Amazon Prime

Last year I got a Kindle for Christmas and I purchased an Amazon Prime Membership.  I have enjoyed watching T.V. shows and movies, getting free shipping on Amazon orders, and free book rentals on the Kindle.  But I have also found it to be useful in my Spanish classroom.  I have been able to show cultural videos in my classroom by renting them or streaming them for free.

There are several series that can be rented for $1.99 per episode.  You can buy the episode, hovwever renting it gives teachers the opportunity to try the video with their class before they invest a greater amount of money.  My classes really enjoyed the series produced by Teacher's Discovery under the label Moo!.  They have several cultural topics including food and holidays.  Each of the videos are about thirty minutes long.  They are interesting to students because the camera follows a native host as they introduce the culture to an American teenager.

Another series that is available to rent are the Globe Trekker episodes produced by PBS.  Each episode highlights a different country.  The host visits iconic places and explores local rituals.

There is a series of educational videos available for free with an Amazon Prime membership.  These are produced by New Dimension.  They are a little bit drier and more like a documentary than the ones mentioned above.  But they are well-organized and contain a lot of valuable information about culture including geography and history.

Día de los Santos Inocentes

If you are visiting a Spanish-speaking country on December 28, be on the look out for practical jokers.  One might compare it to April Fool's Day in the United States.

This fun holiday has it's origins in the Bible in the story where King Harod had all of the baby boys under two years of age executed.  His intent was to kill the baby Jesus so that he could never be a rival for Harod.  But the joke was on the king because Joseph and Mary had taken baby Jesus to Egypt so that he would be safe.  The holiday is celebrated to honor the children, los inocentes, who were killed by King Harod.

During the Middle Ages it was celebrated with a feast.  Today it has become a day of playing pranks called Inocentadas.  



http://spanish.about.com/b/2013/04/01/spains-equivalent-of-april-fools-day-is-dec-28.htm

http://spanishfood.about.com/od/holidaysfeasts/a/santosinocentes.htm

The Poinsettia

A local CBS affiliate does a news segment they call "Good Question" in which viewers ask questions and the reporter finds the answer.  I was excited when I saw the question, "How did Poinsettias Become a Part of Christmas?" I rolled up my sleeves and told my family, "I got this".  I didn't need to view the story to answer the question.  One of the benefits of teaching Spanish is decorating my classroom with poinsettias.


The plant and the Christmas tradition originate in Mexico.  According the Biology department at UCC the poinsettia, or Euphorbia pulcherrima, blooms in Southern Mexico and Central America between November and March.  The Aztecs called it the cuetlaxochitl and used the milky substance produced by the plant for treating fevers.  They made red dye from the flowers.  The red flowers are not actually flowers, they are the plant's leaves.

The legend that inspired the use of poinsettias as Christmas plants involves a small boy that did not have enough money to give a gift to Jesus on Christmas Day.  Before reaching the church he stopped an picked some weedy branches and prayed that it was enough.  The people at the church laughed at his pathetic gift, but he carried the branches to the altar.  When he reached the altar, the branches began to bloom with beautiful red flowers.  This story is told in a book by Tomie de Paola.

The story also caught the attention of Joel Roberts Poinsett, an ambassador to Mexico in 1829.  He had the Mexican fire plant shipped back to his home in South Carolina and later the plant was named after him.


http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2013/12/17/good-question-how-did-poinsettias-become-a-part-of-christmas/

http://faculty.ucc.edu/biology-ombrello/pow/poinsettia.htm

http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/3554-how-the-mexican-fire-plant-became-the-poinsettia

http://www.amazon.com/The-Legend-Poinsettia-Tomie-dePaola/dp/0698115678/ref=sr_sp-btf_title_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1387384481&sr=8-6&keywords=tomie+depaola+christmas