receive Easter baskets from the Easter bunny. Many thought Pascua de Mona was very weird. Why would a kid want bread for Easter?! We read a short article about Mona in Barcelona in English. I like to do this before showing a video in Spanish over the same topic in order to give the students background info. I believe if they understand the concept in English, higher comprehension will happen in the target language. Here's the article: ,
Then, we watched a short video about Pascua de Mona. This was a jewel I found on twitter. I just used the hashtag #pascuademona and it pulled up along with some really cute pictures of Spanish children enjoying Mona. The transcript is below to help all learners and it had a ton of food vocab I was teaching (la harina, el azucar, los huevos, la mermelada, la ciruela, etc). It was great. Here's the video:
Students answered 8 comprehension questions, in English and Spanish, over the video. We discussed the important role of the padrinos in Latin culture and many students wanted to tell me who their padrinos were. It was a great compare/contrast lesson! We really wanted to connect with a school in Spain but didn't have much luck, but we connected with a English learning school in Mexico. We won't receive a response until April 13th because they are on break during la Semana Santa and the week after Easter. See, Easter really is a big deal in Spanish speaking countries! Check back after April 13th to see the responses! What Easter lessons do you do in your elementary, middle school, or high school Spanish, English, or dual immersion classes?