I have seen many plans over the years that give students an opportunity to show their work ethic and social skills by completing creative tasks together. My sub plans were not like this. I spent most of my years in a middle school with large classes of 35 squirrely, defiant pre-teens and teens, and sub…
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The good thing about my daughter holding off on her arrival is that it has given our family time to get healthy. But, okay, I’m at 40 weeks and the coughs and runny noses are gone so…come on, little lady! If you teach French and, like me, have found yourself stricken with a mid-winter illness, I have…
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Shanna Hellerich, a Spanish teacher using the ¡Búscalo! story this fall, sent me this email: “I just wanted to share with you an extension activity I made to go along with the beginning of the Buscalo unit you created. I needed sub plans for class and didn’t want to delay the vocab in the unit, so…
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Ah, emergency sub plans! A beginning-of-the-year requirement that makes most teachers want to call in sick. Well, not really because that would require using the emergency sub plans that you worked so hard to put together. Seriously, though, planning for unplanned absences (creating emergency sub plans) is not easy! You don’t know when you will…
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Instead of playing with a deck of cards, play this familiar children’s game with original cards filled with images or text as an opportunity to to get students speaking in low-risk situation even as they continue interacting with a text (’cause it’s all about the input, baby!). Before you play Go Fish Prepare students for…
Read MoreAre you a Spanish teacher? Are you worried that you will catch the flu this school year? Do you want to be prepared with a ready-to-go sub plan? I’m your gal 🙂 If you answered “no” to any of those three questions, this post may still be of some use to you. It’s 9:30 on Saturday…
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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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I recently learned that this time of the year is when folks in Alaska are the sickest because people don’t pick up their dog poop from the yard all winter. Now that temperatures are finally above freezing, the poo is mushy and ready for kids that are excited to play outside to track it into…
Read MoreWe all love getting a day off now and then, but we all hate making sub plans. Most of the time, I would suffer through whatever illness was ailing me so that I wouldn’t have to go through the hassle of creating plans! Here are a few things that helped to make my sub planning…
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Some of you may know that I have the mother of all multi-level classes this year: 6th-12th grade, 1st-7th year Spanish. I asked parents and students for grace during the first few weeks as I figured out how to meet everyone’s needs, and they did. We are now finishing up week four, and I have a…
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