Happy Friday (and holiday break beginning!) We still have a full day to go today, but I am filling it with Goosechases, El Internado and plate sketches. This helps it be fun and productive.
Also, this week, I took a big risk and brought in a guest speaker. While I know that this may not seem like a huge risk to some, it has always been on my to-do list, but I hadn’t ever done it! My level 6 class has been studying the migrants coming from Honduras. We have also discussed the parallels between Honduras and Nicaragua. A representative from Casa for all which helps migrants in the Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania area came to talk to my class. She was from Nicaragua, so she could speak to the crisis there. Not only was it more powerful to have someone from the country discuss and explain everything, she also spoke really quickly. However, my students proudly reported that they could understand everything or almost everything she said. They also asked her questions and were able to interact with her in Spanish. My students learned a lot and it was a confidence boost for my students as well. I encourage you to think about bringing in a guest speaker if you have not before!
Over break, I will be taking a break from the blog except to write Walter Mercado’s horoscope predictions for 2019. If you want to see what I did last year, you can check out this post. Check out some of my favorite posts from this past week:
- I just found out about this podcast from Allison: Chalk Full of Life. I am going to start binge listening over break. It is about how to balance your life as a teacher.
- I enjoyed reading this post about how to allow students to take the lead to build skills in the interpretive mode.
- I like how Carrie chose to incorporate mentor texts into her Spanish 4 class. I want to do something similar in the New Year.
- These note-taking stations look effective, and they would be effective for students in level 3 and up when tacking interpretive texts.
Maris Hawkins 