Conferences and workshops

I was lucky to attend NECTFL this year and present with the absolutely wonderful Rebecca Blouwolff. If you haven’t attended your regional conference, and you have the ability to attend- you should! There are really great sessions by a variety of presenters. Also, if you have been presenting on your own and haven’t presented with

Super Bowl 2023 Activities

Each year, I love to spend the Friday before the Super Bowl talking about it! More and more Latino players are starting to play in the NFL. I have kept some of the facts the same as last year, but I have modified some of them for this year. By the end of this lesson,

Google Forms “Family Feud” version

This past Friday, we played a version of Family Feud in my fifth grade class- by using Google Forms and displaying their answers to determine the most popular option quickly! If you haven’t seen the game show Family Feud, a question is asked before the game show and people respond with their answer. Then the

Activities and horoscopes for 2023

Happy almost New Year! I hope that everyone has taken time to enjoy their winter break! I had the opportunity to swing by the newest exhibit at the American History Museum- and I was so excited to see Walter Mercado featured in it! He was who initially inspired me to start summarizing horoscopes for my

Low to no prep ideas to use for reading/listening

Ever since I helped lead the PEARLL summer workshop on input to output, I have wanted to write this blog post- but it is always so hard to find the time! As teachers are transitioning to a more proficiency based teaching, it can be overwhelming. Or they may have to use a textbook and want

Lesson Plan Inspiration and Updates

I wanted to share a bit of a haphazard post about what has been happening in my classes and life recently! First- a podcast update! Last year, I wrote down all of my lessons on Google Drive into folders and LINKED to the resources. It was a breakthrough for me! In the past, that was

How I use Calendar Talk

In this post, I am sharing how calendar talk has started working for me last year and this year. Calendar Talk originated from Tina Hargaden and Claudia Elliott has also helped how I see Calendar Talk. If you are unfamiliar with Calendar Talk, many teachers use it as a way to talk about what is

2022 Technology Updates/What I use in my own classroom

When I started out with my blog, I talked a lot about technology. I loved utilizing it in each class, and I marveled at what was available for teachers. Then the pandemic hit, and I felt a technology overload. However, since then, I have found some great tools that I still use with my classes

Day 1 ideas/tweaks

Whew! This summer has been amazing and a whirlwind. I have been so appreciative of the feedback that we have gotten over the book. I want to try to answer some questions about Common Ground that have been coming up at different points. I am excited that it is motivating teachers to make changes to

Happiness mini-unit: Novice students

This year, one of our central themes was joy and togetherness. With this idea, I decided to ask the question of my sixth graders: what makes us happy? I have to say that a lot of this was inspired by my conversations with Samara Spielberg who has done a lot of work on social-emotional learning.