Los Famosos (communicative activity)

Another favorite activity my students do with numbers is "Los famosos".  During their numbers unit, my 6th graders don't learn to tell time but they do learn to talk about numerical personal information like birthdays, ages, and phone numbers.  To wrap everything up and practice towards the end of the unit, we do this activity:

front of a card

Each student gets a card with a famous person from one of our three culture-focus countries for the trimester (Mexico, Ecuador, and Costa Rica in 6th grade).  They are now this person :-) and have to exchange personal information (one-on-one) with the other "famosos" in the class.

Each two-sided card has the person's picture and name on the front and personal information on the back.  Students walk around the room holding the front facing out so they can read their "own" information on the back and their classmates can see "their" picture and name.

back of a card

The students always get such a big kick out of why they are famous!  The most excited students are always the presidents and the athletes, but I included a wide range of celebrities, from actors and musicians to artists and writers.  I also made sure to include people of all different ages; the "famosos" range in age from teenagers to 90-year-olds!

In addition to their numbers unit vocabulary, they get to review other personal information and learn new vocabulary about jobs from why their person is famous.  To give their personal information correctly, they have to remember other cultural/linguistic concepts from the unit such as date format (DAY/MONTH/year), years ("one thousand nine hundred sixty-three"), and phone numbers ("two hundred fifty-five, ninety-nine, fifty-eight").  Plus, they get to learn about famous people from our three countries!

While they are interviewing their classmates, the students have to fill out a chart to record their classmates' information.  As in the "turistas" activity, the chart guides students in asking the questions and ensures that they have to understand the information they hear.

chart to fill in

Like many other activities I've shared, this one is a winner because it gets included as an answer to both "What activities did you LIKE this most?" AND "What activities helped you LEARN the most?" on the end-of-unit survey!