Three Easter Themed Videos for Elementary Spanish Class Plus Tips to Use Them in Class

EASTER IS SUCH AN EXCITING TIME FOR LITTLE LEARNERS, as they look forward to Easter egg hunts and baskets full of chocolate. Here are three videos with an Easter theme you can use in class as a source of loads of question and answer directed activities, allowing for practice and reinforcement of previously learnt vocabulary, and an opportunity to add to their word banks, while at the same time keeping their attention span on language learning and practice, even during this exciting time of year:

PEPPA PIG IS, OF COURSE, a perennial favorite, as is Pocoyó. Both are cute, very illustrative in terms of action, and kids readily relate to the story. 

Peppa Pig y los huevos de Pascua

Pocoyó Los huevos de Pascua

y más episodios de Pocoyó

ZOU IS AN ADORABLE ZEBRA, from Disney I believe. The videos are not quite as concrete as Peppa Pig and Pocoyó, with greater reliance on the spoken word to tell the story, which can be challenging for some kids. However, if you have a fair number of heritage speakers in your classroom, this is a great choice! Zou y el conejo de Pascua

SINCE SOME OF THE SPANISH IS challenging for my students, especially my Kinders & 1sts, I do not have an expectation to watch these videos and have them understand everything. However, as I mentioned above, they are great to use as picture and prediction prompts in a Q & A format. I use a lot of YES/NO and EITHER/OR questions when incorporating videos, which serve as supports for my kiddos and allow us to stay in the target language. Other questions I use over and over again are ¿Cuántos? and ¿De qué color es ___?- these two alone are enormous workhorses! How many eggs are there? Now how many are there? and now? and now? What color is that egg? What color is that egg? And what color is that egg? What color egg does Pocoyó have? What color egg does Elly have?..... you get the drift! The repetition provides tons of practice, is very comprehensible, and also allows us to add in those "small but powerful" words like 'y', 'muy', 'un poquito', 'también', etc, that are learned better in context rather than in a directed lesson.

IN THE EPISODE WITH PEPPA PIG, for example, you can start with what color the house is. Is the house big or small? Is is sunny or rainy? How many friends are there? Is it Grandpa or Grandma? Are they looking for cheese or eggs? Are the plants little or big? What color are the plants? and so on. I usually stop a video every 10 seconds or so, depending on the action, to ask questions and elicit responses. In order to head off the 'don't stop the video' comments, I have established the routine that, time permitting, we will watch the video a second time without me stopping. I can certainly understand why they want to watch all the way through without pause, so I try to provide that-and since we have already been talking about the video the first time through, they frequently call out words and phrases in Spanish as we are watching it a second time!

WHAT VIDEOS DO YOU LOVE to use in class? Share in the comments! :)

And don't miss our theme pack Olivia y los postres de Pascua, featuring Easter treats from Spain!