Mis Clases Locas

Hispanic Heritage Month Music Bracket in Spanish class

Inside: Music Madness for Hispanic Heritage Month. A music bracket for Spanish class to mix up the fall and celebrate the diversity of the Spanish-speaking world. 

Hispanic Heritage Month - Music Bracket in Spanish class - shared by Mis Clases Locas


Six years ago I realized as a Spanish teacher, I need to do a better job using Hispanic Heritage month. It is a great time to celebrate the diverse cultures of the Spanish-speaking world. I did a post with a lot of ideas for HHM here Lista lunes: Hispanic Heritage Month, but was on maternity leave the entirety of September 15-October 15 when I posted it.

I also created a popular resource, 1 Song from each Spanish-speaking country. It has 22 songs, one for each of the school days from September 15-October 15. By request, I created another version with 22 MORE songs in 2017, 1 from each country, version #3 for 2018,  2019 version #4 & the 2020 version #5 & & the NEWEST HHM6 version for 2021!


You can now also get all 6 sets for a deal. How do you pick which version to use? Well all of them have a mix of classic songs and current hits, but the newest HHM6 version for 2021 has the most up-to-date music. You do not need to do them in any kind of order. You can start this year for the first time with the newest HHM6 version for 2021 if you would like. 

Here are ideas of how you can use these songs this year, from the least time commitment to the most. 

Song of the day Transition

My English teacher BFF next door picks one song each day to play loudly in her room during our four minute passing time. She writes the song and artist on the board, and plays it as soon as the bell to end class rings. As soon as the bell to start class rings (or the song ends), the song is turned off and no instructional time is used. Her students are VERY into it and come to check the song before they even have class. This would work great for Hispanic Heritage Month, playing 1 Song from each Spanish speaking country each day. I bet the tradition will continue after October 15 as well 🙂

Para Empezar Class Starter

Use the first 3-5 minutes of each class during HHM to play a song. You can quickly mention where the song is from, using a map to show where in the world it is. Depending on the level, you can also evaluate the song, from a basic “(no)me gusta” in level 1, to a more elaborate critique in upper levels. Or you can use the free voting form to have students self-reflect on the song of the day.

Cantaninja Brain Break

Using Martina Bex’s Cantaninja procedure, you can have a student pick when during each class the song is played. They yell Cantaninja! and everyone stops what they are doing to watch the song of the day. (Usually, that person picks the song, but during this month you could just play the next song). If you would rather have more control of when your brain break is, just plan to play this song at a good breaking point. If using it as a brain break, I would let students walk around, dance and move, just as long as they are watching and listening.

Song of the day – dig deeper

If you have more time to dedicate to Hispanic Heritage Month, you could go even deeper. You could split up the artists/group of each song, and have students do some research on the song, artist, country etc. These could be shared around the room gallery walk style, or even in the hall or somewhere in the school, to help celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month school-wide.

Hispanic heritage month music bracket

Hispanic Heritage Month Music Madness!
This idea was from the awesome Sarah Whisenhunt. When she got version 2, she told me she had a head-to-head playoff/bracket in mind for version 2 songs vs. version 1 songs. This could be done very similarly to the popular March Madness Music Bracket. If you have the time you could show two songs per day, and then have the class vote. If not, it could be homework each day to listen to the 2 songs and vote using a Google Form with the links included. After the original 22 days, you could keep voting as a class, or just assign it as a day activity (or even sub-activity for fall state language conferences), where students listen to the songs and complete their own personal bracket.
If you plan to do a bracket with both slideshows, I  added a simple bracket to both slideshow resources to try and organize it. Since it is not a nice number like 16 or 32, there are some in a play-in round and I only included 20. (Symmetry is important to me;). In the bracket, there is a link to an editable Google Sheet, so you can adapt and change it as you would like. Also, if you already have the slideshows and want to do a bracket, go to my purchases and download the newest versions. That way all the songs line up in the same order.

Hispanic Heritage Month Music Madness!

How Hispanic Heritage Music Bracket started

Since I was gone during HHM in 2016 on maternity leave in 2017 I decided to do a bracket. But for the sake of time only using slideshow version 2. Once again the lack of symmetry got the best of me with 22 songs competing. No, it is not an even match for every song. Yes, my board looks like packman. No, I did not allow enough space for this board and everything is crunched.

To be efficient, instead of putting all of the song titles as I do during March madness, I just reused Spanish-speaking country signs that I already had in my filing cabinet (yeah hoarding!) that I am pretty sure came from this unit. I hope it will put more of an emphasis on the songs’ related country.

We watched 2 videos per day and had all classes votes combined to decide who moved on.  We started September 15 and using just one slideshow, there are 20 match ups.

Hispanic Heritage Month music bracket – 2018 version

Hispanic Heritage Month - Music Madness in Spanish class

Here is my bracket for 2018 (& my version for 2019 & 2020 look basically the same!). I got new country posters for free from Miss Maestra Cassie here. I used one song from each country version #3. Each day we listened to one pair of songs and all classes voted together to see who moved on. Depending on the day we either started class or waited and used it as a brain break.

How to use it?

Sra Penaranda created a student handout for students to fill out about each song. You can get it here for free.

We typically just vote on the board, but I do have a free voting form if you want to collect votes as a quick exit ticket instead.

Hopefully, this will be a fun way to spice up the fall! What are your plans for Hispanic Heritage Month? If you use a bracket, please share pictures and tag me on social media!
Remember you can also get all 6 sets here or the newest HHM6 version for 2021 here

As a recap, if this is your first year with the Hispanic Heritage Month music bracket, I would get the newest HHM6 version for 2021 , posters for a bulletin board & this voting form if you want paper votes.

 

This post was originally published on 9.6.17 by Mis Clases Locas and was updated on 9.9.18, 9.8.19, 9.13.20 & 6.18.21.

Comments

  3. Unknown says

    What do you do on your board once you have a winner between two countries? Do you move the winning countries to the right? or do you pin down a copy of the country? or do you write it down? I'm just wondering about the placement and keeping track of what country wins each day. Thanks!

  4. La Clase de Español says

    It's SraPenaranda. I created the activity sheet for the Mania Musical. I don't know how to share the file. I have a PDF. Any advice? I have on my TPT too.

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