I decided that I wanted to do something different than making a family tree with my seventh grade Spanish class for the family unit.  My students did research on their family names and made an Escodo de Armas. Click to see the checklist and rubric for the project.

   We read about how Hispanic names are formed and how important the maternal surname is to the Hispanic culture.  My students asked their family members, abuelos, padres y otros parientes about their family names and backgrounds.  This unit was based on a lot of vocabulary and culture.

    I used this final project as their unit test.  My students worked very hard on them and had a lot of fun.  The site that they found many of their family coat of arms is http://homepage.tinet.ie/~donnaweb/

Some of my students could not find their family name, they looked up thier mothers maiden names as well.  If they could not find theirs or one like it, they were alowed to create one of their own.  To know what the symbols mean a good site I found is http://www.irishsurnames.com/ click on the different symbols.   

    Here is an example of my seventh graders escodo de armas.  Enjoy!

Gustavo