Oaxaca Animals (1st Grade)

A Reading, Social Studies, Art, and Writing

Lesson
By: Magdalena Biscarro, Jaime Romero, Jennifer Scott, Anya Stroup,
and Courtney Alexander
TEKS:
Reading110.12 (b) (14) (C): retell the order of events in a text by referring to the words and/or
illustrations
Social Studies113.12 (b) (15) (A): describe and explain the importance of various beliefs, customs, language,
and traditions of families and communities
Art117.5 (b) (2) (A, B, C): Invent images that combine a variety of colors, forms, and lines
Place forms in orderly arrangement to create designs
Increase manipulative skills, using a variety of materials to produce
drawings, paintings, prints, and constructions.
Writing110.12 (b) (18) (A): Write brief stories that include a beginning, middle, and end
English Language Proficiency Standards:
74.4
(1) Listening, Kindergarten-Grade 12.
(A) Beginning. Beginning ELLs have little or no ability to understand spoken
English in academic and social settings. These students:
(i) struggle to understand simple conversations and simple discussions
even when the topics are familiar and the speaker uses linguistic supports
such as visuals, slower speech and other verbal cues, and gestures
(2) Speaking, Kindergarten-Grade 12.
(A) Beginning. Beginning ELLs have little or no ability to speak English in
academic and social settings. These students:
(i) mainly speak using single words and short phrases consisting of
recently practiced, memorized, or highly familiar material to get
immediate needs met; may be hesitant to speak and often give up in their
attempts to communicate;

Oaxaca Animals (1st Grade)

A Reading, Social Studies, Art, and Writing
Lesson
By: Magdalena Biscarro, Jaime Romero, Jennifer Scott, Anya Stroup,
and Courtney Alexander
(3) Reading, Kindergarten-Grade 1

(A) Beginning. Beginning ELLs have little or no ability to use the English
language to build foundational reading skills. These students:
(i) derive little or no meaning from grade-appropriate stories read aloud in
English, unless the stories are:
(I) read in short "chunks;"
(II) controlled to include the little English they know such as
language that is high frequency, concrete, and recently practiced;
and
(III) accompanied by ample visual supports such as illustrations,
gestures, pantomime, and objects and by linguistic supports such
as careful enunciation and slower speech;
(4) Reading, Grades 2-12
(A) Beginning. Beginning ELLs have little or no ability to read and understand
English used in academic and social contexts. These students:
(i) read and understand the very limited recently practiced, memorized, or
highly familiar English they have learned; vocabulary predominantly
includes:
(I) environmental print;
(II) some very high-frequency words; and
(III) concrete words that can be represented by pictures;
Objectives:

The student will retell the order of events of the book by referring to the words and/or
illustrations.
The students will learn the history behind where the alebrijes came from and how the
families come together to create them.
The students will learn how making the alebrijes is a skill that started in the community
of the Oaxaca people.

Oaxaca Animals (1st Grade)

A Reading, Social Studies, Art, and Writing
Lesson
By: Magdalena Biscarro, Jaime Romero, Jennifer Scott, Anya Stroup,
and Courtney Alexander

The students will view pictures and create a form of an alebrijes using their knowledge of
what they have learned.
The student will write a brief story, containing a beginning, middle, and end about how
their alebrijes originated.

Materials:
Book:
De la Ossa, E., Marta, H., & Suzan, G. (2003). The Little Animals of Oaxaca. Barrington,
IL: Rigby/Reed Elsevier.
Pre-assessment of vocabulary with words in English and Spanish
Social Studies Prezi- https://prezi.com/ykwgsbxrvsm-/the-little-animals-of-oaxaca/
(information adapted from: http://www.google.com/url?
sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F
%2Fwww.allenisd.org%2Fcms%2Flib%2FTX01001197%2FCentricity%2FDomain
%2F1875%2FOaxacan
%2520Animals.ppt&ei=mEhZVNvRDoGcgwSHv4DwCA&usg=AFQjCNEOvQmgzFJZ
0KPo-OzOtr-xNKwnWQ&bvm=bv.78677474,d.eXY )
Pictures of the book for students to put in sequential order
Creation of Oaxaca animals and book creation center materials- construction paper,
markers, crayons, paint/paintbrushes, scissors, glue
Sentence strips with examples from the book
Timer to keep track of the time students spend at each center
Vocabulary List:
English- family, mask, grandpa, little animals, market, crazy, name, surprise, friends, whole, has,
soft, little, which, dry, sun, paint, copal tree, trip
Spanish- todo, animalitos, sol, suave, familia, abuelo, cual, amigos, mercado, nombre, pintura,
loco, hombre, rbol de copal, viaje, mascara, tiene, sorpresa, pequeo, seco
Alebrijes!
Procedures:
1. As the students walk in, the teacher will provide them with a colored sticker. The teacher will
have students join her in the center of the classroom for Story Time.
2. Teacher will talk about and hand out a pre-assessment Show What You Know vocabulary
worksheet, where they will match the Spanish word to its corresponding English definition.
3. The teacher will allow 3 minutes for the students to work.
4. Discussion of the meaning of the vocabulary words in the pre-assessment.
5. The teacher reads The Little Animals of Oaxaca and asks specific questions about the
illustrations, story, and vocabulary.

Oaxaca Animals (1st Grade)

A Reading, Social Studies, Art, and Writing
Lesson
By: Magdalena Biscarro, Jaime Romero, Jennifer Scott, Anya Stroup,
and Courtney Alexander

Has anyone been to Oaxaca?

Does anyone know where Oaxaca is?
Do you think that this story could really happen?
Have you ever heard of alebrijes?
Today we are going to learn where they came from and what they are.

6. Presentation of the Prezi over the history of alebrijes.

Specific questions to be asked:
What is an imaginary creature?
What does it mean when the wood is green? Why is that important?
What are some of your favorite bright colors?
What will your story be?
Review of important vocab: Oaxaca, alebrijes, animalitos, monos, figuras
8. The teacher says: Now that we have talked about and seen examples of alebrijes, we are
going to create our own alebrijes and a story about how they came to be.
9. The teacher will explain the 3 centers that the students will be going to participate in, as well
as explaining that they need to move on to the next center when the timer goes off.
Center 1- The students will be putting pictures from the story in
chronological order and retelling the story orally. In addition, they will be
using sentence strips to put sentences from the story together.
Center 2- The students will be creating their own alebrijes using
construction paper and any other materials mentioned in the materials
section.
Center 3- The students will be creating a picture-book out of construction
paper that tells the story about how their alebrijes came to be.
10. The teacher will divide students into 3 groups to participate in the centers, depending on the
colored sticker they were given as they entered. Each student will make their book and alebrijes
individually, but they may work together as a group in the other center.
11. Each group will spend 7-13 minutes at each center, with the teacher keeping time.
12. Students will be asked to return to their seats with their completed projects.
13. The teacher will choose a few volunteers to share their alebrijes and origin story.
Assessment:

The student will retell the order of events of the book by referring to the words
and/or illustrations.
This objective will be assessed informally by the teachers observation of the
students at center 1. The teacher will ask questions about the story and
illustrations to check for understanding.

Oaxaca Animals (1st Grade)

A Reading, Social Studies, Art, and Writing
Lesson
By: Magdalena Biscarro, Jaime Romero, Jennifer Scott, Anya Stroup,
and Courtney Alexander

The students will learn the history behind where the alebrijes came from and how
the families come together to create them.
The students will learn how making the alebrijes is a skill that started in the
community of the Oaxaca people.
These objectives will be assessed informally by the teacher asking the students to
share 1 thing they learned about alebrijes and the people of Oaxaca.
The students will view pictures and create a form of an alebrijes using their
knowledge of what they have learned.
This objective will be assessed informally by reviewing the drawing of the
alebrijes that the students created.
The student will write a brief story, containing a beginning, middle, and end about
how their alebrijes originated.
This objective will be assessed by the finished product of the story of how their
alebrijes originated.