Cultural Lesson all about and Semana Santa and Carnaval for your Spanish classroom!
This valuable cultural resource is full of Spanish classroom activities that explore the rich history and celebrations of Carnaval and Semana Santa and is super easy for you to implement in your classes!
Carnaval and Semana Santa present ripe opportunities to teach about culture in the classroom, however finding time to integrate culture and stay on track with your curriculum can be tricky.
IN THIS CARNAVAL & SEMANA SANTA CULTURAL UNIT YOU GET…Diverse activities that shed light into these cultural traditions and set your students up to re-enact the celebrations in class or at a very minimum learn the significance of these holidays and the language to go with it. We have included:
- A teacher’s guide to easily implement the variety of activities in this unit
- Cultural articles exploring the biggest and most famous Carnaval and Semana Santa celebrations around the Spanish speaking world. This article also touches on the history, traditions, and gastronomy from each holiday. This text will get your students engaged in discussion! This reading is geared for the high school Spanish student.
- Discussion activities for your students to get them engaged
- Vocabulary and comprehension activities
- High frequency vocabulary lists for each cultural celebration
- Newscasts and Video resources for each holiday
- Las Máscaras de Carnaval activity: Mask masking and face painting activity. Learn about the origins, tradition and symbolism of the carnival masks and mask template to make your own
- Música & Gramática activity using the famous song by the queen of Salsa: Celia Cruz “La vida es un Carnaval”
- Make your own Cascarones Instructions for Semana Santa
- Holiday recipes for both Carnaval and Semana Santa
- A life-application project: students as the new reporters
- More pre-packaged student activities
Did you know that Carnaval and Semana Santa are connected holidays? If you’re like me, you think of Carnaval as a Brazilian or New Orleans holiday. As you know, Semana Santa is one of the largest cultural celebrations in the Spanish speaking world!
It can be hard to find relevant, meaningful, age appropriate, and authentic material to use. I don’t know about you, but I have spent hours sifting through the internet to find my key resources and creating activities I want to use.
As Spanish educators, I think you and I agree that we should not take culture out of learning a language. Culture is intertwined with the language and many rich insights can be gleaned from the glimpses of culture we bring into the classroom. Our students need to be exposed to culture while learning a language since they will be interacting with various cultures in their future careers.
During these celebrations countries come alive with deeply rooted religious traditions and celebrations and are ripe opportunities to teach about culture in the classroom. The trick is being able to find relevant and authentic cultural information that you can easily integrate into your lessons.
However, I, just like you maybe, sometimes omit that “cultural lesson” due to time and curriculum limitations. So, that’s why I’m sharing these easy to implement lessons with you!
The Semana Santa / Carnavl Cultural Unit is chock-full of interactive, grammar and vocabulary imbedded activities in which YOU can pick and choose what you want to implement. You can spend 1 day on the topic or there will be enough material for you to spend 3-5 class periods.
IN THIS CARNAVAL & SEMANA SANTA CULTURAL UNIT YOU GET…Diverse activities that shed light into these cultural traditions and set your students up to re-enact the celebrations in class or at a very minimum learn the significance of these holidays and the language to go with it. We have included:
- A teacher’s guide to easily implement the variety of activities in this unit
- Cultural articles exploring the biggest and most famous Carnaval and Semana Santa celebrations around the Spanish speaking world. This article also touches on the history, traditions, and gastronomy from each holiday. This text will get your students engaged in discussion! This reading is geared for the high school Spanish student.
- Discussion activities for your students to get them engaged
- Vocabulary and comprehension activities
- High frequency vocabulary lists for each cultural celebration
- Newscasts and Video resources for each holiday
- Las Máscaras de Carnaval activity: Mask masking and face painting activity. Learn about the origins, tradition and symbolism of the carnival masks and mask template to make your own
- Música & Gramática activity using the famous song by the queen of Salsa: Celia Cruz “La vida es un Carnaval”
- Make your own Cascarones Instructions for Semana Santa
- Holiday recipes for both Carnaval and Semana Santa
- A life-application project: students as the new reporters
- More pre-packaged student activities
Excerpt from La Celebración de Semana Santa y el Carnaval
“Cada año los católicos de México y de otros países celebran la Semana Santa (también llamada la Pasión de Cristo), la cual representa los últimos días de Jesús antes de su muerte y su resurrección. La Semana Santa inicia el domingo de palmas (o de ramos) pero no tiene una fecha específica, aunque generalmente se celebra entre el 22 de marzo y el 25 de abril, esto depende del equinoccio de primavera el cual también puede variar. Junto con esta celebración religiosa, también se lleva a cabo el llamado Carnaval, que prácticamente da inicio a la cuaresma cristiana justo antes del miércoles de ceniza o 40 días antes del domingo de ramos. Aunque ambas celebraciones son de carácter religioso la realidad es que en esencia son muy diferentes.”
In fact here are 3 FREE CARNAVAL activities that you can download today and use to introduce Carnaval in your classes. There are examples of the various activities included in this Carnaval / Semana Santa Cultural Unit.
Actividad 1: Carnaval Vocabulary Activity
Get this free CARNAVAL VOCAB activity today! It is full of high-frequency vocabulary, images of Carnaval to show to your students, 3 age appropriate, relevant videos that explain Carnaval and a vocabulary activity.
Actividad 2: Las Máscaras de Carnaval Activity
Get this free Las Máscaras de Carnaval activity! This activity that explains the origins and symbolism of the máscaras and includes mask making templates for your students
Actividad 3: **NEW** Celia Cruz Music & Grammar Activity
AVAILABLE NOW! Get this free activity blending Carnaval Music & Grammar! This lesson uses a famous Carnaval song (by Celia Cruz), blended with a grammar topic and our Carnaval high frequency grammar. I even include my lesson plan so you can see just how I implement it. ENJOY!
The above activities are examples of the various engaging lessons in the complete Semana Santa / Carnaval Cultural Unit that is available NOW for a limited time.
$19.99 for a limited time only!
My goal is to share relevant, authentic and easy to implement activities for your Spanish classes… thank you for joining me and sharing your ideas also! Comment below with your ideas…
