Ideas for Working with Small Children and Absolute Beginners

As an elementary Spanish teacher I have lots of experience working with little kids. In the last year I've begun to embrace the idea of making pattern books, which can be based off of real books or one you've written. To set them up, you read them the original book (if there is one) and then your version, which is just like the ones they will make. Next, instruct them how to fill in the blanks to customize their own version. Sometimes you have to walk them through a lot of it so that they understand; other times they can work pretty independently. Age and familiarity with the subject/verbs/grammar/concept will affect the amount of scaffolding you will have to provide. When the children are done, you will have a story that the children are immensely proud of. The realization that they can "write" a book and understand most of it is incredibly motivating for them. Below I am posting two sample books from second and third grade students. 

The first one is based off of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. The students were first exposed to the indefinite articles un and una in this book, as well as how to pluralize nouns. In my very brief curriculum, this is not addressed anywhere. It wasn't a formal learning goal, but it was an opportunity to expand their minds in that direction so that they can better understand it years down the road. Some kids got it, and others were rather confused. Cognitive development and linguistic readiness are at play there, and I am 100% okay with that in my curriculum. If I were to work with a student one on one or in a small group for tutoring, I would probably choose to highlight those language structures a little more so that they could use them better.

The second video is my third grader's version of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, also by Eric Carle. I used this in our zoo animal unit, and this was the first time students had seen (or at least directly noticed) that adjectives are placed after the noun in Spanish. Most students got it, because I walked around and caught them in class if they did it the English way. Some students also didn't get the whole concept of the book, which could have been due to an incomplete explanation in that class or due to a lack of attention. In general, inguistic errors in this book version were fewer and far between. All they had to manage was animal color, animal color. Again, the kids are so proud of these books. It was actually very little work/learning, but it helped kick their motivation to learn a notch or two, as well as their self efficacy.