This week, I wanted to highlight some of my most popular posts and reflect on this past year. For me personally, this year was a year of huge change. I switched schools after 8 years. The spring was full of interviews, sample lessons and stress. This summer we moved from Maryland to Virginia (about an hour away). With a new job and new levels, it has been an adjustment. While I have found a lot of success (like using these videos in fourth and fifth grade), it hasn’t been without mistakes and bumps along the way. (That in all honesty continue to happen. I tried Google Tour Builder with my fifth graders last Friday, and whew! It didn’t go well!)
Because I switched schools, I miss my colleagues and my students more than I can sufficiently express here. Also, in my former school, I had the trust of both my colleagues and students because I was a known teacher. It is definitely one of the biggest challenges when you switch jobs as a teacher to build those relationships and that trust again. The students don’t know you, so I was starting from scratch. However, it has completely been worth it. I have found myself with new colleagues who push me to try new things- like turning a ballet into a comprehensible story. The other Spanish teacher and I are really working on aligning our curriculum and developing ideas together which is incredibly inspiring. I am excited about what we are doing and what we will develop in the future. I am also developing similar relationships with students at my new school. I am fortunate that due to our program, I will continue to teach most of them for many more years, and I look forward to that as well.
As far as my blog goes, I am still enjoying blogging! However, a change will be coming starting in the new year. Some of you may have noticed that my posts are getting a bit longer. I want to continue to reflect more on my own week in Brillante Viernes. Also, when I provide lesson plans and mini units, I want to explain why and how with the hopes that you too can create something similar if you are interested.
My top ten posts from 2019 (in case you missed them!):
10. Technology updates for the world language class (Discussing changes over the summer from teacher’s favorite technology programs)
9. Super Bowl lesson plans and a reading (While the reading is from 2019, you can still use the idea bracketing for input and some of the infographics.)
8. No prep ideas to spice up your classroom (Including a few games that I love.)
7. A fast food unit for intermediate Spanish (How I developed a whole unit around authentic resources to have my students dive deep into their understanding)
6. Nailed It! Mexico: a comprehensible mini unit for students (I just published this this past week, but it has been popular and jumped up to #6!)
5. Viewing guide and extension activities for Go! (This is also another tv series on Netflix. It looks like people love using tv series in their classes!)
4. One of the most popular posts about a novel this year was for Robo en la noche. (If you are looking for more novels, I have written posts about: El Ekeko, Piratas del Caribe, Billy y las botas, Frida Kahlo, Vidas Impactantes, and Brandon Brown versus Yucatán.)
3. I explained how I used stations in the world language class.
2. The second most popular post was how I started to transition to using more comprehensible input in the classroom.
- Finally, the most popular post was from the end of the December, but it is a summary of New Year’s predictions. I plan on writing the same summaries this year, so keep an eye out in a few weeks!
Maris Hawkins 