El Tió de Nadal
Learn about the pooping log tradition from Cataluña in Spain!
- Language
- Spanish
- Level
- Intermediate (Levels 2-4)
- Pages
- 40 Pages
- Duration
- 3-4 days
El Tió de Nadal is a Christmas tradition from Cataluña in Spain. Families place a personified log in their living rooms and cover it with a small blanket, and children "feed" the log in the days leading up to Christmas. On Christmas Eve, they beat the log with sticks until it magically "poops" out gifts beneath the blanket.
These resources are ideal for Spanish 2+. If you are looking for Spanish 1 materials, please check out this Tradiciones de la Navidad activity pack.
These materials present the tradition entirely in Spanish and follow a hypothesis refinement model.
- Students view a video clip hinting at the Tió de Nadal tradition
- Students form a hypothesis
- Class discusses the hypothesis
- Teacher provides information about the tradition (MovieTalk script included for a video plus several readings in Spanish)
- Each student refines their hypothesis and presents it with an illustration and description in Spanish
- Teacher provides more information about the tradition in Spanish
- Students formulate opinions about the tradition and consider how their culture influenced their opinion
- Closure activities in Spanish
These materials center on a series of three YouTube videos. The videos are critical to the materials, so please plan ahead and download the videos to your computer's hard drive using the instructions included in the lesson plans if YouTube is blocked at your school.
The materials will fill 3-4 45 minute class periods. Paperless/Digital versions of all student activity sheets are also provided.
OTHER NAVIDAD RESOURCES FROM THE COMPREHENSIBLE CLASSROOM:
- 2016 Spanish Christmas lottery activity
- El que sabe, sabe | La Navidad
- El sorteo extraordinario de Navidad
- El Tió de Nadal
- Navidad en México
- Tradiciones de la Navidad | Cultural Activities for Spanish classes + DIGITAL
WINTER TRADITIONS RESOURCES FROM THE COMPREHENSIBLE CLASSROOM:
- El Día de los Reyes Magos | Simple reading and glyph
- El Día de los Reyes Magos | Reading and game
- El Janucá en América Latina
- El que sabe, sabe | Las celebraciones invernales
- Las doce uvas de la suerte | Lesson plans
- Muñecos de nieve | Glyph and picture talk
- Nochevieja | New Year's in Spanish: 12 uvas, 12 deseos
- Winter holidays for Spanish classes
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What a fun unit! Everything you need is included. It was so fun to watch my students react to the tradition of the Tio Nadal, and I loved watching them try to figure out what was making the sounds at the beginning of the video. Their predictions were hilarious!
The Spanish Saylor -
Great introduction reading to Tío Nadal. I never heard of this before, so something for me to learn and another activity for Navidad
Janice Stowell -
this was a great resource I used before Christmas to teach my students all about this tradition. I extended the lesson by having my students create their own Tió in small groups and they loved it!
Margaret Gillen -
My students loved every minute of this resource - believe the other reviews --- just fantastic! Engaging! Culturally rich. I loved watching even my heritage students who understand some Spanish smile at this engaging resource. Used every idea . Spanish 1, 2 & 3
Alex S. -
Used this at Christmas time to talk about Caga Tío. Another teacher and I made our own Caga Tíos. They look like the picture on this. The students loved them. I will use this every Christmas!
Hope P.
