Tierra: A Family's Guide to Learning Spanish Together, TEMA 2 (THEME 2)
Tema 2: El nabo gigante (The Giant Turnip)
This is the second of six themes (temas) encompassed by Tierra.
Tema 2 makes connections with concepts introduced in Tema 1, giving learners the opportunity to build on pre-existing knowledge and skills. As with all Tierra themes, the weekly lessons are centered around story-telling with corresponding listening, speaking, reading, and writing tasks.
Your family will enjoy learning a new repertoire of content for the warm-up recitation (calendar work, scripture verse and poem recitation, a hymn and folksong, and useful phrases). Theme 2 also introduces a visual alphabet alongside pronunciation practice and a Spanish-language recipe with visuals and audio to make vegetable soup.
All themes are 12-weeks in length and are sold individually. You may start using Tierra at the beginning of any term (fall, winter, spring) as long as you start with Tema 1.
All themes include both LEVEL 1 and LEVEL 2 options. Separate versions do not need to be purchased for different ages or ability levels.
Your purchase of Tema 2 includes:
Introduction to Tierra /25 pages
An overview of the entire curriculum
Resource guide (la guía de recursos) /23 pages
Description of theme 2 content and helpful tips for how to implement the theme's materials.
Recordings of stories, poems, verses, calendar and weather wheels and songs, and picture book read alouds made by native or native-like speakers (with links and QR codes).
Printables (los imprimibles) / 28 pages
Learning manipulatives and Spanish-language visual tools to display in your home.
Teacher lesson guide (la guía de lecciones del maestro) / 68 pages
Detailed instructions for the parent/teacher to follow for each of the three lesson days per week over the course of 12 weeks.
Answers to student workbook activities.
Student journal (el cuaderno) / 20 pages
Reading, writing and speaking tasks for students in years 5-8. These include but are not limited to copy work, translation, illustrated/oral/guided written narration, and oral dictation.
Word journal (el diario de palabras) / printable cover to fill with blank printer paper
A place for students to keep track of all the new Spanish words they are learning.
(165 total page count)
PLEASE NOTE:
This is a digital download only. I recommend using a binder and dividers to organize your materials for easy reference. A printable binder cover and spine label are included with your purchase.
Each file you purchase may be printed as many times as you like for your own personal use (one family). Please do not share the downloaded files with others or allow other people to make copies of the printed product. Contact me for pricing and guidelines for use if you are interested in using Tierra in a coop or multifamily setting.
Tema 2: El nabo gigante (The Giant Turnip)
This is the second of six themes (temas) encompassed by Tierra.
Tema 2 makes connections with concepts introduced in Tema 1, giving learners the opportunity to build on pre-existing knowledge and skills. As with all Tierra themes, the weekly lessons are centered around story-telling with corresponding listening, speaking, reading, and writing tasks.
Your family will enjoy learning a new repertoire of content for the warm-up recitation (calendar work, scripture verse and poem recitation, a hymn and folksong, and useful phrases). Theme 2 also introduces a visual alphabet alongside pronunciation practice and a Spanish-language recipe with visuals and audio to make vegetable soup.
All themes are 12-weeks in length and are sold individually. You may start using Tierra at the beginning of any term (fall, winter, spring) as long as you start with Tema 1.
All themes include both LEVEL 1 and LEVEL 2 options. Separate versions do not need to be purchased for different ages or ability levels.
Your purchase of Tema 2 includes:
Introduction to Tierra /25 pages
An overview of the entire curriculum
Resource guide (la guía de recursos) /23 pages
Description of theme 2 content and helpful tips for how to implement the theme's materials.
Recordings of stories, poems, verses, calendar and weather wheels and songs, and picture book read alouds made by native or native-like speakers (with links and QR codes).
Printables (los imprimibles) / 28 pages
Learning manipulatives and Spanish-language visual tools to display in your home.
Teacher lesson guide (la guía de lecciones del maestro) / 68 pages
Detailed instructions for the parent/teacher to follow for each of the three lesson days per week over the course of 12 weeks.
Answers to student workbook activities.
Student journal (el cuaderno) / 20 pages
Reading, writing and speaking tasks for students in years 5-8. These include but are not limited to copy work, translation, illustrated/oral/guided written narration, and oral dictation.
Word journal (el diario de palabras) / printable cover to fill with blank printer paper
A place for students to keep track of all the new Spanish words they are learning.
(165 total page count)
PLEASE NOTE:
This is a digital download only. I recommend using a binder and dividers to organize your materials for easy reference. A printable binder cover and spine label are included with your purchase.
Each file you purchase may be printed as many times as you like for your own personal use (one family). Please do not share the downloaded files with others or allow other people to make copies of the printed product. Contact me for pricing and guidelines for use if you are interested in using Tierra in a coop or multifamily setting.
Tema 2: El nabo gigante (The Giant Turnip)
This is the second of six themes (temas) encompassed by Tierra.
Tema 2 makes connections with concepts introduced in Tema 1, giving learners the opportunity to build on pre-existing knowledge and skills. As with all Tierra themes, the weekly lessons are centered around story-telling with corresponding listening, speaking, reading, and writing tasks.
Your family will enjoy learning a new repertoire of content for the warm-up recitation (calendar work, scripture verse and poem recitation, a hymn and folksong, and useful phrases). Theme 2 also introduces a visual alphabet alongside pronunciation practice and a Spanish-language recipe with visuals and audio to make vegetable soup.
All themes are 12-weeks in length and are sold individually. You may start using Tierra at the beginning of any term (fall, winter, spring) as long as you start with Tema 1.
All themes include both LEVEL 1 and LEVEL 2 options. Separate versions do not need to be purchased for different ages or ability levels.
Your purchase of Tema 2 includes:
Introduction to Tierra /25 pages
An overview of the entire curriculum
Resource guide (la guía de recursos) /23 pages
Description of theme 2 content and helpful tips for how to implement the theme's materials.
Recordings of stories, poems, verses, calendar and weather wheels and songs, and picture book read alouds made by native or native-like speakers (with links and QR codes).
Printables (los imprimibles) / 28 pages
Learning manipulatives and Spanish-language visual tools to display in your home.
Teacher lesson guide (la guía de lecciones del maestro) / 68 pages
Detailed instructions for the parent/teacher to follow for each of the three lesson days per week over the course of 12 weeks.
Answers to student workbook activities.
Student journal (el cuaderno) / 20 pages
Reading, writing and speaking tasks for students in years 5-8. These include but are not limited to copy work, translation, illustrated/oral/guided written narration, and oral dictation.
Word journal (el diario de palabras) / printable cover to fill with blank printer paper
A place for students to keep track of all the new Spanish words they are learning.
(165 total page count)
PLEASE NOTE:
This is a digital download only. I recommend using a binder and dividers to organize your materials for easy reference. A printable binder cover and spine label are included with your purchase.
Each file you purchase may be printed as many times as you like for your own personal use (one family). Please do not share the downloaded files with others or allow other people to make copies of the printed product. Contact me for pricing and guidelines for use if you are interested in using Tierra in a coop or multifamily setting.
How does Tierra align with Charlotte Mason’s Principles?
Description
Tierra is centered around the telling of Spanish-language folktales originally written for a Spanish-speaking audience. I have been given permission by the authors to adapt these stories to make them more accessible to a language-learning audience while maintaining their original authenticity and integrity. Each 12-week theme offers a new story and set of hand-drawn puppets. Scripts, storytelling tips, and demonstration videos support the teacher through the storytelling process.
Additional resources offer the opportunity to:
- learn useful phrases
- practice pronunciation
- describe the date and weather
- interact with print materials displayed in your home
- sing folksongs and hymns
- recite scripture and poetry
- make soup following a Spanish-language recipe
- read picture books
- keep a word journal
Curriculum design and use
Tierra follows a two-year cycle and offers TWO levels which means that students who finish the first two-years at LEVEL 1 (yrs 1-4/Forms I-IIB), can cycle back and use this guide again at LEVEL 2 (yrs 5-8/Forms IIA-III). This provides a total of four years of content for students who begin at LEVEL 1 and two years of content for students who begin at LEVEL 2.
Year 1: Themes 1-3
Year 2: Themes 4-6
Your family can start using the Tierra guide at the beginning of any term (fall, winter, spring) as long as you start with Tema 1. All students (years 1-8) using this guide for the first time should start with Tema 1.
Sequence of learning
The four language skills are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. This is the order we learn them in our native language and Tierra approaches second language learning in the same way. This is also the sequence followed by Charlotte Mason who believed that children should learn a second language orally in the early forms.
Target audience
Tierra was designed for Charlotte Mason home educators, but it is intended to be a language-learning tool for any family to whom its content and approach is of interest and use.
This guide is written for home educators with a wide variety of proficiency levels - those with beginner/basic to advanced speaking skills as well as bilingual speakers living in a majority English context who are looking for tools to help them use and maintain Spanish in the home. It can be used individually or with a multi-age group of students, providing tasks for different ages and abilities within each term (years 1-8/Forms I-III).
How Tierra began
Tierra began as a selection of Spanish-language stories and rhymes to share with my children. I wanted to introduce them to a rich variety of sound features and structural aspects of the Spanish language within the context of stories that captured their imagination. I documented what we did each month which evolved into a yearly plan for language-learning. This plan continued to grow with my children; we repeated old elements while adding in new, fresh content.
When telling stories, I use props such as animal figurines or paper puppets to deepen their experience and enjoyment of the story and to help them use Spanish as we tell a story together. This curriculum uses hand-drawn puppets that have been created for each story. Tierra combines my research and fieldwork as a linguist and 15 years as a classroom educator with the methods I have been using at home with my own children; singing, storytelling, reading, and creativity have been my most powerful tools for raising children bilingually.
In using Tierra, my hope is that your family will feel awakened to the joys of language learning and left with a desire to learn more Spanish or other languages as they move on from this program.
“Those who have used them know what Miss Mason’s Geography Books do for the children, how they present pictures of the sport to the mind’s eye, and treat of those matters which the traveller and reader seek to be instructed upon, leaving a taste and a desire to read more about it all later on.
Foreign languages may be taught in the same way, though here the teacher has even more help in the materials she is using, for she has as her handmaid, the beautiful imagery of the language she is teaching, the joy of the sound and rhythm of the beautiful words. But she, as well as her pupil, must see the fresh horizon that opens out and the new light that plays upon her own language, as it is made more intelligible through the study of a foreign tongue, teacher and taught must be inspired by the sympathy towards those who are strangers to them and whose language has hitherto been but a sound in their ears.”
[PNEU article by E.A. Parish, Imagination as a Powerful Factor in a Well-balanced Mind. Volume 25, no.5, 1914, pp. 379-390.]