Category: Uncategorized

A Quick Winter Story Activity

As we count down to the Winter Break, these students are getting ANTSY and teachers are getting TIRED! So, I created THIS short story activity. The example is in English, but you could use this for ANY language.

There are LOTS of possibilities with this assignment. I created a Spanish version and a Beginner Version of both English and Spanish already done for you in my TpT store, but you can totally do this on your own.

For beginners: Give them sentences already written and have them put them in order. OR, have them describe the people and places by listing words and labeling the things in the pictures.

For intermediates: You can scaffold by giving them some sentence starters or a word bank and having them write sentences for each box. You could also have them do the beginner activity and then level up by having them add more sentences to the story.

For advanced students: You can have them do all of the above. You could have them describe the boxes one by one to a classmate and have the classmate draw what they hear. You could have them complete the above as a mentor text and then have them create a story of their own using the example.

So many variations! I hope this might help at least keep your students engaged and working for at least one class period!

Don’t forget to follow the blog to get more freebies and activity ideas!

Happy Teaching!

Follow this blog for more great, free resources! Find me on Instagram (@SraKSpanish) and Follow my TpT store as I build more resources!

Holiday and Winter Vocabulary Activity Ideas

This time of year, there is no tired quite like teacher tired!

If you are anything like me, you have 10 days left of school and are counting the minutes some class periods. I do like my students to learn a little of the vocabulary they will be seeing this time of year. I have included some Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa and generic winter vocabulary in THIS slideshow, so your students can learn about them all! I have also created another I have, Who has game with this vocabulary, which can be found on my brand new TpT store (link HERE). Or, you can use the template I left in an earlier post HERE and make one of your own.

This is a great starter activity, and can be used to introduce the vocabulary (just insert text boxes with the words in the language you are teaching). It can be downloaded and used to create a Gimkit, Blooket, Kahoot or Quizizz activity. It can also be used as an interactive activity by having students write a short sentence using the word on the slides or in the speaker notes.

As a level-up activity, you could have students choose any 8-10 slides (or more or less depending on your teaching context) and have them place them in an order they can tell a story with. They can even do this in pairs to make it more fun, and then you can have story time.

Hope you can get some use out of this slideshow in some capacity and it makes at least one of these last 10 days a little easier. Hang in there! We are ALMOST there!

Happy Teaching!

-Alana

Find me on Instagram (@SraKSpanish) and Follow my TpT store as I build more resources!

An Easy Holiday Description Review

It is that time of year when the students are getting antsy, and… SO ARE WE!!! So, why not fill these times with some easy activities that keep them engaged and learning and keep YOU sane!

I created this quick little activity to allow students to review talking about physical descriptions, personality traits, likes and dislikes and basic feelings and emotions.

Most of the characters used in the slideshow HERE are very familiar to most kids, but, if they don’t know these characters, you can give them the name or the movie/show they come from and let them Google away!

Hope this helps! Follow me here to keep getting the free things I put out. I try to make a post about once a week.

Happy Teaching!

Follow this blog for more great, free resources! Find me on Instagram (@SraKSpanish) and Follow my TpT store as I build more resources!

Personalized Learning – an easy option

Choice boards are always popular with everyone. They provide personalized learning pathways for students, choice in learning and also give teachers a way to assess the learning progress of their students!

Here is an example of a choice board I made in about 15 minutes using the template I created. This one is filled with independent, online activities students can do when they finish early or need some extra practice at home!

HERE is the template you can use any time to add in your own “choices” for students. You can learn how to create a link by following the instructions in THIS LOOM.

I will be using this a lot during this time of year as I do assessments and review with small groups before semester exams. It is also a great to use for independent study and even as a test review.

Happy teaching!

Follow this blog for more great, free resources! Find me on Instagram (@SraKSpanish) and Follow my TpT store as I build more resources!

An oldie, but a goodie…

Sometimes, getting back to some basics is good. In my school, we have common required vocabulary. As I have stated before, I am not a proponent of vocabulary lists, but sometimes you do not have a choice. So, the best thing for me is to find some fun, active way to work with the required vocabulary. So, reaching back into my teacher bag of tricks, I came out with this classic…”I have… Who has…”

I did it this week with my students with clothing and colors. I even made it into a good, old-fashioned class competition to see how fast each class could do it. They got SOOOOO into this! It seems hard this year to know what is going to work to motivate students to be engaged, so I find myself often going back to some more traditional (pre-tech) kinds of activities.

Anyway, I made template of the basic cards in Canva in ENGLISH and then in SPANISH. I am also including the template for clothing and colors HERE.

Hope this helps! Happy teaching!!

Follow this blog for more great, free resources! Find me on Instagram (@SraKSpanish) and Follow my TpT store as I build more resources!

Getting My Students Moving and Learning!

Sometimes we just need to get the kids up and moving. This week was one of those weeks for me. I am not sure about you all, but this is generally a super LONG stretch of school. This year, even more than in years past, kids are restless.

So, what did I do this week? I did my own version of a running dictation. I have seen this from lots of amazing teachers, so it isn’t an original idea or anything, but it is something that I have cobbled together AND works for all levels I teach.

Teacher Prep:

  1. Find a short story (or write one based on shared writing or something you have done in class) at the level of your class. Print it out and cut it into sentences. For upper levels, you may have 3-4 sentences per piece. For lower levels, you may have just 1-2 sentences per piece. Make sure you have two more pieces than groups. So, if you have 6 groups, you need 8 pieces. (If it is available, you can print it out on a different color paper for every group you have. I do this with my rowdy classes so they think that everyone has a different story and don’t try to share with friends. I teach middle school currently, so sometimes this is needed.)
  2. Draw out cartoon boxes to match the number of pieces of the story you have. If your story has 8 pieces, you draw 8 cartoon boxes. If you have 10 pieces to the story, you need 10 boxes. Number them. Make two copies per group.
  3. Cut the pieces of the story and tape them up in the hallway. Do not number them. Do not put them up in order.

In class:

  1. Put kids in groups of 3-4 (depending on class size).
  2. Explain the jobs. The scribe is obviously writing, the motivator roots on the team and makes sure they are all doing their part, the messenger is going to the story pieces and the illustrator is drawing. ** If you have groups of 3, the motivator position can be shared by the illustrator and scribe.
  3. Explain the goal is for one student to go into the hallway and find a paper and read it. They must come back and tell the scribe IN the class language. It may take several trips to the paper in the hallway. That is okay.
  4. Then, the illustrator must illustrate the sentence (s).
  5. Once that has happened, everyone rotates roles and students continue in this fashion until they have filled in every box.
  6. Finally, they work together to put the story in the order they believe it should go on the second piece of paper and create a final copy.
  7. When this is done, they can turn it in to be graded or, if time permits, they can check and go back to fix it after feedback

This can be a 1-2 day activity, depending on the level of your students. Hope this gets everyone up and moving…and gives you a day or two of rest while they get lots of input and practice!

Happy teaching!

Follow this blog for more great, free resources! Find me on Instagram (@SraKSpanish) and Follow my TpT store as I build more resources!

An Easy Way to Use Authentic Resources to Celebrate Culture

Happy Tuesday! I am super excited to share this with everyone! I am not sure about your teaching context, but it seems lately I am being encouraged to use more “authentic resources.” Now, I won’t get into a big pedagogical debate here (I do have thoughts about this for novice learners), but I work in a district that really pushes the use of almost exclusively authentic resources. So, I needed to work on some way to deliver authentic material, yet still offer opportunities for scaffolding. I had been to some workshops that taught different strategies that I loved, and I use the Stepping Stones Curricular Framework, but I teach three levels, so I needed something I could easily level up or level down.

I knew there had to be a way to do this and still teach cultural materials. In the Stepping Stones Curricular Framework, these fit perfectly into Cycle 2! So, I started working on a series of materials using authentic resources. I am calling them Cultura Impactante (mainly because the title uses cognates–so, it might change….) The types of resources I have compiled so far include Gente impactante (Impactful People), Lugares impactantes(Impactful Places), Celebraciones impactantes (Impactful Celebrations), Historia impactante (Impactful History) and Jóvenes impactantes (Impactful Young People).

So, how does it work? Well, honestly, use it however you think would function best in your teaching context. I will, of course, talk about how I use these.

First, I Picture Talk a series of screenshots from a short video I have found. I teach Spanish, so I looked for videos in Spanish, but this same in any language.

Next, I show them the video (like a Movie Talk as discussed in Foundations, the book by Tina Hargaden). For lower levels, I use subtitles IN SPANISH to help them understand. I do try to play it once at a normal speed and then I play it again at a .75 speed. You can do this simply by using the cog on a Youtube video.

Then, I take the same pictures I used at the beginning and write some captions that use a writing level just above that of the students. I try to hit key vocabulary, if there is any.

Finally, we end with a Write and Discuss time together.

So, here is the first one:

I hope this is helpful to you! I would love to hear any feedback you might have about this series as well! I am a firm believer that two heads are always better than one, and I know there are amazing teachers who may read this and have some ideas about how we could polish it! Let me know in the comments!

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

Happy Teaching!

Follow this blog for more great, free resources! Find me on Instagram (@SraKSpanish) and Follow my TpT store as I build more resources!

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.

Happy Teaching!

Follow this blog for more great, free resources! Find me on Instagram (@SraKSpanish) and Follow my TpT store as I build more resources!