September 15th to October 15th is National Hispanic Heritage Month.
We made a simple center with leftover fiesta bulletin board border. We put events from the history of Mexico onto craft sticks and had students put them in order. It works just as well to alphabetize Spanish words, sort Hispanic American heroes by the national origin of their families, or any other sorting or patterning task.
This is also a great opportunity to appreciate the Spanish language. With about 47 million speakers of Spanish, the United States now has the second largest number of Spanish speakers in the world. Only Mexico has more Spanish speakers than the United States. Spain, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile — all these nations have fewer Spanish speakers than the United States.
Use Google and make a chart of the Spanish-speaking nations of the world. Find out how many Spanish speakers there are in your class, your school, your city, your county, or your state. Create an infographic showing these interesting numbers.
If your class doesn’t speak Spanish, try out a lesson on Spanish greetings from Rocket Languages. You can listen to the correct pronunciation and see the correct spellings. Commit to using Spanish greetings every day during Hispanic Heritage Month, and your class will learn them!
Online resources
- Artsedge has a collection of lessons on Latin American art.
- NEA has a lesson plan collection.
- The Library of Congress has a wonderful collection of resources.
- Scholastic has a nice assortment of interactives and classroom ideas.
- Biography.com is a fine resource when you want to look at Hispanic heroes.
- Check out places on the National Register of Historic Places which are meaningful in the Hispanic history of the U.S.
- Read Write Think has a lesson combining a potluck lunch with a lesson on the book Family Pictures/Cuadros de Familia‘. This lesson connects family memories of Mexico with the family memories of your students, and so may veer away from Hispanic heritage to an appreciation of everyone’s heritage.
- The Simthsonian has teaching resources covering a range of topics from masks to vaqueros.
- The government’s official Hispanic Heritage Month site is a portal to lots of info, and a good starting point for classroom research.
FreshPlans Hispanic heritage lesson plans
- Puerto Rico Lesson Plans
- El Yunque
- General Bernardo de Galvez, a little known hero of the American Revolution
- Los Tres Cabritos
- Dia de los Muertos
- Cinco de Mayo
- Gazpacho for Nacho, a bilingual picture book
- Hispanic Cowboy Heritage
