As the school year draws to a close, I have chosen to read a book in Spanish with my students. If we don’t manage to finish the book, my students will have to finish reading it over the summer holidays which will be an excellent practice to keep up their Spanish.

For grade 6 (11-12 years old), I have chosen Agentes secretos y el mural de Picasso by Mira Canion. It is an easy Spanish reader containing just 100 new vocabulary words and many English-Spanish cognates. It also repeats many key structures my students have learned over the year so it is perfect to recycle and introduce new and old material at the same time. The plot is set at the 1937 International Exposition when Pablo Picasso’s mural Guernica is on display.

Before starting to read the book, I wanted my students to get an overview of Picasso and Guernica. I prepared a slideshow to familiarize them with the painter and the mural. I included some personalized questions in order to connect students with the content and also to make the slideshow more interactive. At the end, students viewed a well explained video of the Guernica and its symbols:

El GUERNICA, SÍMBOLO DE UNA HISTORIA from Cristina Chinchilla on Vimeo.

You can download the slideshow here: Pablo Picasso(.pptx) or Pablo Picasso(.pdf)