Become a more confident language teacher.
For the second year in a row, I participated in a local “Kids 2 College” program. It’s a day when local 5th graders visit the community college and take college classes so that they can see what college is like. The funny thing is that I teach the Spanish classes, and I am not the Spanish professor…
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It has been a long time since I have mentioned Grow Story Grow on this blog–years, maybe! As we near the end of the year (today was the last day of classes here in Anchorage, yahoo!) and teachers are thinking about what to change and what materials to order for the 2014-2015 school year, I want…
Read MoreTalk about a labor of love. I have been working on putting together the final touches on my “El Secreto” storytelling unit for Spanish II for literally months. It has taken the back burner to a series of other projects, but I finally sat down tonight, determined to complete it. The unit is designed to target Irregular…
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I got to teach Spanish today! It was super fun and super exhausting–and I only taught two-20 minute classes. Phew! How did I used to do this every day!? Mat-Su Community College has an annual “Kids 2 College” day where local fifth graders spend a day at the college and take classes. None of the kids had…
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My weekend project is tidying up a document in which I list, categorize, and link all of the story activities that I’ve done/do. This means that I need to make sure that I have a specific post for each of them! You may have read about this in my lesson plan overviews for Houdini or…
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After reading Esperanza with my classes last year, I’ve been meaning to work up some more resources on Central American ‘Chicken Buses’. My kids enjoyed learning about them so much! It took awhile for me to find good video resources on them (there are a lot of low-quality ‘home videos’), but I got there! This song is…
Read MoreSince I will only be teaching M-TH this year, I am responsible for leaving plans for a classroom aide–who may or may not speak Spanish–to do with the kids on Fridays. It’s like sub plans every week–yikes! For the first week of school, I created a two-page worksheet with six mini readings that will be…
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My maternity sub is unavailable on one day during finals week, so I needed to develop a new final exam for Spanish II that did not involve the use of the computer. (Last year, I gave my students this exam based on the video La leyenda del espantapájaros.) Wanting to do as little work as…
Read MoreNeed a quick way for students to find a series of partners on the fly and with ease? The Kagan “Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up” strategy is just what you’ve been looking for! Step One: Stand Up! First step? Easy! All students STAND up! Step Two: Hand Up! Is everyone standing? Great! Put one…
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