In my school, crossword puzzles have come to represent everything that is wrong with education. With a constant emphasis on the Five Dimensions of Teaching, our principal is very clear in saying that crossword puzzles do not fit into any of those five dimensions. Word searches and crossword puzzles do not teach our students anything–they…
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More Sub Plans
I’m once again putting together my emergency sub plans for the year, and now that I have a son who can be responsible for making me take an emergency sick day, I need more emergency plans! I pulled out some old students’ work to create some storyboard based plans: students read a story, answer questions…
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Visuals Database
Here is the link to a visuals database for world language classrooms, created by the University of Pittsburg. It has zillions of uses, one of which could be selecting one image to use as a class prompt for a universal screener or other writing or speaking assessment. You could print out one and leave it…
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El día terrible, horrible, espantoso, horroroso
This activity has several inspirations: Sarah Camblin, the French teacher at my school–her students are using this format to write about the frequency with which they do different activities in each season. Michele/Jenny and the story about waking up on the wrong side of the bed. The book “Alexander y el día terrible, horrible, espantoso,…
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You Are What You Eat
This excellent activity comes to you from Kyra Rice via my awesome ex-maternity sub B.Lo. (Today is my first official day back–a planning/grading day, thank the Lord!) Kyra called it “You Are What You Eat”, but it can be modified to suit just about anything; B.Lo. used it to present likes (foods, music, activities, etc.)…
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Jigsaw Puzzle
Here is another idea brought to you by the seductively fun Deb Abshier. She brought a version of this activity to share with our class on Wednesday night, and I love it! The possibilities are endless, but it is very important that you set it up correctly. (MAKE SURE YOU CLICK HERE TO READ THIS POST…
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Literacy Night, Take 1
Our school is holding a “Literacy Night” on Friday evening. The goal of the evening is to provide fun, literacy-based enrichment activities for our students and their families. It will be running alongside our 6th Grade Orientation, which (as an Elective teacher) is my opportunity to recruit new students for my program. My challenge was…
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Great Resources
Cynthia Hintz posted a link on her blog to one of Mr. Tejeda’s Podcuentos. These videos are awesome! He has some in Spanish and some in French. He speaks verrrrry slowly and circles each new piece of information very thoroughly. Cynthia used the story about the Chico Peruano to reinforce first-person singular verb forms…
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BINGO! as a springboard to writing
This is my attempt at legitimizing a fun activity (BINGO) that doesn’t actually help students learn language. BINGO works well for review, as a P.A.T. option, or for a sub plan activity… but language acquisition? The value is about ZERO. Before you play BINGO There are three things that you’ll need to do before class…
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Embedded Free Writes
This activity makes for a great component in a sub plan, but you can use it whenever you want to spend some focused time reviewing past target structures. This is a different strategy for expanding a writing piece. Begin by giving students three structures that you would like to review. They should be structures that…
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