Goals for the new school year

Alas, summer is almost over. So my room is decorated. I've got lesson plans ready for the first week and my first day outfit is picked out. Now it's time to set some goals for the year.

1. Use the APL strategies I learned this summer in training. Specifically putting the kids "on the clock" as in I give specific time limits for every activity and then use a timer to make sure I stick to it. Other strategies like teaching the behaviors I want and reteaching students who need more practice to get it right. And status reports during group work. And, and, and....this is a great training if you ever get a chance to take it. I have a list of action items from the four day class posted next to my desk to remind me.

2. 90%+ is always a goal. I'm going to have the students keep me honest by challenging them to make me stay in Spanish. The class with the most class periods in 90+ Spanish will earn some sort of prize.

3. Hispanic Heritage Month we are doing a Family Night with flamenco dancing. I'm hoping to get a LOT more participation from the teachers since I will have very specific things to give them to do.

4. Send more stuff home - coloring sheets with links to the youtube videos we watch in class; optional homework; letters/certificates to communicate the good things that students do in class. 

5. Do projects that personalize the learning for my students. We're going to write books for their classrooms in Spanish, make ¿Cómo estás hoy? posters, and write pen pals in Mexico.  I also decided to not print out flags to decorate my room. Instead I'll have older students color them and then I'll hang them up.

What are your goals for the year?

A ROOM!

I GET A ROOM!!!

Although, I'm trying to be circumspect since technically I had a room last year too. I only got to keep it for 7 days before getting pushed back onto the cart (my principal felt so bad that she bought me the Cadillac of carts AND the Calico Spanish curriculum so I was only slightly bummed.)

They swear to me I should get to keep it this year. Like 99% sure.

So here is a before pic...

Before

And after...

The view from the hallway door - the other door leads to the 3rd grade complex.

This is the board I'll put useful phrases. The bookcase below has all of the supplies students can get out for different projects.

I'll teach from my rocking chair with students on the carpet facing me and the whiteboard easel. Then when it's time to watch a video (with the signal ¡muevénse los cuerpos!) we'll turn and face the SMART board.

I have another word wall on another wall in the room but I wanted the question words front and center so students can use them more often. I have some questions already up and we'll add to it throughout the year.

I get computers! Here are two of the five (I gave up my teacher desktop so I'd have an extra student computer. I'll use the laptop connected to the SMART board as my main computer this year.)

My reading/working nook. I don't have too many books yet but I'm slowly building my class library thanks to Half Price Books. The box there contains puppets. I'm hoping to transform a cardboard box into a tabletop puppet theater.

Getting ready - Unit Plans

School starts soon - less than two weeks now. I just finished a week's worth of APL training (a system of classroom management we will be implementing school-wide.) Here are the units we will be working on in the 2nd-5th grade (K-1 will be doing the Calico Spanish curriculum.) Not sure we'll make it through everything -  I don't have a good track record of getting through things quickly. But that's because I want to make sure that my students can really do what I'm asking plus the inevitable field trips, assemblies, and other disruptions that almost always take place during Specials.  But a change in the schedule for next year does mean that band and orchestra won't be pulled from my class any longer - WOOHOO!

Aug/Sep
Classroom rules & Procedures
Unit One - Hola (Greetings)

Sep/Oct
Unit Two - How are you?
Hispanic Heritage Month - Flamenco

Nov/Dec
Unit Three - Nice to meet you

Jan/Feb
Unit Four - Please, Thank you (& Numbers)

Mar/Apr
Unit Five - Hungry, Hungry Caterpillar (Food & days of week)

May
Review - restaurant simulation where students have to greet each other, get their name, seat them, order using please and thank you, and pay.

Summer PD - Flamenco

Last week I got to attend a week-long PD with my music teacher. The Kentucky Center for the Arts sponsors these academies in the summer, targeted at how to integrate the arts into other subjects in the curriculum. Music Teacher (MT) and I attended the academy on how to integrate World Languages and the Arts. 

The art we were specifically working on was the music and dance of flamenco. MT learned some basic Spanish phrases that she can use in her class daily and I learned about the dance and music standards that I can be teaching in my class. We also spent the entire week learning a flamenco choreography that we performed on the last day for the French & German language and arts teachers.

Photo by

Lieven SOETE

The best part of the week? We came away with a unit almost completely planned out that we will use for Hispanic Heritage Month! We still need to pick out music but we decided that for the final product (aka summative assessment) our 3-5 students will perform for K-2 students a short flamenco dance that they themselves will create - creating and performing are part of the Arts standards! The K-2 students will watch and respond with jaleos (those words people yell out while watching flamenco dancers) - responding to art is another Arts standard!



I can statements for the unit:

• I can recognize and understand direction and dance words for flamenco - adelante, atrás, arriba, abajo, palmas, golpes.
• I can identify locomotor and non-locomotor movements in dance.
• I can watch and critique a flamenco performance using Spanish jaleos - olé, agua, eso (K-5)
• I can create and perform a short flamenco dance using locomotor and non-locomotor movements. (3-5)

In addition to the integration across the music classroom and the Spanish classrom, we will ask our librarian to read books about the history of flamenco to give the students the background knowledge as well as provide videos and writing assignments to the classroom teachers. We're hoping the Art teacher will work with the kids to create a cave tablao (where gyspies traditionally performed flamenco) and some evening art to set the scene and our STEM lab teacher will bring it in during her unit on sound waves. 

We're also hoping to have all of this learning culminate in a family night with dancing, music, and tapas.

An integrated unit that answers my questions about what to do for Hispanic Heritage Month - not a bad deal. And we got paid $500 for the week. Oh, and they paid for us to go see Carmen at the Cincinnati Opera last month. The only bad thing was that MT couldn't stay overnight so we drove the 1.5 hours to Eastern Kentucky every day. If you are a teacher in Kentucky I highly recommend looking into The Kentucky Center for the Arts Academies for next summer.

Summer!

No posts lately due to grad school and end of the year craziness combined and then the school year ended and I've spent the last week and a half taking some time to breathe and visiting friends and family out of town.

But now I'm back and working from my couch with Despierta America on in the background as I plan out next year. As I'm planning I'm using several documents to guide me:

ACTFL Can Do Statements: Most of my I can statements are direct quotes of this document (although a few are changed a little to fit my needs.)

Kentucky World Language Standards

JCPS World Language Frameworks and Curriculum Maps: Jefferson County just released their newly revised curriculum. I liked the documents they had before but these are even better because they have maps specifically for elementary school. They even suggest which vocabulary to teach with each unit. I won't use it exactly the way they have it outlined but it's a great jumping off point.

I also recently discovered that my own district had an elementary curriculum that I was supposed to be using but that no one had given me. I'm referencing that as well although it will also be revised this summer. There's no link since I had to have a friend email me her copy of it.


As I get more into things I will post what I hope my year will look like and how I plan my units. Until then please share in the comments what documents and curriculum you use to guide your unit planning. 

Trying Centers - Part Three

So I finally tried centers with my third graders and I'm getting ready to do it again with second grade. Check out my previous posts, part one and part two in this series to see what mistakes I made in the past and the particulars of each center. Now that I've done a full rotation with all of the third graders I have some thoughts and reflections for using centers again in the future.

Pros of centers:

• If prepared well, the centers can offer a level of differentiation that you don't get in whole group instruction.

• We can play games in a whole group but it requires me to make more cards and have more dice and just more of everything. But in small groups it is easier prep for me game-wise and the students get more turns and chances to speak.  

• Because every student was actively engaged, just walking around and listening in could give me an idea of where each student was at in terms of learning the new vocabulary.

Cons of centers:

•  I would have liked to have modeled each activity in Spanish but since I have so little time I resorted to English to give them the instructions. This means I was under my 90% target but the students were speaking more Spanish so that was the trade-off. This is a con but I think it's a worthy trade-off at this point.

• I need to figure out a system to make sure that MY expectations are the ones being observed in groups where the classroom teachers has a looser style.

• It's a lot of prep beforehand because you're essentially preparing multiple activities for one class. The good news is that once you're ready you're good for several classes. 

Things I will try to remember to do next time:

•  Make sure I have different levels at each activity so students can pick which level they need.
• Add some sort of accountability sheet for at least one station so I can get a better idea of where each student is and that they are participating like they should.
• Try to model in Spanish so I can keep to my 90% target language goal. If I do similar games with different vocabulary this should be possible the next time.

So what have been your experiences with centers/stations/carousel? Please share in the comments below. I love suggestions!

From the mouth of babes

So I'm going to admit that reaching 90% and up target language is a something I am constantly working at. And this time of year, I don't always get there. My biggest issues with it are several "problem" classes and my first graders. The former because I struggle to maintain control even in English (and it's not just me, the other Specials teachers have the same problems.) The latter because it's the end of the day and I'm tired and they're tired, they're often late getting back from library and I have to make up time, so we just don't always get to 90%.

All this to say, that I had the following conversation with a third grade girl this week. Let's call her M.

M: Ms. K, I have a challenge for you.

Me: Oh yeah, what's that?

M: I challenge you to not speak ANY English in your next class. You have to speak ONLY in Spanish!

Me: No English?

M: None!

Me: Challenge accepted! So the next time I come back I'll only speak Spanish in your class.

M: No, no, no! Not in here, just in your next class! You can speak English in here!

 I cracked up that she wanted me to do it, just not in her class. I did speak only Spanish in my next class, which happened to be kindergarten. The kinder assistant even swore to M the next day that I had completed her challenge. I told M that since I had accepted her challenge she had to accept mine - 100% in her class.

We almost  made it yesterday. We were talking about the royal family in Spain and I was doing just fine until a question came up where I had to explain the order of succession. I looked at M and said, "I'm sorry. I have to do this in English - you guys aren't understanding in Spanish!" She looked straight at me and said very sternly "You have 1 minute!" We made it 95% but I think next time we can do 100%.

M's challenge made me realize I had gotten lax about making sure I stayed in 90% Spanish throughout the day.  So my challenge is to finish the year out strong even in the first grade and rowdy classes.  What do you do to keep yourself motivated this time of year? Share in the comments below!