Inside: Lesson plans for teaching the novel Peter va a Colombia in Spanish class. Chapter by chapter Peter va a Colombia Spanish class plans.
Author: Allison Wienhold
Published: Originally published on April 28, 2017 & most recently updated on October 2, 2024.
Peter Va a Colombia
This year our last novel of the year in Spanish 1 is Peter va a Colombia. It is an awesome novice-level reader by fellow Iowan Craig Klein. You can purchase the book here from his site Spanish Cuentos. You can also get the novel Peter va a Colombia using Amazon Prime if you prefer.
I wrote about the novel as well as shared resources for the novel here. You can see our full curriculum this year in this post. For context, this group has been doing free reading for months. They have also already read the full-class novels Tumba & Brandon Brown Quiere un Perro.
Before Teaching Peter Va a Colombia
Before starting the novel we spent a full two weeks on cultural units relating to the study of Colombia. We completed the Biblioburo – Storytelling Unit from The Comprehensible Classroom. We also did El Desfile del Yipao – Cultural Activities from The Comprehensible Classroom. We also did an activity with the song La Bicicleta. These helped to get students ready for the novel and more familiar with the country of Colombia.
Teaching Peter va a Colombia
During the novel, we used the Spanish Cuentos Youtube Playlist for additional cultural exploration and expansion. As always, I created a large Google slide show, with vocab, activities, and discussion questions for each chapter. This not only helps to keep me organized from class to class but from year to year. I posted this slide show on Google Classroom, so students always have access to everything we do in class.
Differentiated Groupings with Reading Clubs
As I shared in my last post about reading clubs, we read this book in differentiated groups in my large class. Each chapter usually involves introducing a couple of key vocabulary words that are new to students, discussion questions, and some kind of expansion. Since we were in differentiated groups not all groups did all activities, or they may have chosen other options to complete instead.
Some activities were completed as a whole large class, but many with smaller leveled groups. Check out the reading club 1 novel in 3 groups post to find out more.
Below are some ideas for each chapter beyond vocabulary, reading, and discussion. If you are new to teaching with novels, read How to Teach Comprehensible Spanish Books & How to teach a novel – typical day 1st.
Chapter 1 – Peter es un muchacho normal
- Venn Diagram – Students compare themselves to the main character Peter using a Venn Diagram to organize their thoughts. This was a great chance to practice the I, he, and we forms of high frequency verbs.
Peter va a Colombia Chapter 2 – La Escuela
Chapter 3 – Peter llega a Bogota
- Cultural exploration in groups over the following topics – La Catedral Primada, Museo Botero, Museo Botero, Fernando Botero, Los Quimbayas
- Ch3 Kahoot
Peter va a Colombia Chapter 4 – Problemas en el Museo Botero
- Quizlet Ch4 – to intro vocab
- Reader’s Theater – students worked in groups to write a script of the short, action packed chapter and perform for class.
Chapter 5 – Una escuela muy bonita
- Compare the school in Colombia and our school
- Kahoot Ch1-5 – Review of the first half of the book
Peter va a Colombia Chapter 6 – En el pueblo y en el campo
- Cultural Extension of Villa de Leyva & markets using video
- Ch 6 Jumble – order of events after reading
Chapter 7 – El desfile de yipao
- We discussed this event at length before starting the novel using – El Desfile del Yipao – Cultural Activities. So students enjoyed seeing something they learned about in context in the book.
- More ideas – El Desfile del Yipao – paper craft & desfile del yipao – Pinterest Board by Spanish Cuentos
Chapter 8 – Peter llega a Cartegena
- Cultural Extension with the following topics projecting pictures: arepas, Fortaleza de San Felipe & Monumento de los zapatos viejos and using videos: cumbia, vallenata, Tour of Cartagena
- Strip Bingo – Students pick 5 vocabulary words from a list you give from a chapter and write them vertically on a paper in English. The teacher reads sentences from the book in Spanish that have those words. When a student hears a word that is listed at the top or bottom of the paper, they get to rip it off. Just like Bingo the goal is to use all five.
Peter va a Colombia Chapter 1-8 Listening Assessment
- ADDED THE NEXT YEAR – Peter va a Colombia Listening Assessment over chapters 1-8. You can get the one I used here with other assessments. This was due to moving to Standard Based Grading. I try to assess 3-4 modes – reading &/or listening &/or speaking &/or writing once per novel if possible.
Chapter 9 – Fútbol
- Scrambled Sentences Cards (read more in this post)
- Pick important sentences from the chapter. Fold two colored pieces of paper each into eight cards. Write out the sentence with each word and punctuation mark on a separate card. (To make it more difficult, put two verb options on one card). Cut apart the cards. Make about 12-15 sentences each on a separate color of cards.
- Have students choose a set of partners. They work together to put the sentence in the correct order. Once they have it, they call the teacher over and translate what they put together in English. Once it is correct, they pick up their sentence and get a new set.
- This was a great way for students to practice word order and figure out where all of the important little words go in a sentence.
Peter va a Colombia Chapter 10 – Biblioburro
- Quizlet – Ch10– to introduce vocab
- Marker Game Ch10 – to review chapter
- We did our cultural extension of this chapter before even starting the book with the Biblioburo – Storytelling Unit. Once again we could move quickly since students already understood the cultural significance of Biblioburro.
- more ideas – Biblioburro – paper craft & Biblioburro – Pinterest Board by Spanish Cuentos
Chapter 11 – La Casa Blanca
- Quizziz – over book
- Order of events for the book – 20 sentences from the book cut up to put in order in partners
- Speaking & Writing Assessment Practice
Peter va a Colombia Assessments (next week)
- Interpersonal Speaking – I typed up leveled questions about the book, cut them into sentence strips, and laminated them. I have basic questions in one color, and more open-ended questions in another color. Students then used these in pairs to prepare for interpersonal speaking. Depending on proficiency level, we also worked on writing our questions to use as well. We used the fan and pick form to help keep pairs of groups of three accountable while practicing. For the actual assessment, I will pick random pairs to speak with each other about the book.
- See more Assess Spanish Speaking
- Presentational Writing – Students will be given the choice of three writing prompts in advance. They had a chance to practice writing in class. I always do actual assessments in class on paper so there is no temptation of a translator and I see what they know. You can get the assessments I plan to use here.
- See more Writing in Spanish Class
Update – I would now add Encanto to this unit
Encanto would be the perfect complement to this novel. You could watch it before the novel to learn about Colombia, or after as a fun celebration of finishing the book. I would for sure use the Colombia culture slideshow below before reading the book.
- Encanto in Spanish class blog post with resources
Encanto Freebie with lots of culture about Colombia Below!
More Resources for the novel Peter va a Colombia
- My Pinterest Board – Peter va a Colombia
- Quizlet for each chapter under user swayner
- Longer Kahoot
- NEW Experiencia Colombia Spanish Teacher PD 2025
Overall, my students really enjoyed this lighthearted, fun, and culturally rich novel. They love that the main character is from Iowa like them, and that I know the author.
Have you taught Peter va a Colombia? What are your favorite resources? Please share in the comments!
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