Latin Chat Mat: "What's the weather today?" Classroom Conversation

Students use Latin sentence starters to have a conversation about the weather. The chat mat has a helpful picture for each response. This is a great way to build community and get to know your students while they use the target language.

Suggestions for how to use this chat mat:

• To facilitate a teacher-led check-in with students individually:
  • As students line up to enter your room, you can hold up the chat mat and ask them the question individually, offering them a chance to look at the options and respond in Latin. It’s a quick, low-stress way to get your students talking.
• To facilitate a teacher-led check-in with students as a whole class:
  • You can start your class period by projecting the chat mat and asking for volunteers to answer or a whole-class call out.
  • I’ve provided several yes/no question prompts that you can project on your screen and have the kids call out their answer or raise their hand for what they think is the right response: sic (yes) or minime (no).
• To complete a brief conversation in student pairs.
  • You can encourage students to use “et” (and) for more complex sentences to describe the weather. Maybe it’s sunny AND windy!
• To start or end class:
  • Students can use the chat mat independently as a written warm-up or exit ticket.

Included:

• A chat mat that asks "quid est tempestas hodie?" (What's the weather like today?) and "quid est in caelo hodie?" (What's in the sky today?) with student-friendly images showing 18 total responses
• Latin Yes/No question prompts for the weather vocabulary
• Notes to the teacher to help with implementation
• A black-and-white version

Material Covered:

• -ne questions with sic/minime (yes/no) responses
• weather vocabulary
  • nominative singular feminine adjectives
  • nominative singular nouns