Following on from yesterday’s post, another poem from my new book Los Mejores Versos de Gloria Fuertes.

I was drawn to this one firstly by the brevity and then for the repetition, both things that work well for younger learners!

I also like the theme – peace. Whilst it’s not International Day of Peace until September 21st I don’t think you need a special day to celebrate these things!

If you wanted to use this poem in class, you could ask children to consider their own PAZ poem – what words would they choose for each letter? Perhaps three verbs like pensar, actuar, zanjar conflicto (think, act and resolve conflict) or nouns likes paciencia, acción y un zapatazo a la guerra (patience, action and a kick to war) As you can see, z is a tricky letter so you might want to allow words that contain a Z and write it as an acrostic. For example, you could have:
Paciencia
communidAd
esperanZa

Alternatively you could challenge children with another word like AMOR or VIDA, or even their own name, choosing words in Spanish that apply to them.
I might write
Libros
Idiomas
Sol
Amistad

I collected some resources for Día de la Paz on Pinterest including the following images that might go well with this poem or could equally be used alone.

And of course there’s this famous song Que canten los niños:

How might you use the poem? Do share your ideas in the comments!

An approximate translation:
Just three letters
Three letters, nothing more.
Just three letters
That forever you will learn.
Just three letters to write PAZ (peace).
The P, the A, the Z; just three letters.
Just three letters,
Three letters, nothing more:
To sing peace,
To make peace.

The P of pueblo (the people)
The A of amar (love)
and the Z of zafiro (sapphire) or zagal (young boy)
‘zafiro’ for the blue world; ‘zagal’ for a child like you.
You don’t have to be wise or need bayonets,
If you only learn these three letters well;
Use them when you’re older and there’ll be peace in the world.

Thanks to REAL (The European Network of Language Associations) for drawing my attention to the following;

The European Union has launched a drawing and writing contest for 8-24 year olds, in partnership with the European Youth Forum. The four winners will be invited by the Presidents of the European Council, the European Commission and the European Parliament, to be part of the official delegation of the European Union that will travel to Oslo to receive this year’s Peace Prize. The European Youth Forum will pre-select the 16 best entries for each age group (8-12, 13-17, and 18-24). A jury will select three of the final winners (one per age group) who will win a trip to Oslo. Participants can take part in the contest and propose entries on: www.peaceuropefuture.eu.

The question that they must answer?

In the youngest age group, 8-12 years old, entrants must draw their response (they can use a computer so I assume that includes mobile devices like iPads too!)

In the other two age groups, entrants have to ‘text’ their response in 120 characters – in any of the 23 official languages of the EU. This actually so that they can be retweeted with a hashtag #peace4EU according to the rules. All entrants are then allowed to expand on and explain their  drawing/text in 300 characters.

The competition is open to nationals of the EU (so that means my kids can enter even though we’re currently in non EU Switzerland!) but you need to get your skates on as the closing date is 25th November at midnight CET. Entry is online though so no need to worry about posting pictures!