A reader for Spanish 1: Arroz con cosas

Have you seen the book Arroz con cosas? If not, I highly recommend it!

I just finished it with my Spanish 1 students and they will be getting ready for the assessment soon. Students really enjoyed the book and I did too!

In addition to enjoying the story, my Spanish 1 students acquired LOTS of great vocabulary and grammatical structures.

There isn't a Teacher's Guide (yet?), so I am sharing what I created to use with book: click here. I don't have as much time as I used to (new school!), so I hope to add to it the next time... or have others add, enhance and share back!

There are LOTS of opportunities for cultural extensions with this book. One excellent accompaniment is the Max show José Andrés in Spain: Valencia... or just show the clips below. They are in English, but provide great visuals and emphasize some of the themes of the book.

And this video is excellent for when Remei starts to cook the paella for 400 people:

One thing I do wish was a bit different was that Remei's face was a bit more playful during the whole ¡Cataplán! chapters. It seemed a bit violent, but I just told students that she was like a playful grandmother.

Una canción de alegría y amistades de Ana Tijoux

 I LOVE Ana Tijoux and her music and have for a long time. 

My sixth blog post on this blog in 2013 (!) was about a unit that centered on her song "Shock" and that evolved tremendously to include the song "Cacerolazo". 

I also love to use "1977" to quickly teach students some numbers (just have students sing "mil novecientos setenta" many times and they won't stumble as much on some of those big numbers!)

Well, she is (finally back) with this amazing song and video:

The lyrics are so positive and joyful! I hope to use it soon, so I created a few activities to use with the video and song. You can see them here (for free).