Christmas is a major holiday in many cultures, and Spanish-speaking countries are no exception.
Spanish class resources for Navidad
If you are looking for ideas for how to share the cultural traditions of el mundo hispanohablante with your students, here are some starting points:
Christmas songs for Spanish class
Check out my favorite Christmas songs for Spanish classes, complete with lyrics and links to videos. Want a taste?
I mean...with 23K likes after 10 years and 6.7 dislikes, what's not to love?!
Navidad en México
This Spanish-language reading is suitable for beginning Spanish students and beyond). It presents a brief overview of four Christmas traditions from Mexico, and it makes for a great springboard for further investigation!
Tradiciones navideñas
Whether or not you began with the Navidad en México reading, this top-rated set of readings and #authres activities will offer your students a broader view of winter holiday traditions. Teach students about La Pastorela, El Día de los Inocentes, and El Día de los Reyes Magos.
Need a different way to access these readings? All Winter Holiday readings are available in the 'Celebrar' path at www.garbanzo.io!
El Sorteo Extraordinario de Navidad
Want to stay away from Christmas? Teach students about The Spanish Christmas Lottery (best for Year 2 Spanish students) with these 5-7 day lesson plans. Aside from the lottery's name, this annual December 22 tradition has nothing to do with Christmas!
- Materials for sharing the 2015 anuncio (free!): http://bit.ly/loteria2015anuncio
- BreakoutEDU for sharing the 2016 anuncio (free!): http://bit.ly/loteria2016anuncio
- Resources for sharing the 2017 anuncio (from Kara Jacobs): http://bit.ly/ceauthres2017loteria
- Help with sharing the 2018 anuncio (from Kara Jacobs and Maris Hawkins): http://bit.ly/ceauthres2018loteria
- Lesson Plans for teaching how the lottery works, how it is announced each year, how the winners are announced, what happened in Sodeto, and why this tradition is so beloved: http://bit.ly/sorteodenavidadplans
El Tió de Nadal (Caga tió)
This pooping log tradition from Cataluña will be the best thing that you ever bring into your Spanish classes. That's a big promise...but come on, it's a pooping log! Begin with a hilarious (and mysterious!) video hook and then work through a hypothesis refinement model with your students as you learn more information about this popular tradition. Get the materials here!
Pair my resources with this fantastic, easy to understand video by Dreaming Spanish for all the Caga tió you could ever want:
Christmas Commercials
There are many Christmas commercials that are about Christmas, and there are many Christmas commercials that are purely seasonal. For this reason, they offer us a great way to pump our students full of warm fuzzy comprehensible input without alienating any of our kiddos that don't celebrate Christmas.
Kristy Placido is the Christmas Commercial Queen, and she has been blogging and sharing Christmas commercial resources for years. Check out one of her how-to blogs here.
Can't get enough? Dustin Williamson has done the amazing work of curating and developing materials for Christmas commercials in Spanish and French to create two bracket-style tournaments that are ready for you to use:
Navidad puzzle
This Christmas Wordoku features statements instead of isolated vocabulary words. Ideally, you would discuss the statements using techniques like circling and personalization in order to provide comprehensible input even from a basic vocabulary puzzle. Read more about how I've tried to legitimize Wordokus here.
Navidad #authres
Find zillions of Christmas-related #authres and additional resources on this Pinterest board!
El año nuevo
As you move into the new year, teach students about New Year's traditions with Las doce uvas de la suerte . I liked to wait until we came back from break to work through these materials, even though the new year would have already passed.
