Cognates

This is a set that I used to have for sale on Teachers Pay Teachers.  I made A LOT of money on this set, which sold for (I think) $2.  Then someone came in, made some incredibly negative and hurtful comments, and I pretty much took everything off of my TPT site.  Some comments were true, that there were two instances of autocorrect that I didn't catch, but the way the commenter worded it she insinuated (actually she stated outright) that I don't know Spanish because I think converser is a word.  Actually, I know the Spanish verb is conversAr but Microsoft doesn't know Spanish and changed it.  Considering the entire packet has words that are essentially one letter different than English, I'm surprised I caught as many of those autocorrect errors as I did.  And I actually question why an educated person wouldn't view it as an autocorrect issue and not just a Spanish issue.  (There was also a comment about colegio not being a cognate because it doesn't mean college.  I use that example as a "teachable moment" in my class, seeing that the word in context does provide enough information for students to realize it's a passage about a kid in school so then I tell students it's a false cognate.  I would think a teacher with more than a year of experience would realize that there are false cognates that students need to be aware of.  My biggest mistake, I guess, was not including a "how to use these handouts" page.  I've since added one.)

So the packet, which I'm linking for FREE, is meant to be some background activities as you begin the school year.  There are three handouts that are short, independent activities and then a series of pages that could be used as a bulletin board.

• Mis favoritos - I've been giving this handout pretty much every year for 24 years as the first homework assignment.  Students LOVE it.  It's clearly in Spanish but students can answer "in English" since most answers are proper nouns.  They are asked to state their favorite actor, singer, TV show, restaurant, etc.
• Los cognados - Definition of and examples of cognates.  The second side of the handout gives many occupations in the masculine and feminine forms, and then introduces the idea of masculine/feminine nouns with the definite articles el and la.  The handout ends with three critical thinking questions.  I'd imagine an immersion-oriented teacher would NOT be happy with this handout as it presents words out of context AND it talks about Spanish more than in Spanish.  I created it for use in my classroom, where I'm expected to have students think-pair-share at regular intervals (and on days two and three of Spanish that conversation MUST be in English!!!), and where I must respond to parents who question the perceived overuse of Spanish in my Spanish class. 
• María - I saw similar paragraphs but decided to create my own that included many of the vocabulary topics covered in my curriculum.  It's about a young girl who goes to school, what she likes to do, and what her family is like.  It's meant to give students the chance to read in Spanish and see how much they understand, not to test them but as a confidence boost.  "If you can read this page after a few days, imagine what you'll be able to read and understand after a whole year!"
• Wordles - I modeled these after a similar set I purchased from AATF many years ago.  The French set said "Parlez vous..." and then cognates dealing with art, food (cuisine), travel (voyages), etc.  I didn't have the nice pretty images on the AATF posters but I had a lot of cognates.  The original packet included color and black-and-white copies, because I saw a lot of TPT teachers included color and b/w copies for teachers to decide how much color ink they wanted to use up printing things.  I only kept the color copies in now.  If you want to print them in b/w instead, just select the wordle and change the color setting to greyscale.  I also included some ideas on how to use these wordless in class, either as an interactive word wall activity for fast finishers or as an organized center activity, in the new "how to use this set" page at the end.
• Almost blank page at the end, just says "Los Cognados," to be used during the year as students encounter cognates in the curriculum.  I used it one year but gave up a few weeks into the year.  It's still in the set, in case someone wants to use it.  I think it could be a really cool page at the beginning of an interactive notebook.

Here is the link to my Google Drive:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByqWX_oyFGzqMHB0QmQtc0VBcW8/view?usp=sharing

If you find a typo, an autocorrect error, or anything else that you think is really bad about it, please remember that I'm sharing this for FREE because I'm proud of it and I think other people might find it helpful.  If you don't want to use it, don't use it.  If you think it sucks, don't use it.  If you think it's OK but you can think of a way to improve it, please improve it and then let me know so I can update the set.  Please DO NOT copy it and sell it as your own on TPT or present it as your own at a workshop.  I have absolutely no problem sharing everything, but it would upset me terribly to find out someone else was making the money I used to make on my work before that person hurt my feelings.  :)  Thanks for understanding.