Many school districts have asked their teachers to provide up to two-weeks of printable lesson plans for students to be able to complete at home in case of emergency school closure in relation with the containment of COVID-19 (Coronavirus).
Creating a single sub plan is a big enough task, but creating multiple weeks' worth of plans is completely daunting. If I was going to be absent for a single class period, I didn't feel too bad about using the period for busy work, or filling the time with an output task like a 1-3-10 Free Write. After all, I'd be back the next day, ready to flood my students with input.
Time is precious, and I don't want your students to miss out on 2+ weeks of exposure to linguistic input. To help out teachers that are using SOMOS, I have pulled together some very flexible resources that can be quickly modified and shared with your administrator and/or your students. These materials will work well for any Spanish teacher that finds themselves in the situation of needing to provide materials for coronavirus-related school closure!
EDITABLE LESSON PLANS FOR SCHOOL CLOSURE OR EXTENDED ABSENCES
With the help of Maris Hawkins and teachers from the SOMOS Collaboration group, I have put together a choice board of activities and a set of Spanish-language texts that can be shared with students electronically or printed to be completed by hand.
When you enter your email address, you will receive a link to a folder that contains the free resources. We will also email you as we add new resources to the folder!
Step 1: Copy the resources to your drive!
Once you receive the link, the first thing you will want to do is to either download the resources or make a copy and add them to your own drive. In the folder, the resources are view-only; once they are in your Drive or on your hard drive, you can edit them however you'd like!
Step 2: Edit away!
Be sure to open and edit the file entitled "COVID-19 student activities". It contains instructions for your students that will need to personalized with your contact information and directions for how you'd like students to complete and submit the work. For example, you might want your students to read TWO stories per day (as-is, the instructions just say 1), or you might want students to email their completed work to you each day; or perhaps a photo of completed work.
You can also edit the stories in the special edition of Revista Literal. Typically, Revista Literal is published in a very polished PDF with eye-catching graphics. Because I want you to make it easy for you to connect your students with stories that they will understand, the pages are plain-text (to use less ink) and can be easily modified once they are in your Drive. You may choose to only share some of the stories with your students!
Step 3: Share or print
Once you've modified the materials as desired, you are free to share them with your admin or students electronically (via Google Classroom, for example) or to print them out and send home with students. All materials in the folder are licensed with a Creative Commons NonCommercial Attribution ShareAlike license that allows you to modify & reshare them, provided the same license remains on them and they are not used for commercial purposes.
The SOMOS Collab teachers are working on proofreading and creating glossaries for a second set of texts, and I will be sending out an email once those are ready. Get on the list!
MORE PRINTABLE RESOURCES FOR DISTANCE LEARNING
Our Flex curricula, available in French, Spanish, and Latin, is an excellent resource for sub plans, school closure, and absent work. Each daily lesson provides the teacher with instructions and materials to teach learners in the classroom, to send to virtual learners, and a print packet that can be distributed for students who will be home or traveling without internet access.
Click here to learn more about the Flex curriculum!
Learn more about the Somos Flex curriculum here.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FOR SCHOOL CLOSURE PLANS
In the folder, I have also added a document that includes links to many free and some paid resources that can be printed and used with the Choice Boards or as standalone activities.
If you are able to assign online activities to your students during school closures, you have many more options. Here are some additional web-based resources that you can use to create lesson plans for your students to complete from home:
Garbanzo
Subscribers have access to Garbanzo's full library of 500+ stories and informational texts in Spanish. Sign up for a free trial, during which you will have access to plenty of free lessons that can be assigned to your students to complete from home. All they need is a device with Internet access! No internet? Send them home with the printable resources linked above.
Be well
My prayer is that you and yours would stay healthy in the coming months, and that your minds would be at ease. As hard as it is with the constant push for panic-mode coming from the Media, I am staying calm even as I take precautions to help prevent my family from spreading illness to those around us. I'm still planning to attend MittenCI in April, planning is underway for the second SOMOS workshop in May, and I booked my flight to iFLT in July (taking full advantage of the offers that most airlines are running right now for fully refundable and transferable airfare!). I hope to see YOU around this spring!!
Sending a virtual hug (the kind that doesn't spread germs!),
Martina
