   
|
|
|
 | Poster board; markers; “saleable” items such as school supplies, used but clean clothing, toys, books
|
|
We're Off to the Flea
To introduce your students to the flea market, create a model market in your classroom. Designate an area in your classroom as a remate, or flea market. Make signs on poster board to announce the flea market and put them up a few days before you begin working with the book.
The day of the reading, set up a mini-flea market in your classroom. Set up a few tables as booths, with signs indicating what can be bought or sold there; for example, “Books” or “Toys” or “Hardware.” You can use supplies already on hand – safety scissors, boxes of crayons, books from your reading corner – as stand-ins for the flea market “merchandise.”
Leave the flea market set up in a corner for students to explore during center time, and for other activities in this guide.
What Would You Give for a. . .?
Students play a circle game where they “buy” or “trade” items in a flea market.
30 min.
|
small group and/or whole class
|
|
| Blackboard and chalk
|
|
Ask students if they have ever been to or seen a flea market. What do people do there? What kinds of things are bought and sold there?
Ask students if they know the difference between buying/selling and bartering/trading. Guide them through understanding key points: “to sell” means to exchange something for money, at a fixed price; “to barter” is to trade goods or services for other goods, without exchanging money.
Brainstorm potential items to trade or sell (i.e., baseball cards, books, hair clips, sneakers, tapes) and make a word web on the blackboard based on their ideas of what kinds of things can be bought or sold at a flea market.
Divide the class into small groups and assign each group an object from the word web. The students must then sell or trade the item in turn around the circle – each student offering a dollar amount, or something they would be willing to trade in exchange for that object. You may wish to model the interaction, extolling the virtues and value of the item: “Marco, I'm selling baseball hats. They're brand-new, I have all different colors, they're a new design. How much would you give me for one of them?” Go back and forth until you reach an agreement on a purchase or an exchange.
Encourage students to haggle if they don't feel that the amount or item they are offered is sufficient. When the exchange is completed, the item is then “sold” or “traded” to the next player. Make sure all students have had a turn buying/selling or trading the object.
Diving In
30 min.
|
small or large groups
|
Introduce the book to students in a small or large group. The focus of this first reading should be reading for pleasure – encouraging students to enjoy the beauty of the book and the story it tells. In order to foster this enjoyment, try some of the following activities:
 | Before reading, discuss the cover, the title, and the illustrations. Ask students what story they think the book tells. List these predictions on flipchart paper. Revisit the list after reading to check the accuracy of their predictions.
|
| Encourage students to further explore the book actively by taking a “picture walk” thorough the book, thinking about the story as it is told through the illustrations.
|
| Read the book aloud to the group or have students read the book on their own, in pairs, or in small groups.
|
Meaning in Context
Students practice strategies to understand the meanings of new words in Spanish and English.
30 min.
|
whole class
|
|
CA Reading Standard 1.0: Use sentence and word context, as well as the dictionary, to learn the meaning of unknown words.
|
|
| Flipchart or easel and markers
|
|
Ask students what English or Spanish words they didn't know when they first looked at or listened to the book. Ask how they were able to figure out what those words mean. Use a flipchart to list strategies they brainstorm, including:
|
looking at the pictures |
|
looking at the word in context |
|
using the dictionary |
|
asking a friend |
|
asking a heritage Spanish speaker or consulting a Spanish-English dictionary (in the case of defining unfamiliar words in Spanish) |
Apply these strategies to the non-English words in the English text. Point out that, in the English text, some words are in italics – these words are in Spanish. For your reference, in the English text the words that appear in italics are:
|
p. 5 – nopalitos, burritos, vámonos, Los Meros Meros Remateros |
|
p. 6 – rebozo, rematero |
|
p. 9 – churro, fotonovelas, pelón |
| p. 11 – zarape, sobadora |
|
p. 12 – chile rayado |
| p. 15 – gracias |
| p. 19 – rematero/a, pasilla, mole, colorado, piquín |
| p. 20 – tamales, quinceañera |
| p. 23 – telenovelas |
| p. 25 – la reuma |
| p. 27 – mariachis, esperanza |
In primarily Spanish-speaking classrooms, point out words that may be new to your students:
| p. 5 – rete amigos |
| p. 14 – alquiler |
| p. 19 – frigüey, jaqueca |
| p. 20 – espuelas |
| p. 25 – la reuma |
| p. 26 – drive-in, acordeón |
| p. 30 – centellea |
After students read the book individually, ask them what new words they found and what strategies they used to figure them out. Add any new strategies to the flipchart and post the list in your classroom.
Other Vocabulary Activities:
| Action Words: Point out that Juanito doesn't just walk around the remate. Ask students to find words in the story that describe action – the active verbs that make the story move from one scene to another (for example, jump, scream, float, run, bounce, skip, race). On the board, write a few sentences describing what the characters in the book do, such as “Juanito walks to the cowboy hat vendor,” “Floribey goes to buy a new comic book,” and “Grandma moves around the flea market looking for bargains.” Have students rewrite each sentence, substituting other action words for the verbs to make the sentences more lively and interesting. Compare the action verbs they choose for each character. How does Grandma move as compared to the children? How would each of the vendors move?
|
| Metaphor: Have students turn to page 5, and ask them what it means when clothing is wrapped “into tight burritos.” Explain that when you make a comparison between two things and you don't use the words like or as you are using a metaphor. Have students find other examples of metaphor in the text (“peacocks have rainbows in their feathers” on page 11). Make a short list of words on the blackboard: sun, bridge, grapes, basketball, and so on. Have students write metaphors for two things on the list (for example, “The grapes were shiny purple gems”; “The bridge is a necklace of lights.”)
|
The Flea in a Nutshell
Students retell and summarize the events of the story as they trace Juanito's path around the flea market.
ongoing
|
whole class
|
|
CA Reading Standard 2.0: Students read and understand grade-level-appropriate material. They draw upon a variety of comprehension strategies as needed (e.g., generating and responding to essential questions, making predictions, comparing information from several sources).
|
Using the accompanying worksheet, have students map the story by tracing Juanito's path through the flea market. In each item, students fill in the blanks, telling what booth, what characters are there, and what is sold or exchanged. Then students draw Juanito's path as he bounces from the different booths to Grandma and back again.
Have students retell the major events of the book, based on the information on their worksheets.
Ask students to return to the predictions they made about the book to see if they were accurate. Were they right about what was going to happen in the story?
Using what they know, ask each student to “nutshell” Grandma and Me at the Flea / Los Meros Meros Remateros . How would the student describe the book to a friend in one sentence?
Thinking Through the Themes
Students learn to recognize the difference between plot and theme, and discuss the themes developed in the story.
30 min.
|
small group
|
|
CA Reading Standard 3.0: Students read and respond to a wide variety of significant works of children's literature. They distinguish between the structural features of the text and literary terms or elements (e.g., theme, plot, setting, and characters).
|
Refer students back to the worksheet in which they have mapped out Juanito's path through the flea market. Ask if they know what the “plot” of a story is. On the board, write a working definition of plot: “The plot is the series of events in a story, play, movie, or other similar work.”
Ask students what lessons Juanito learned during the day. What lessons did they learn from the story? Record their comments on the board.
Ask if students know what the “themes” of a story are. Below the definition of plot, add a definition of theme: “A theme is an idea or lesson found in a story, play, movie, or other similar work.”
Ask students if the “lessons” they listed are themes. If they aren't, how could they be themes? Have them identify a list of themes for the book.
Continue the discussion of themes by asking students to find the qualities that Abuela says belong to a real flea marketeer, and write them on the board. Ask students whether they think that Abuela and the other flea market people have these qualities. Why do they think so? Does the author believe that these qualities are only necessary in the flea market? Where else are they important? How can being a good flea marketeer be a theme of this book (being a good person, a good community member)?
|
|
|
|
