Minute to win it

This week my fifth graders were wrapping up the topic of numbers from 21-30. Numbers can be a dry topic, so I brought a couple games to help us practice and prepare for our upcoming quiz. 

Students divided themselves into groups. Then each group came up, wore the "fancy" glasses and competed against the clock to say aloud the numbers their teammates were wearing. It was great to see their competitive spirits and I was impressed by how prepared they were.

After round one, I overheard some students spelling the numbers other teams were using. I was so excited to see this, that I ditched my next game and we did a second round of our minute to win it. However, this time, students had to spell the numbers!!! What a fantastic performance.

Later, while speaking with their teacher, Ms. Bogner, I found out that the student's spelling list for the week included a lot of E I combination words. After finding this out, there was no doubt that practicing their Spanish numbers was also including the E I patter of their English spelling! I love when multiple subjects collide.

Take a look at how cute they all looked wearing the glasses

Los animales de la granja

The farm animals.
Last year, i found out my third graders had a flare for performing songs. You can read and see their show here...  http://boteromoriarty.weebly.com/blog/las-verduras

This year, we started learning about farm animals and when I played this song to them their immediate reaction was ask if they could perform it again.

Their wish is my command. So we worked with the vocabulary, we read the lyrics, we practiced singing, we created posters and they organized their choreography. Then we took our show on the road. What a fun day we had.

Next week we will have a "viewing" party and enjoy some popcorn!

Los niños tejen

Kid Knits
In 5th grade, St. Joseph students' service project is Kid Knits. With the guidance of Ms. Bogner, students learn about "reaching out to others instead of thinking of themselves.  They see that it is possible to make an impact on the other side of the world in Rwanda and across the United States in South Dakota".
Inspired by this activity, our Spanish topic lent itself to be incorporated to their project, even if in a very small way. One of the things they learn while working with Kid Knits, is that poberty can affect everyone in the world. Students are asked to shop on a budget keeping in mind the needs of the particular family they read about. 

Since 5th grade is working with numbers from 21-30 in my class, we took the topic of shopping on a budget and merged a few of our own ideas. It helped us review fruits and vegetables while practicing the spelling of the prices of the items. Students worked individually and then brought those efforts to create a final group poster. 

I love seeing their interactions while deciding what items to purchase from a list. Their math skills were also put to the test, all while working with our Spanish vocabulary! 

I enjoyed being able to integrate the things students are doing in their other classes and add some Spanish. This way we can further contextualize the importance of foreign language education and it aids them see that Spanish is not isolated from the rest of their subjects. 

If you want to see more of what my 5th graders are doing, Ms. Bogner's website will help!
​http://missbogner.weebly.com/kidknits.html

Día de los Santos

All Saints Day

Teaching at a Catholic School often allows me to explore some topics that I would not be able to in a public school setting. All Saints Day is one of them. 

During the month of October, my 8th graders worked very hard at creating verbal and written descriptions and compositions. In order to celebrate this wonderful holiday in the Church, we decided to create prayer cards. 

The idea was inspired by the prayer cards students can earn in one of their previous classes. Our process required great attention to detail and creativity. Students researched their confirmation saints, created biographies in Spanish and designed their cards. 

The picture is a sneak peak to a couple of them. I am so proud of their hard work and dedication. 

The complete collection will be auctioned at our school´s spring event!!! 

Minute to win it

Inspired by the popular game and accommodating to our testing schedule, 6th grade reviewed some of our "old" topics like colors, vegetables and fruits. 

We organized the class into 3 groups and they wore my new, awesome glasses!!!! 

Our topic flashcards were distributed and the timer was set. Students then had to turn around and say the Spanish name for their teammates´ card. Once we did a couple of rounds of just vocabulary, we made the game harder: each student had to create statements with the vocabulary words they saw. The team who could get through all its players in the least amount of time won. 

It was a lot of fun. It also helped students see where they needed to review more in order to be ready for the new school year. 

Armada

Battleship

The first month of school can be very challenging due to the many scheduling conflicts testing brings. In order to accommodate any last minute plans, I decided to bring different games that would help students review our "old" material and get back to the swing of things. 

In order to multitask, we played Battleship, o Armada in Spanish. This game required students to review their fruits, vegetables, colors, creating questions as well as descriptive sentence structure. 

Students had 3 different "boats" to set up and learned the terms for "hit", "sunk", and "miss" to aid their game. 

It was a lot of fun, and as usual, their competitive spirits came out. Lots of fun and now we were up to date and ready for new material to come our way!!!

Peoria Chiefs 2015

One of the unique opportunities I have as a teacher started in 2013. The Peoria Chiefs had a few players who spoke very little English and they needed and English instructor. However, these young guys needed more than just a class, they needed someone who could connect with them in a personal level as well. 
As a baseball lover, a latina and a language enthusiast, i jumped at this opportunity and became their English instructor and have been with the team ever since. 
I have learned so much from all these young guys that have come through the St. Louis Cardinals system, and have become a Chiefs fan, even though my MLB heart belongs to the Dodgers. 
Below is a picture of the original group I had this summer. With baseball, players move up and down different teams, so each week poses different challenges and leaves you with wonderful memories. 
I also love the opportunity of merging groups of students. I had the Chiefs and some St. Joseph students gather for lunch and practice their English and Spanish skills. I also brought the Chiefs to Bradley University where they met with a colleague´s class and I was able to reunite with some former Bradley students! 

Ps: Baseball is more fun when you watch with friends!

Comecocos

Paper fortune tellers? Cootie catchers?
In Spanish, we call them Comecocos (coconut eaters), and 4th grade created their own in order to practice orally their interviewing skills. This project helped us put together various topics we had been working with for several months. It was a great review game as well as a great game to get us talking more in Spanish!
They asked each other questions like 
1. ¿Cómo te llamas? (what is your name?)
2. ¿Cómo estás? (how are you?)
3. ¿Cuál es tu color favorito? (what is your favorite color?)
4. ¿Cuál es tu fruta favorita? (What is your favorite food?)
5. ¿Cuántos años tienes? (how old are you?)

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Crucigramas

In order to review the new fruits and vegetables vocabulary, 6th graders partnered up and created crossword puzzles. 
The goal of this activity was to sharpen our spelling skills, commit our new vocabulary to memory and get creative!
The finished products were then copied and handed to other teams to see if they could complete them without the help of their binders. 

El musical Godspell

Since the age of 7 I have been involved with musicals. I love to sing, I love to act, I love to dance! 
During college there were no opportunities, nor spare time, for me to be involved with any productions. Therefore, when I found out that St. Joseph did musicals I rushed to Mrs. Ferree! I HAD to be involved somehow! She was incredibly generous and offered me an assistant director spot. I was incredibly grateful and excited to see the students outside of the classroom. What an incredible time we had during rehearsals. Their performance was out of this world! So much talent. 
I cannot wait to be able to help again with the 2015 production. 

Boggle

My 7th and 8th grade students have been working on identifying the parts of a descriptive sentence. Spanish word order is a bit different than English and therefore lots of practice is needed. 
One of our practice activities was inspired by the game Boggle. While the original game only provides the players with letters, our version gave us different components to a sentence. During the time allowed, students had to come up with as many sentences as possible using those strips of papers. Following that, they had to work as a team and go over each person´s sentences and determine if they were correct (earns a point) or incorrect (no point). 
I enjoyed seeing how competitive they all were, and impressed by the descriptions produced. 

Las verduras

3rd grade LOVES to sing! 

So when we were learning about vegetables, I showed sang this song for them. They were very excited and they memorized the lyrics very quickly. So we decided that the show needed to go on the road. The children each selected a vegetable to create a poster. We choreographed our performance and shared it with other classes. 
We had a blast and they will never forget what those veggies are called in Spanish!

Watch them perform

Las oraciones

One of the things I enjoy from teaching at a Catholic school is the possibility to share my love for languages through prayers. As a class we take a poll and decide what prayer we want to learn. Then students are given a chance to create their prayer cards to help them memorize it. 
Below a 6th grader´s prayer for after meals, and an 8th grader´s Glory Be. 

¿Adivina quién?

Guess who?
My 6th grade students have been working really hard learning different components to an interview. Our goal is to be able to make small talk with a person from a Spanish speaking country. 
While the written and grammatical aspects of learning Spanish are very important, communication is vital in the process of retaining a foreign language. I like to bring some games to the classroom that will get students talking to one another in Spanish. 
Below is our version of the popular game "Guess Who?". 
The class worked on creating a profile for a made up character. Profiles were presented to the class. The class was divided into two teams. 
Students were able to ask each other basic questions in hopes of eliminating their opponents.
Some laughs were shared and their skills improved significantly!

¡Feliz cumpleaños Dr. Seuss!

In honor of his birthday, my students and I enjoyed a short passage from a classic (in Spanish), and played some games with some Dr. Seuss materials.
I really enjoyed seeing how creative our teachers at St. Joseph are and all the wonderful ideas they had to celebrate this wonderful author!!!

Guerra

A little game of War!

My second graders master the theme of colors by playing a friendly game of war. It was fun and the students are ready to use those colors with our upcoming food topic!