Celebrating Hispanic Heritage & Culture Month

At Rosen-LightSail, we are committed to celebrating diversity everyday. From September 15th – October 15th, we specifically celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month by recognizing the contributions of Hispanic and Latinx Americans to our history and culture. 

Many of our friends, colleagues and students are of Hispanic and Latin descent. In 2018, 59.87 million people of Hispanic origin were living in the United States! What better way to learn and share about each other’s cultures than educating students about Hispanic Heritage Month? Within the Rosen-Lightsail platform, you can find fictional books written by Hispanic or Latinx authors, and informational books about culture, traditions, countries and more!

A great starting point is having students explore and preview some books in each Hispanic Heritage and Culture Series. Those series are: 

• Celebrating Hispanic Diversity (These books are available in both English and Spanish)
• Exploring World Cultures 
• The Land and the People
• Cultures of the World

Teacher Tips

Use any of these four series to bring these cultures to life in your classroom!  After students have read 2 or more books about different countries/cultures, have them work in partners to complete an active reading guide themed around comparing and contrasting lifestyle, traditions, festivals and more. 

You can find an Active Reading Guide/Compare & Contrast note template, HERE. 

This Active Reading Guide also incorporates our ‘Add Thoughts’ feature, which allows students to leave a thought about a passage of text and an opportunity for you to respond.  In addition, students can use this box to type a thought in Spanish!

You can find a full lesson themed around Adding Thoughts/Annotations, HERE.

Extend Classroom Learning about Hispanic Heritage

Here are some additional titles found in the Rosen-LightSail library:

We hope that your students are able to use our complimentary library to learn about the traditions and cultures of Hispanic and Latin people and countries! Please reach out to your Instructional Coach for further teaching tips. Remember, we are all part of this Learning Community. It’s fun to share ideas and work together to better our instruction! Lastly, we would love to hear how you used our Hispanic Heritage books in your classroom. Please don’t hesitate to share on social media or by emailing our Instructional Coaches team!

Featured Image Attribute: Photo by DmNDm on Shutterstock.