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Welcome to Sra. K. Spanish

Vamos de viaje…

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

I am so excited, and a little nervous, to get this started! I have been on the blogs of so many other teachers over the years, and have found them so useful. So, I thought it was time for me to share a few things too!

I have taught in a dual language classroom, in a bilingual classroom, in middle school and high school Spanish classrooms teaching native English speakers and native and heritage Spanish speakers.

I hope that my experiences may be able to help encourage other educators! So…¡vámanos de viaje!

RAP Time – Read, Add and Pass…A Vocab Review Activity

It is about that time of the semester when you need a break and the kids need a break, but there is still SOOOO much to cover!

I know, lately, I have been struggling with activities that keep students’ attention. It is like these past pandemic years have shortened their ability to sit and do anything for very long.

So, here is a vocabulary review activity that can get the students working together, creating a product, and you just get to monitor! It is pretty self-explanatory. YAY! (Of course, if you have any questions, please just let me know!)

I am not sure where I adapted this idea from. I know I took from a few sources over the years and really just tweaked it until it worked for my class. I hope it can work for yours too!

HERE IS THE LINK

Need an EASY day? I got you!

Y’all, it has been a YEAR… and it is only October.

We could ALL use a day sometimes to give students some cultural content AND take some time when we aren’t “on.” I am in this boat with you all, so I started using some episodes of Bizarre Foods. The kids are interested, they get some valuable cultural input AND you have a lot to unpack after if you would like to extend the lesson.

So, HERE is one you can use TOMORROW in class. If you happen to find others and you would like to share, I would LOVE to have more for “those” days. LOL. Just leave a link in comments below and we can all share! Sharing is caring, and we all need to take care of each other this year.

Happy Teaching!

Alana

Incorporating Required Vocabulary

How to keep it in the Stepping Stones Framework

So, I use the Stepping Stones Curricular Framework from CI Liftoff to guide my instruction, BUUUUTTTTT I also work in a district with a required curriculum too! So, how do I make that work?

Recently, one thing I need to teach to meet district requirements is the difference between wants and needs and to review the vocabulary associated with that. So, I created a Picture Talk to do just that! This still fits into Cycle 1 Phase 2 of the Stepping Stones framework. You can get it HERE or access it in the resources tab of the blog.

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Hispanic Heritage Month Activity

FREE Resource

So, I created THIS Google Slideshow to showcase some great things about Hispanic culture. Then, I realized how much time it was going to take me to get links to all the things. LOL. So…

I made it a project! I made a copy for each class I have and assigned each student (I let some people work in pairs) a country. Their assignment was to find resources (not Wikipedia) that would teach us something about that particular thing. Then, they made them clickable and they were ready to present.

Now, as an added layer, I went a step further and had them create at least two questions from each resource they had found in a Google Form. They also had to provide a Google Doc answer key. Now, I have an amazing bank of slideshows with quizzes to accompany them. My students are still working on them, but I will definitely come back and give you guys some examples of the finished products!

Emoji Stories – Fun for all!

Ok, it has been a while, but I am excited to share this easy, fun resource for all! EMOJI Stories!

It was inspired by Cycle 2 Phase 1 of the Stepping Stones Curricular Framework. HERE is the link. The instructions are on slide 2, but they are editable so you can level this up or down.

How do I use it? I had my students follow the instructions. For level 2, just the emojis. For upper levels and my heritage classes, I had them write in the speaker notes. Then, I randomly chose one and started telling a story using a story mountain. We used just a basic Story Mountain (setting/characters, rising action, problem, falling action, solution). The stories were HILARIOUS, engaging and we were able to make some memories together much like when we create OWIs in the classroom. I had so much fun and so did they! They are begging to do it again, which I take as a great sign. :-).

Happy teaching!

ONE thing you can easily do to promote literacy in your classroom…

Write and Discuss is a powerful tool for developing as writers. The daily practice of Write and Discuss captures what students experience in the world around them, while providing an opportunity to reflect on their thoughts with classmates in writing. Students are given three-to five sentences that they have created out of the oral input from peers or information generated during class time which help fuel their development into better writers!

It is part of the Daily Instructional Framework from Tina Hargaden and has transformed literacy in my World Language and ESL. I will upload an example in the resources. If you make ONE change in your teaching this year, it should be this!

HERE is a link to a simple “How to” I created for my presentations at ACTFL and COERLL. Please don’t hesitate to email me or comment below if you have any questions!

Oh no! If you are at ACTFL, READ THIS

Y’all! I don’t know what happened, but my ACTFL materials didn’t get uploaded. If you attended my presentation and you are here, please look at the folder below for more materials!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1I7elXzafgfzEzrrx3QettGXhM-fva2we?usp=sharing

Let me know if you have trouble accessing the resources! Enjoy ACTFL!

Some thoughts on Virtual ACTFL and Blogging

Hey there!  Thanks for stopping by!  I am SUPER excited to be presenting at ACTFL this year.  I am also SUPER sad it won’t be in person!  As we all know, it is really different to teach or present online.  I am honestly a little worried my presentation won’t come off the same virtually. In fact, I KNOW it won’t.  So, if you are reading this after watching my presentation, know that I am sorry and I hope to submit another proposal next year.  When I wrote this proposal, I was still living in the ignorant bliss of not knowing this virus existed…. Ahhhhh…. Those were the days! I really wish I was going to be able to present in person this weekend! I am also glad that lots more people will get to attend this year given they don’t have to travel. I have seen some of the presenters, and they are amazing! I am excited to take a deep breath and enjoy some time watching others teach this weekend.

This year has taught me lots of things I never thought I would need to know.  I have learned how to instruct and engage students virtually.  I have learned we are certainly all replaceable at work.  I have learned some kids work better in person than online AND some work better online.  I have learned how to decontaminate, as not to infect my family when I go home. I have learned to leave school at school. I have learned what self-care is, and I plan to start some kind of routine for this over the breakI have learned so very much about my students’ lives as we discuss things moving through the Stepping Stones Curriculum (Tina puts this out for FREE!!!).

I have also been working for Tina Hargaden in CI Liftoff and the World Language Proficiency Project. This has been a dream come true and I have learned soooo much! I am so grateful for the wisdom and guidance Tina has given me, which I now can apply to my own professional growth.

It has been a busy year, even given the majority has been spent in the confines of my home, and I have not gotten to blogging as much as I would like, so… I am writing it here so that maybe I actually follow through: I will blog at least once a week about something I am doing that could potentially help others get ideas!

There. I said it.

Thank you for stopping by, and please follow me to get some updates as I start actually blogging! 🙂

SeñoraKSpanish

Milagros y maravillas en el mundo

These two weeks before our Spring Break have also been the last two weeks of the grading period at my school.  My Natives 2 / 3 classes have been working on mastering the paragraph and learning to summarize. In an effort to find a culminating activity that would keep the attention of 7th and 8th graders the two weeks before Spring Break AND demonstrate an understanding of both these concepts, I decided on this project.  

It is sort of a “spin off” from an activity Mike Peto, who can be found at mygenerationofpolyglots.com, has created.  In my version of this activity, students have to find something that is miraculous or a marvel somewhere in the world.  Then, they have to find a 3-5 minute video about it IN SPANISH. Last, they create a Google Slides presentation including the video and then three summarizing paragraphs with pictures from the video on the subsequent slides.  Finally, they had to present these to their peers. Each element of the project was part of the grade. They were totally engaged!  

I gave a time limit on the finding of the video (this could be a rabbit hole if you let it be).  I also did not allow any “Wonders of the World” or popular tourist attractions. I challenged them to find something or someone that many people don’t know about, but should. I also encouraged them to ask their parents or other family members if they knew of anything from their native country. I did say it could be from anywhere in the world though. I did progress checks throughout to keep them on track.  You can find the description, rubric and an example in my TpT store, but it is easy to create!  

This was a great way for some students to showcase really cool things in their family’s country of origin! For those who really wanted to learn about other places in the world, this was also a great chance for them to read about and listen to information about it in Spanish. Now, I have a cool collection of some fun things to share with my lower level Heritage 1 class and my Spanish 2 classes. Win and win!