Brillante Viernes: February 14, 2020

Happy Friday and Valentine’s Day! We have a four day weekend, so there wasn’t as much craziness today for me. (Also there MAY have been a Netflix marathon of the To All The Boys I Have Loved Before…) I have also been working on the THIRD upcoming EdCampCIVa! We are finalizing details, so stay tuned

Brillante Viernes: February 7, 2020

Happy Friday! This week, I have had a weird on and off cold. I am excited to relax and hopefully kick this illness this weekend. Plus the weather was crazy this week! My photo above is the calm before the storm outside my classroom today. We did take a field trip with my 6th grade

Part IV: How I plan without a textbook; Comprehensible Input and Authentic Resources

This post is part of a series about how I plan without a textbook. The first part discusses how I decide what to teach, then how I decide on goals and finally assessments. Today, I will look how I plan a unit to include both comprehensible input and authentic resources. I believe that as teachers

Brillante Viernes: January 31, 2020

Happy Friday! Hope you have had a wonderful last week of January! I had fun playing winking mafia with my fifth graders (which we modified to sticking out your tongue), and I got to go ice skating with the sixth graders which was a blast. I also got to see our early childhood students building

Brillante Viernes: January 24, 2020

Happy Friday! It has been a busy week for me, but I wanted to highlight a great activity that I used in 5th grade to practice tiene la culpa while we are reading Isabela captura un congo. I used that phrase to discuss the game Mafia. I wanted it to be a shorter version, so

Super Bowl Reading and Lesson Plans for 2020

Each year, I like to write comprehensible articles about the Super Bowl. Some previous versions are not as relevant, but last year, I wrote about the food that people eat during the Super Bowl and the Pats Army in Mexico. These articles are still timely. In the same post, I also detailed input bracketing about

Planning without a textbook: Part III Assessments

This post is part of a series that discusses how I moved away from the textbook. I initially discussed how I decide what to teach and how I decide on goals. This post will discuss assessments. I have found that throughout the years, I prefer to assess with IPAs or Integrated Performance Assessments as I

Brillante Viernes: Posts to read, a new podcast episode and a free reading! January 17, 2020

Happy Friday! I hope you are thriving this week. My most recent interview is on We Teach Languages with Inga Paterson-Zúñiga! In it, we discuss how we have evolved our teaching, comprehensible novels and assessments. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed talking with Inga. In addition, Martina and I recently

Brillante Viernes: January 10, 2020

Happy Friday! We have all survived our first week (or first full week!) back from break. My students were overall rockstars, but I definitely had some moments that I was struggling. I first was surprised on Monday morning when my copies weren’t stapled… but it was a double sided single piece of paper. Then, I

Reviewing novels after a break

Many times, I try to wrap up a novel before a longer break; however, other times, it doesn’t happen. I have found a few fun activities to review a novel that ease students back after break. When you are reviewing, keep in mind some of the ideas of retrieval practice. If it is harder for