Become a more confident language teacher.
More and more teachers are heading back to school each week. While many things are “back to normal”, many things aren’t. In addition to the typical needs of a school year, the pandemic continues to create problems that need to be solved. One of the big challenges that I am already hearing about the 2021-2022…
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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…
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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 night, and…
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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…
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