I can't believe it's March already! It seems like each day is SLLLLOOOOWWWW but looking back, it seems like it was just Christmas!
I have a few things planned for this month. My students will be reading about influential hispanic women after Spring Break (less than 2 weeks away). I have a gallery walk but being online I think we will just read about one woman each day. We are also scheduled to learn commands. I created these command posters with influential women that I'm super excited about! I put them in my store but since you're here already, please grab them for FREE! Here is the link to make a copy to your Google Drive. I hope you enjoy them! I'm going to catch up on the news now. It's so sad what's happening in Ukraine. I can't believe that this is where we are in 2022. It's just heartbreaking. Take care of yourselves!
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Do you want to get your students up and out of their seats?! If so, then this is the activity for you. If not, then this is the activity for you. What? How can it be both? Let me show you... Think about the last time you went to an art museum (or any museum). You walk around and look at all of the paintings. Now imagine doing that and taking notes as you look at the art. This is a gallery walk! Basically you print off stories and post them around your classroom (your gallery). You give your students an activity (usually a worksheet but you could get more creative than that too) and tell them to get to work! I usually print off around 10(ish) stories and tape them to the walls, door, and even on some tables in the middle of the room. Depending on how many students you have in your classroom, you'll have 2-4 students reading the same reading at once. I tell them they are not working together but they are allowed to help each other with unknown vocabulary. Some students answer the questions on their sheet quite quickly and others take a while . I've done the timing two different ways. The way I prefer is to just have them finish the reading and move on at their own pace to another one (just tell them no more than x students at a station at a time so they don't all go to the same one). If you go this route, make sure you have some fast finisher activities for students who are able to do this quickly. The other way is to set a timer. Youtube has tons of 5 or 10 minute timers that you can put up on the screen so they know how much time they have. When the timer goes off, everyone moves to the next station. I've found that with this scenario it's best to have students work as a group on the task (worksheet). This is a great way for your students to get in LOTS Of reading/repetition! It gets them moving and keeps them on task too. You will love it! As you probably know, I teach online. Zoom all day. Everyday. Oh boy. I still do gallery walks! I use Jamboard for this! I put the reading passages in a Jamboard. Each passage on a new jam page. I have the students put a sticky note on the page after they are finished with it. I usually have them write a sentence in Spanish along with their name. My students do their work in Canvas so I upload the worksheet to Canvas and have them complete it digitally. You need to get creative here...you could upload the worksheet to Google Classroom too (or whatever LMS you use). The reason I LOVE LOVE LOVE gallery walks in my online classroom (or in your face to face classroom but you don't want the kids moving around the room) is because it holds them accountable. They HAVE TO go to the Jamboard (or slideshow) in order to get the reading. I don't post the readings in Canvas. I make them do it in class. I can immediately see who is not posting sticky notes in the Jamboard so I know who I need to contact. If they don't answer me in Zoom, I often call home during class! My poor students.... If you have any questions about Gallery Walks, please reach out! I'd love to answer your questions and get you started on this activity! I have quite a few Gallery Walks in my TPT Store too...or you can just use any readings you have laying around! Spanish Gallery Walk with School Subjects and Super 7 Verbs Influential Hispanic Women Readings and Questions in Spanish (Gallery Walk)Spanish Cultural Gallery Walk with Places in Madrid, Spain Spanish Cultural Gallery Walk with Comida Hispana (Hispanic Foods) Spanish Gallery Walk Bundle of all Seven Super Siete Verbs! (This is a bundle...they can be purchased individually as well) Yes. I'm counting down to the end of the school year. That is where I am at right now with everything. I'm anxiously awaiting Spring Break too. I only have 15 days 15 hours 56 minutes and 35 seconds until that.
Speaking of Spring Break, I have the PERFECT activity for the week before break! I am SO SO SO excited about this. Virtual Road Trips. That's right. We will be road tripping through Mexico the week before break and I'm looking forward to it! It started because I watched a YouTube video on a couple that is RVing in the interior of Mexico. I told my husband that we are going to do that too! He told me to make a plan...so I did! And while I was researching, I decided to turn it into a lesson for my students too! I created a Google Slideshow with 8 cities that I want to visit. Students will travel with a character. He needs their help on his road trip. It is interactive so students can choose which city or cities that want to visit. There are a few slides at each city with pictures so students can feel like they are there. Then the character asks for help and students will click links and answer specific questions about each place. They will research restaurants, activities, museums, culture, hotels, campgrounds, history and more! The questions and links are in the Google Slideshow but I also created printable worksheets to go with it. I thought this would be easier for students who are in person. They can write their answers on the worksheets! I finished the Mexico Road Trip and then I decided I loved it!! I created two more. Students can also virtually road trip through Argentina and Colombia. Now, how am I going to talk my husband into RVing all the way to Argentina? I hope you'll check these Cultural Road Trips out too! These are fantastic! They would also make the perfect SUB PLANS! Your students will be busy for days researching and learning about all of these cool places! Mexico Road Trip Argentina Road Trip Colombia Road Trip Bundle of all 3 Road Trips How many minutes do you have until Summer Break? I wanted to say thank you for be a better reader than I am blogger! If you are like me, you're anxiously awaiting March. March is Spring Break month for me. In fact, it's just 3 weeks away! I can hardly wait. I've been counting down the days forever (ok, just since January but it seems like forever)! Speaking of countdowns, today my students showed me our student council website with a countdown to the last day of school. It's HERE if you're interested in knowing that I have just 97 days, 10 hours, 20 minutes and 51 seconds until summer. I think this is the best thing ever!
So on to your gift. March is Spring Break month (did I already mention that??) but it's also St. Patrick's Day and according to my 23&Me test I am 20% Irish! I've created this simple yet fun This or That game for St. Patrick's Day for you. Click HERE to make a copy of it to your Google Drive. I hope your kiddos enjoy it! Have a wonderful evening. Tomorrow is Friday. We made it. Now to just make it the next 97 days, 10 hours, 18 minutes and 11 seconds... Jen I'm back!! I can't believe I haven't updated since Halloween! Life has been busy! Let me fill you in...
I'm teaching full time for Tucson Unified's new virtual academy. It's been crazy. At one point I had 87 students in one section. The school is set up with a regular bell schedule. I'm expected to Zoom all day every day with students just like in a face to face school. Only on any given day I have only 50-60% of my students present. It's insane. I had to switch how I'm doing things this semester and make everything asynchronous and synchronous at the same time. How am I supposed to catch students up who are never in school? And the kids and parents are playing the attendance game! They know they won't be removed from the school so they just don't attend...and I'm still required to give them a grade. Plus, I'm stuck next to my router because Zoom is a data killer. So much for living in my RV so I can travel. Needless to say, I am not planning on returning next school year. That brings me to my latest shenanigans. I started working two weeks ago for another online school part time. I just grade assignments and ensure that students are moving through the curriculum. It's part time but with my many state certifications I can have as many students as I'd like. The best part is that I don't ever have to zoom and I can grade the work any time of day I'd like! This will lend itself much better to travel. I also started teaching on Outschool. Well, technically, I haven't had a class yet but I have put some classes out there to start soon! I have one for Locura de Marzo, one on the Spanish speaking countries, one Spanish story time and one with the Super 7 Verbs. I'm excited to start! I have 100s of ideas for Outschool! I just need students. We've been talking about RVing into Mexico. My husband is slightly scared of cartels and not speaking Spanish but I told him we'll be fine! We will be, right? I think we will start in Baja and do a month tour or so. If that goes well, I think I can talk the hubby into going into the interior of Mexico. I'll definitely post pics here and on Instagram if/when we go! Of course, this can't happen until I break free of my all day zoom job. Soon... I've been working on creating so many products for you! My favorite new product so far is Daniel está perdido. You can find it HERE. This is like one of those mystery dinner parties. Have you ever done one? SO MUCH FUN. Basically each student gets a pamphlet with the name of their character and basic information. They must get into character and just follow the instructions on the pamphlet. They will need to read their part, interact with one another and help find poor Daniel who got lost in Madrid! It comes with a geography activity, a gallery walk activity (places in Madrid), comprehension questions, a story (both in PDF printable form and a Google Slideshow with pretty pictures), and a writing activity. It should keep your kiddos busy for a week! Of course, you can speed that up by skipping some of the activities. It's super interactive. Your students will learn culture. They will speak, read and write! And they will love it! Check it out! Here's where I promise to post again sooner than I did last time. I can tell you I will but I don't know if I can keep my promise! I'll try! I can either teach and create or teach and blog. I love creating so much so that's where I usually go... I hope you are well! Let me know if you have any questions about of my new products! And...thank you! I appreciate all of you! Jen |