Playing béisbol and fútbol word puzzles Language Arts individual Print out the Word puzzles sheets for béisbol and/or fútbol. Instruct students to find all the Spanish soccer or baseball words on the sheet. They will then have to place the remaining letters in the right order to make a sports-related sentence in Spanish. Recognizing soccer and baseball vocabulary in Spanish Language Arts individual, class Print out the Word puzzles sheet for béisbol and/or fútbol, and give it to students to solve. Once all (or most) students have solved the puzzle, ask students to point, mime, or draw the meaning of the words in Spanish. No English should be used. Each student should get to interpret the meaning of at least one word. Help students to become good language learners by giving them strategies to recognize the words: remind them that the context may be soccer or baseball, that this particular puzzle deals with equipment/clothing for example, and/or that some Spanish words are closely related to their equivalent in English (cognates). Mime, draw or point to help students understand the words they cannot understand on their own. Make sure not to use any English yourself. Once all words have been interpreted, ask students to draw a baseball field or a soccer field, players, etc., and to label in Spanish as many things as they can, using the puzzle sheet as reference. Warming up in Spanish Language Arts, Art/PE/Music class Go over the Spanish warm-up vocabulary with your students. Use the Total Physical Response (TPR) technique to do so: The TPR technique does not require any language production from the students. They are to listen to your instructions and act out the commands that you prompt. First, demonstrate. If you say ¡Corran!, start running and encourage students to imitate you. Then say ¡Párense! and stop running. Repeat the sequence a few times, then add another command, such as ¡Saltan!, etc. At first you will execute the commands with the students, until they can execute them without your modeling. Students can also take turns giving out commands if they feel confident to do so. Before going out to play or at any moment during the unit when students need some big muscle movements, play Simon says with them with the warm-up and whole unit vocabulary. If you have a Hispanic student in your classroom or when students feel more comfortable with the vocabulary, you may want to ask volunteers to say the words while you act out the game with the rest of the class. Playing béisbol Art/PE/Music class Go over or review béisbol vocabulary with students. Reduce the measurements of the baseball field in half, or make it smaller to accommodate your sports area. Go over the rules of the coed baseball game: two coed teams will be created with an equal number of girls and boys in each team. Girls are to assume the roles of pitcher, shortstop and first base. All other positions are open to both boys and girls, given that there is an equal number of girls and boys in the field. The batting line-up is to be girl/boy/girl/boy until all children have a turn. Children unable to play (for medical reasons, for example) are to keep the statistics and the score. They may also be required to be first and third base coaches. All interactions between players must take place in Spanish. If a player speaks English on the field, his/her team will lose an inning. Find a worthy incentive to motivate all children, girls as well as boys. For example, children may be playing for a piñata, or for an induction into the hall of fame, etc. If your school has more than one class in grade 3, 4, or 5, you might want to get together with other same-grade teachers and suggest a grade-wide tournament, for a béisbol cup! Playing fútbol Art/PE/Music class Go over or review fútbol Spanish vocabulary with students. Reduce the measurements of the soccer field in half, or make it smaller to accommodate your sports area. If your sports area offers the possibility, and if you have enough students to make four teams, create two reduced-size soccer fields. You may decide to make single-sex teams or coed teams; be mindful, however, to avoid girls versus boys games. If going coed, create two teams with an equal number of girls and boys in each team. All positions are open to both boys and girls. Children unable to play (for medical reasons, for example) are to keep the statistics and the score. They may also be required to be line referees. All interactions between players must take place in Spanish. The utterance of an English word on the field will result in the opposite team being granted a penalty shot. Find a worthy incentive to motivate all children, girls as well as boys. For example, children may be playing for a piñata, or for an induction into the hall of fame, etc. If your school has more than one class in grade 3, 4,or 5, you might want to get together with other same-grade teachers and suggest a grade-wide tournament, for a fútbol cup! Measuring a fútbol field Math pair, class Pair students and give each pair a different standard measurement tool such as a book, a piece of string, a tissue box, a shoe, a large piece of cardboard, a stick, etc. Take students to the soccer field and assign each pair to an area of the field. One pair may have to measure the longest side of the field, another pair the distance between the corner and the goalie pole, another pair the distance between the penalty line and the center line or the goalie line, etc. Have student record how many times they had to move their tool in order to measure their assigned area. Back in class, compile all information on the board. Still working in pairs, ask that students calculate how much each used tool measures, in inches and centimeters. Then ask each pair to calculate in inches and centimeters the distances that each tool surveyed. When every pair has calculated each and every one of the distances, compile the information on the board. Have pairs with conflicting results explain their reasoning and get to the correct answer. When all students are in agreement, compare their measurements with the actual measurements of the soccer field. The pair(s) whose measurements are closest to the actual measurements of the field win a prize Creating a miniature baseball field Math, Art/PE/Music pair Pair students. Give students the dimensions of a particular baseball field, or let them choose the field they want to reproduce. Ask that students create a proportionate, scaled-down baseball field. Once students have successfully traced the outline of the field onto a piece of thin cardboard and explained their mathematical reasoning to you, ask them to decorate their field and make it a 3-D field. Sequencing soccer game or baseball game narratives in Spanish Language Arts pair Print the narrative sheets and make copies. Cut each sentence into a strip, and place all strips from one narrative into an envelope. Pair students and give each pair an envelope. Pairs of students work together to understand sentences on strips and sequence them to recreate the narrative. Go over the narrative with students and ask them to mime or draw the information contained in the narrative. Requesting information from a Hispanic soccer league Language Arts class As a class, brainstorm the kind of information you would like to obtain. Students may be interested in obtaining information about famous players, or statistics about soccer in one particular Hispanic country, for example. As a class, write the letter, in English if your proficiency is limited, in Spanish if you feel confident. Send the letter and wait for the information to arrive. Once you have received a response, send a thank you letter signed by all students. Impersonating a famous player Language Arts individual, class Individually, have students gather information about famous Hispanic soccer or baseball players. The data collected on each individual should be bulleted and fit on one typed page. The type of information collected should be basic information such as age, date of birth, team they play with (and have played with), the highlights of their career, as well as one or two little known facts. Collect the research, and evaluate each student's work. Return papers and ask incomplete research to be fleshed out. Collect all papers, fold them so as to be unidentifiable and place in a hat. Ask volunteer students to draw from the hat and to ìbecomeî the player whose information they have drawn. S/he will answer five questions with yes/no. S/he is allowed to mime but say no other words than yes or no. The class must ask five yes/no questions and guess who the student is impersonating. Mapping the soccer World Cup locations and winners Social Studies pair Print and give each student a blank map of the world, as well as a copy of the record worksheet . Pair students and send them to the computer lab to collaboratively research the history of the soccer world cup. They are to fill the worksheet with the information they find, then report locations, dates and winners onto the world map. Collect the maps, evaluate them and place them into the students' sports folders. Measuring distances in meters Math individual On the soccer field, place a marker on the grass. Have students form a line behind the marker. Have two students wait in the field with a timer in hand. These students will act as judges. Have one student place their soccer ball on, or one foot away from the marker, and kick the ball toward the goals. With the two judges, have them measure, in meters, the distance the ball traveled from the location it was kicked to the location it first landed on the soccer field. Have the judges also record the time between the moment when the ball was kicked and the when it landed. Have all students get a chance to kick the ball and to measure the distance. Keep the record , changing judges as they in turn hit the ball too. This activity can also be done with a baseball and a bat on the baseball field. Graphing frequencies Math small group Have students form groups of 3 and give each group a copy of the record you kept for Measuring distances in meters or any other record of distances. Ask that one student in each group be responsible for charting/graphing the given numbers into a particular kind of chart: one student will turn these numbers into a pie chart, another into a bar graph, and the third one into a line graph. Within their groups, students should collaborate to figure out how to convert the raw numbers into their particular graphs/charts. A group will be done when all three graphs are completed. Collect student work, evaluate, and place into students' folders. Estimating the velocity of a baseball or a soccer ball Math individual Using the record compiled in Measuring distances in meters or any other record of distances, ask students to individually calculate an estimation of the velocity of the balls they kicked or hit. Give them the math formula, average velocity=, or send them to the following website: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/mot.html Collect students' estimations, evaluate, and place in students' folders. Creating a culturally sensitive menu of snack foods for a baseball game Social Studies small group Brainstorm with students what kinds of foods are sold at a typical American baseball game. Do they think these foods would be culturally appropriate in Latin America ? To set the stage, tell students that the U.S. Baseball Association wants to promote baseball in Latin American countries where it is not yet played. They want to set up an exhibition game, yet they want to be culturally sensitive and correct, because they do not want to offend the people. Have students form groups of 3 to 4 and assign each group one Latin American country: ask students to research the staple foods of ìtheirî country. Then ask them to design a menu of items that vendors could sell in the bleachers and in the stadium concessions during halftime. These items can be fast foods as well as any other foods that could lend themselves to being sold and eaten at a baseball game. Writing fans chants Art/PE/Music class Have students brainstorm the elements that usually enter in the composition of a sports fan chant. Have students go to www.abc.es/futbol , then click on Equipos to find a description of Spain 's main soccer teams ( División 1 ), and information/vocabulary that they may want to use in their chants. Ask that students make up a catchy chant in Spanish for their favorite team. Writing a poem celebrating fútbol and/or béisbol Language Arts individual Ask that students brainstorm adjectives in English and in Spanish that represent their understanding/feelings about either sport. Ask that they organize these adjectives to make up a poem. Give students the latitude to choose the poetic form they feel corresponds to their feelings about the sport. Playing sports announcer in Spanish Language Arts individual This activity is for advanced Spanish students, as it requires some proficiency in the language. Show a video clip of a baseball or soccer game with the sound off. It can be any game. You can: a. Ask students to write out a commentary in Spanish of the game. Collect, evaluate, and place in students' folders after having the class vote on the best one(s). b. Write a series of verb phrases on the board, with all vocabulary you can think of. Ask students watch the video, ask students in turn (round around) to use the vocabulary on the board to make sentences related to the images. Students who cannot form a sentence sit down. The last student to stand wins.