Recently a teacher wrote to ask if Calico Spanish would be a good fit in a program that only sees students once a week for Spanish classes. Ideally, students would have language classes three times a week, but it’s common for elementary schools to schedule once or twice a week Spanish classes with students. How should a teacher adapt the Calico Spanish curriculum to work in those settings?

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Strategy 1: Streamline the lesson plans.

Time for a few background details.  The Calico Spanish curriculum features four levels. Each level has a theme taught across eight story-based units.

1. Level A: “I Am Special”
2. Level B: “I Love My Family”
3. Level C: “I Live Here”
4. Level D: “Welcome to the Farm”

Each level explores 8 unique stories and includes around 90 lessons of related activities, music, games, and culture capsules. A bit of quick math makes it clear that if you are going to meet only 36 times a year, you’ll need to make some adjustments to move through the content at a solid pace. Let’s explore some of the key strategies to implement the Calico Spanish curriculum in a once-a-week class schedule.

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First, you’ll combine then streamline multiple lesson plans per class session. A good pace will see you complete 75% to 100% of a level each year.

What does it mean to teach multiple lesson plans per meeting?  When you look at the lesson plans in detail, you’ll see that children are asked to watch various segments of the core video story in each lesson. To combine multiple lesson plans each day, you’ll want to adjust framework so that you watch the video story just once, and then pick and choose the content offered for across the lessons to condense three lesson plans into one. For example, your once a week lesson could include:

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1) Start with a song.

2) Choose an interactive practice activity from the lesson plans. For example: Practice asking one another how we’re doing and/or what our ages are.

3) Watch the video story for the unit.

4) Choose an interactive game from the lesson plans and play the game to reinforce the video story vocabulary.

5) Watch the video dialogue segment and then model the dialog by recreating it with volunteers.

6) Ask your learners to practice the dialog in small groups.

7) Complete an activity sheet related to the video story content.

8) Share links to related games or music videos on your teacher webpage or in your parent letters and invite your students to practice and share the learning fun at home.

This pacing will allow you to complete approximately one level per school year. Please note that the story videos become gradually longer as you progress to levels C and D, thus those lesson will take more time. You may find it is better to streamline a maximum of two lesson plans into one for Levels C and D.  

Strategy 2: Use home time strategically.

With only one meeting per week you’ll want to leverage home time to set students up for language gains. Good scaffolding (supporting complex tasks with baby-step practice) will set students up for more success and more communication in those class times you do have. Read more about language learning strategies and Calico Spanish curriculum’s alignment to the ACTFL standards.

Here are some examples of what your learners could do at home:

• Sing along to a music video every day.
  • Music videos are provided on our site and are open to the public.
  • Open each song to its own page.
  • Many have supporting activity sheets to print and complete at home.
  • Check out the greeting song Hola a todos and download the related activity booklet.
• Use the activity sheet to tell parents/siblings what they did in class.
• Assign a digital copy of an activity sheet to your learners via Google Classroom.
• Send home the Can-Do statements and ask children to practice by showing they can do in Spanish.

The Calico Spanish curriculum is specifically designed for elementary-aged learners to learn Spanish in a scaffolded, interactive environment. The lesson plans and digital curriculum can be easily adapted to fit your schedule. Reach out to our support team if you have questions for our curriculum specialists on your unique situation.

Enjoy the journey!