So this past week I taught at a Gifted Program Academic 1 week camp. I had an hour and a half with 10-12 upper elementary kids for a week. I was SUPER nervous since this was new territory for me.

PQA- So I started with food which is a PQA activity that I feel very comfortable using. The activity was “Draw your favorite food & your least favorite food.”

**NOTE- Martina Bex has this activity as a part of a FOOD UNIT she describes on her blog.

Then, I had a student come up, and I reveal the two foods they drew. Next, each student voted on which food is they thought was the student’s favorite. In the process I asked others if they like that food. Finally, (after a drum roll, of course) the student revealed their favorite food. (Lots of repetitions of “me gusta”, “no me gusta”, and “¡Que asco!¡BLEH!”)

I continued to use these papers throughout the week (2-3 students a time).

I also used these two videos below to discuss other food combinations, stopping to discuss each food and food combination. At the end of each video, we discussed if they had to eat one combination, which one would they choose?

INVISIBLES- We sang a few rounds of “Cabeza, Hombros, Piernas, & Pies”. I used this song for a brain break. Each time, we took out a word as we sang it and replaced it with “LA LA” until the whole song was replaced.

Invisibles are pretty new for me. We created a monster. I had a bag of Mr. Potato parts. As each kid took a turn pulling out a body part, we discussed each body part. How many? What color? What size? I had a high school student helper to draw it for us.

STORY- Below is the story I told with actors. The only part students created in the story was what the family ate and what the monster wanted. I was thinking the monster would want a toy or special item, but the kids chose the BABY and the DOG. (LOL, gotta love kids!)

**NOTE- I had students with some Spanish and others with none, so to make it engaging for all, I told the story in PAST TENSE.

Había un niño. El niño era quisquilloso. Un día la familia tenía ________. La mamá comió _______ . El papá comió ________ . Y el bebé comió ______ . El perro comió _______ . Pero el niño no comió ________ porque no le gustaba. El niño dijo -¡NO ME GUSTA ______ ! ¡Qué asco!- La mamá estaba triste. El papá estaba furioso. Le dijo –Niño, ¡Come!- Pero el niño no quería _______. No le gustaba. Le dijo –NO- El papá le dijo –Tú eres quisquilloso.-

De repente, el niño vio a un monstruo. El niño tenía una idea. El niño le dijo -¡Come, Monstruo! El monstruo tuvo una idea. El monstruo le dijo – Yo quiero tu ______ . –  El niño estaba nervioso. Quería su _____  pero no le gustaba ______ . El niño le dio su  ____ al monstruo. El monstruo comió ____ . El niño estaba feliz porque no comió _____ . El monstruo estaba feliz porque tenía ________

Al día siguiente, la familia tenía ________. La mamá comió _______ . El papá comió _______ . Y el bebé comió ______ . El perro comió _______ Pero el niño no comió ________ porque no le gustaba. El niño dijo -¡NO ME GUSTA ______ ! ¡Que asco!- La mamá estaba triste. El papá estaba furioso. Le dijo –Niño, ¡Come!- Pero el niño no quería _______. No le gustaba. Le dijo –NO- El papá le dijo –Tú eres quisquilloso.-

De repente, el niño vio a un monstruo. El niño tuvo una idea. El niño le dijo -¡Come, Monstruo! El monstruo tuvo una idea. El monstruo le dijo – Yo quiero tu perro. El niño estaba nervioso. Tenía un perro fabuloso pero no le gustaba ______ . ¿El niño le dio el perro al monstruo?

Here is the story with some activity pages to match.

I based the story on a book I read my boys called… (link to ENGLISH version)

**Fun Fact- This author came to our school to speak and said that he worked on the children’s program SALSA for GPTV which my students watch. If you haven’t checked that out then you need to try it out! http://www.gpb.org/salsa/term/episode

AFTER THE STORY- So after telling the story, I had students act it out as I read it from the screen Next, we filmed it and watched the video later. Then, they each got a sentence strip, and after making sure everyone understood their sentence, they had to put themselves in order. If I had had time, I would have had them switch sentence strips and put themselves in order again, timing them each time to compete against themselves.

After that, we went outside (on a BEAUTIFUL DAY) and instead of each student drawing their sentence strip on paper, each student got a block of sidewalk and chalk to draw their sentence strip and then write their sentence above it. Again, if I had had time, then I would have called out sentences and students would run to the right drawing.

OVERALL, it was a great week, and I can’t wait to do it again next summer!!