Spanish books

If I wasn't a teacher I would...

Who am I kidding? I have always liked teaching, even when I was on my way to go to med school! I always led our study groups ;D

However, during this time at home, I have envied my friends with office jobs who now get to sit at home with lots of FREE time. All their posts of books, and book clubs and books and more books! How I wish I had time to read more BOOKS!   Ok. Pitty party is O V E R!

My children have been having a BLAST reading SO MANY BOOKS! The days leading to our school closure, a couple of my co workers were very kind and let my children raid their classroom libraries so our stash of "new" books is pretty fantastic!

Also, I am thankful that I did not give their kids all their book fair books all at once! They have been able to get these now one at a time!!!

So all these books have been great for my older kids, but my youngest (4yo) constantly needs ME to read to her. If you, like me, just don't have a million free hours to read with your little ones, then this post is for you.

This post is ALSO for you, if you are a teacher who wants to share more stories with your students.


Here are some awesome website with cute Spanish books and stories!

1.The Spanish Experiment:  https://www.thespanishexperiment.com/stories/chicken-little

2. Spanish Mama's simple and cute fable stories! https://spanishmama.com/fables-fabulas/

3. Spanish fairy tales from The fable cottage: https://www.thefablecottage.com/spanish

4. Astronauts reading space themed stories!! https://storytimefromspace.com/astronaut-annie-2/

5. Easy readers from Spanish Playground: https://www.spanishplayground.net/easy-spanish-books-pdf-kids/

6. Scholastic's books and activities. All very engaging and fun https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com/support/learnathome.html

7. For my college-aged students: https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com/support/learnathome.html

8. Read conmigo: Their free sample is cute so I may be singing up for an account to check out more books. https://www.readconmigo.org/library

9. Spanish leveled readers from Reading A-Z: https://www.readconmigo.org/library

10. YouTube finds https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfs5ju_X8bFbuTMgAFUjHQ3A0HAFgFu58

11. Maguaré. Stories and trabalenguas! https://maguare.gov.co/leer/


**I am NOT affiliated with any of these companies. I have simply found their materials are well done and helpful for my kids and students**


Have you found other super awesome resources? Share them in the comments!

❤️Andrea

   

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Guided drawings

Guided drawings

My children LOVE  to draw, color and create stories from drawings. During this time, I have found some incredible tutorials to keep us entertained. 

I have also started creating some for my students in order to make sure that we have fun, keep them creative, but also reinforce some of the concepts we had been learning in class these last few months. 

Check them out here on my YouTube channel. If you find them helpful, share the link in your lessons! 

**I am not good at drawing, so my examples are simple and doable by my 4th-8th graders and even my college students! There is no excuse for them not to have fun!**

These are the originals:

.         

Versus the wonderful submissions from some of my students:

 

   

Since my own kids know all my "party tricks", I did some digging and found some awesome, talented artists that could help us out. Here are some of our family favorite:

- Doodles with Mo Willems: The incredible creator of my Kinder's fave Piggy and Gerald has taught us SO much about the art of drawing. Enjoy his tutorials HERE.  He even taught us to make some cute animations and inspired us to have dinner and doodles

- Spanish playground has a cute panda session HERE. 

- FUN and free printable guided drawings from one of my favorite clip artist on Teachers Pay Teachers: Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah. Check them out HERE.

- Cute Spanish videos on YouTube HERE.  

- The dude from the Underpants books!!!! Check it out HERE. 

Have you found OR created any doodling places that you love? Share them in the comments!

Stay inside everyone and let us get through this together!

❤️Andrea

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The start of E-Learning

I have always been a bit OCD when it comes to cleaning, hand washing and stuff like that. This quarantine did not require for me to get hand sanitizer because we always keep giant Sam's club size refills on hand!

No matter how much I remind my kids about the importance of hand washing, I always get some serious eye rolls! Well, we start our E-Learning week on tomorrow and that has made us have some interesting conversations over the weekend.  We have tried to answer any and all questions that they throw our way! One of the most important points we are trying to make, is that while we are a healthy crew, there are people that are not and we need to protect them!

I saw this experiment and I had to do it with them. Simple and straight to the point.

All you need is water, pepper and dish soap!

They get it!

Watch them HERE!!!!

Resources for the Spanish classroom

It has been a while since I blogged.
Lately, I have been focused on creating lots of resource for my children and my students. This leaves me with very little time to share with you some of my fun activities!

Now that we have to be at home all day, every day, I promise to share more here!

Today, let me start with sharing some resources that I have been using for years that have facilitated my teaching, grading and overall instruction.

1. FLIPGRID: The free version allows students to record up to 5 minutes. I have used it for reading comprehension where you can post an open ended question and have students share with you. I have also used it for short presentations. You can enable so that other students have to comment on each other's presentations. Here is a quick video tutorial. 

Great app for speaking assessments that you can just grade at home and all students can submit at the same time!

2. Google forms: A great tool to create quizzes! Simple concepts to open ended questions and multiple choice. Easy to grade as well!

3. Screen recording: On my MAC, I use Quicktime to create screen recordings of lessons. You can create a power point, set it to presentation mode and just talk to your students! For PC, I have found Screencast.com. The free version does have a time limit, but you can make as many videos as you need!

4. Zoom.us: Perfect platform for meeting with students in a group or one on one. Allows you to share screens or white boards. Its recording tool allows you to have videos of those sessions! The free version usually has a time limit on the meeting, but during this time, Zoom has lifted that to accommodate the needs of our communities! Watch this quick tutorial video. No docu cam? NO PROBLEM! Check out my low budget one ;D here. 

5. EdPuzzle.com: Perfect to use with those videos you have found or created. You upload any video, or video link from YouTube, etc., and can add comprehension questions along the way! Also FREE! Watch a quick video tutorial HERE. 

Feel free to comment and share what are some of the apps that are helping you transition into these e-learning days!

Let us be a team and help each other. 

With love, 
Andrea

-------------UPDATE ---------------

Here are some more options I keep remembering and others keep sharing. 

1. Prezi.com: A fun free up to spice up your Power Points! Works really well when you do a screencast. 

2. Flipsnack: https://www.flipsnack.com/. This one is new to me. I am intrigued! If you have used it, please share your experience. 

3. Storyboardthat.com. Perfect for students to create scenes that you can use to review any topic! Its amazing to see those of us with limited drawing skills to have incredible masterpieces!

---------------MORE RESOURCES!--------

Screencastify: https://www.screencastify.com/products/screen-recorder: Another good tool to record your lessons.

Seesaw https://web.seesaw.me/: I am impressed with this app and will be figuring out a way to use it in my classroom. My children are using it and it has so many options! Submit a drawing, write, record video, etc. It all is saved in one quick place so you don’t have to use different apps!

Classkick https://classkick.com/?fbclid=IwAR1HDOYJk7apabSvPAzd6UKR8tiqxm_gr-7FA0RUbeNAfQDurfbuawfAQbI: Seems fun to be able to add content for the students to work independently.

Kahoot https://kahoot.com/: All my students have loved this app. From the young ones, to the “cooler” high schoolers to my college students. You can search pre made Kahoots or make your own. It also prints a report so its great for reviews!

Quizlet http://quizlet.com : Another great resource for students to review the vocabulary. It makes flashcards with visuals, and students can play games to improve their vocabulary skills. Watch my quick tutorial HERE. 

Pear Deck https://www.peardeck.com/googleslides: A fun add on to your Google Slides! It has many templates to include interactive ideas into your Google Slide presentations.

Pronunciation challenges

Pronunciation in your classroom

Last week, while browsing a Facebook group filled with fabulous language teachers, the topic of pronunciation and teaching the alphabet was brought up. One teacher wanted new ideas for reviewing the alphabet with her students. I loved reading all the different ways in which we are all engaging our students differently in order to get to the same goal: proficiency!

The thread became a phenomenal list of activities that inspired me. I had been wanting to create some task cards with challenging words for my students and this conversation gave me the push I needed.

So, let me share with you a list of some of the activities that you can use in your classroom as well as my pronunciation task cards.

Activity 1: Teléfono roto.
An oldie but a goodie. Get your students in small groups and hand student 1 a card. Let them spell it to student 2, and 2 spells it to 3 and so on. The last student has to spell it out loud or write it on a piece of paper. They all compare it to the original. Round 2 changes who student 1 is so everyone gets a chance to be at different stages of the line.


Activity 2: Yo tengo. ¿Quién tiene? Create multiple copies of this set of words. Give each student 2 cards. They can pick one that they have and one they are searching for.  Students roam the classroom sharing with others (by spelling) the word they have and the one they need.

Activity 3: Around the world.  My students have enjoyed this one with different topics. Most say that being in the spotlight is a great challenge and makes them work harder. Student 1 and student 2 stand by each other. Word is given. Both get a chance to spell it. Whoever does it correctly moves on to challenge student 3. The student who can be the last one standing is the winner. Second winner can be the student with the higher winning streak. As a way to engage all the students who are no longer in the running to win, have them spell them out on a piece of paper and award them something if they can get the rest of the words right!

Activity 4: Spelling bee contest.  Make it a contest, pick a reward, and have some fun! For students who start losing, ask them to create small groups where they can all practice writing out the word that is given in the challenge and serve as helping judges.

Activity 5: Hot potato.  My beachballs are always a hit. Make a circle, say the word aloud and have students spell while passing the ball. Student who says something incorrectly is out. Start a "losers" bracket / second group and that way everyone continues to be
challenged.
Activity 6: Quiz, quiz, trade. Students roam the room and find a partner. They quiz them by saying their card aloud. Student 2 then spells it out. Then student 2 quizzes student 1 with their card. After they are done (quiz, quiz), they trade and move on to find new partners! Perfect bell ringer!

Activity 7: Matamoscas.  have the words written on your board, or use these cards to display on your smart board or make copies to put on board. Have a second set to give around to students. Select random students to come up to the board and select one of the students on their seats to slowly start spelling out the word on the card they have. The students standing by the board need to hit the correct word being spelled out in order to win.

Activity 8: Relay races.  Divide students into smaller groups. Student 1 says word from card to student 2. Student 2 must spell it aloud correctly. Then student 2 then pronounces his card to student 3. Student 3 spells and so on. Team that complete this task in the least amount of time is the winner!

      

Our first día de los muertos

Our first día de los muertos

Last year, my kids lost their beloved great gpa on Halloween. He was the first person in their lives to leave them, and he definitely left a huge hole in their hearts. That October, Coco also came out in and a few months later we had the DVD and watched it at home.

We are a Colombian family, so día de los muertos  is not something I grew up celebrating. In fact, there is not a lot that I know about that celebration. But watching the movie with my kids started some very interesting conversations between us. While I am not claiming that the movie is 100% accurate or truly representative of the real traditions, it made my kids think about those who have left us and gave them an idea on how to remember them. I have also read some articles that show support for the representations shown in the movie.

So, for the next year they kept looking for ideas on how to decorate their altar. My parents went on a trip to Guanajuato, Mexico and brought them traditional items. We also found some additional items while shopping around our local stores. They were determined to replicate the altars they saw in the movie. They spoke with their Titos (their Colombian grandparents) about the idea, and decided to include some extra people in their altar.

Long story short, my kid's need to connect with their beloved grandfather made me research more about the day itself. So, I have found these amazing resources that I would like to share with you as well.

I hope that you can use this in your classroom or at home. 

**Please leave a comment if you have any other resources that I could add to this blog**

Facts about the celebration. 
1. Download these cards and talk to your students about the holiday.
2.  Watch this short film that shows a young girl experiencing the celebration and understanding its meaning better.
3. Here is National Geographic's things to know about this day.

Celebrations around the world. 
1. Celebrating the day in Mexico. Read more about it here.
2. Carolina, from Fun for Spanish teachers, shares how Guatemala celebrates this day. Read more here.
3. Julie, from El Mundo de Pepita, shares Ecuador's celebration. Learn more about it here.
4. Take your students around the world. Show them these ten places. As a follow up, they could investigate further these locations, or they could find new ones to add to the list.

Crafts for the classroom.
1. Coloring calaveras and alebrijes can be an appropriate activity for your students once they understand why they are doing it. You could even build an altar in your room with their examples and ask them to color one to honor someone they miss. Check out these incredible free coloring pages.


Culture through food
1. Laura, from el Tarro de los Idiomas, shares a recipe for pan de muerto!  Great way to engage your students and perhaps add to your altar. Recipe found here.

Remembering their loved ones. 
In order to help my kids better connect to their grand father and this celebration itself, I asked them to write down things they remembered about him. We used this resource to do it and added it to our altar.

I hope that you have found this list helpful and that your students can better understand this incredible celebration of life. I know my kids and I had a great time.

Our first altar did not disappoint! Kids help me set it up and they wrote their thoughts on grandpa. They were very excited to continue to learn about this tradition and improve our altar for next year.
       
         


Thanks  Prettygrafik for the clipart

It's a birthday celebration

Hola a todos! Hello everyone!

It is my birthday week and I want to share it with you. 

Starting tomorrow, and until Friday 21st, my ENTIRE store will be 20% off!

So stop by La tienda de Señora 

and celebrate with me.