To Have, not to Hold: The Verb "Tener"

This week proved to be a trying one for me.
I was reassigned from teaching grades K-6 Spanish to grades 3-10 Spanish (grades 7-10 being levels 1 through 4). That being said, I had many ideas and an overload of content to consider implementing and organizing. Needless to say, I've been somewhat overwhelmed.

As a practice warm-up/pre-assessment activity for my students I decided to implement one of the assignments from my TED 633 class which would be useful and meaningful to my 5th graders.

TENER (to have) Verb Conjugation Matching Activity
      Materials

• Small slips of paper with pronouns in Spanish
• Small slips of paper with all of the conjugations of Tener (to have)

      Activity

• All slips of paper are placed in a festive hat
• Students choose one slip of paper & find the person with the matching pronoun & verb conjugation
• The pair comes up with two sentences (one each) and illustrations

Results
Overall students did quite well and enjoyed the activity.
I did not give instructions until they each had a slip of paper in their hands which created anticipation and curiosity. Just putting their hands into the hat to choose something was exciting. Once they each had their slips, I explained.They had ten minutes to find their "partner" (also a great community building activity) and create and illustrate two sentences.  They were eager to get to work and the energy in the classroom was palpable. Unfortunately, some students were confused. They thought they had to find the person with the same verb as theirs which led me to believe I did not provide clear, detailed instructions.
After the ten minutes, most students were done though I gave an additional five minutes to wrap it up. We went over each conjugation and the pairs chose their favorite sentences to share with the group.

Reflection 
As I think back on the activity, I feel it was successful overall as students had fun and learned more about conjugation.  I also learned the importance of providing clear, step-by-step instructions for students who are not audio learners. I gave the big picture expectation, but they could not really "see" it. This sometimes happens vice-versa when we give too many details but fail to provide the big picture objectives.
This activity helped me in assessing where students were in their understanding of verb conjugation. Some of them have been taking classes with me since Kindergarten so they are very aware. On the other hand, half of the class is new this year and most of those have had very little, if any, exposure to Spanish.
After the activity I asked if everyone understood and I got a few blank stares. I asked if there were any questions, with yet more blank stares. Then I asked everyone to give a show of hands (using their fingers) to let me know how much they understood. Five fingers up meant "I totally get it" and one finger up, "I'm totally confused". This was eye opening as it provided me with a true glimpse of which students needed additional support from me. I now have a small group to work with individually.
I think I will do this type of thing more often.