Reading and movement are my two main loves when it comes to lesson planning. I’m always looking for more ways to get students to read or re-read in my classroom! If I can get my students moving while they’re reading? Even better! Check out this reading activity for Spanish class: tabata timeline!
A quick note – this is something from pre-Covid times. Students are sharing materials and spaces. Depending on your school’s policy this year, it might not be the activity for you in 2021. You know your situation best!
Watch the video:
Students need:
- A copy of the reading – project it to the screen, make a class set, or print one for each student
- A copy of the activity page
- A pencil
It’s seriously low prep, but it turns into tons of fun!
How it works:
- Print off the activity page & give to your students along with a copy of the reading. Students record events in the boxes, according to which version of the activity you’ve chosen.
- Students flip the sheet over and write their name on each of the boxes. Don’t let them skip this step or you’ll have pieces on the floor and won’t know who they belong to!
- Students cut out the 9 boxes.
- Students mix up the boxes so they are not in order and leave them on their desks, but take their copy of the reading with them.
- Set up an interval timer. I personally use the app SmartWod on my phone because it’s so flexible, but there are many on YouTube you could use! I have found that somewhere between 1 minute of work/:06 seconds of “rest” (rotating time) works best, but I usually wind up shifting this to be shorter and shorter as the students get more and more familiar with the story. They start to get faster with their “work” time! Starting with more time allows this to be less stressful for the students, but shortening the time helps them stay on task.
- Students will rotate around the room from desk to desk, putting the events in order according to the story. If you’ve chosen one of the pages that has “false” events, they will also identify those and set them aside. When the timer beeps, they will re-scramble all of the events, take their copy of the reading, and rotate to the next seat in the time given.
Variations:
For the activity page, you can choose between a few options, depending on your goal!
- 9 events in Spanish
- 9 events in English
- 6 true events/3 false events in Spanish
- 6 true events/3 false events in English
Recording the events in Spanish allows students to practice “writing” by re-writing events from the story. This is a very scaffolded writing situation because they can pull the events straight from the reading. A slightly less scaffolded version is to add the false events. This allows them to “play” with the language by changing details, even simple ones like adding a “no”, or changing a word here or there.
Recording the events in English helps the students reinforce their reading comprehension as they look back and forth to the story. However, if they know the story well enough, as they get to the tabata portion of the activity they will need to rely on the Spanish story less and less.
Reading Activity for Spanish Class: Tabata Timeline
If you’d like to grab the printable activity pages, as well as the digital options for use with Google Slides or Google Jamboard, they’re available here in my shop!