Classroom Jobs in the Middle School Classroom

Classroom jobs can feel like it belongs in the elementary school but really any level classroom can benefit from having class jobs. I tried them for the first time last year, made some tweaks this year, and now I'm totally sold. Read on to see why I love classroom jobs and which jobs I give my students!

Advantages to classroom jobs:

• They give students agency and ownership in the classroom, which leads to better behavior. In my experience, kids who can be more difficult actually LOVE a job.

• They save your energy. Teaching is exhausting. Classic veteran teacher advice is never do something the students can do. 

• They save time. It takes a lot less time to have 4 people passing out notebooks, 1 kid handing out pencils, and 2 more passing out papers than if I did it all myself. 

Me & My Community - Student Maps

 In my last post I talked about how I revamped my city unit and the results were fantastic. Not that my students haven't created awesome maps in the past but this time they did it with sustainability in mind AND they were able to write thoughtful and detailed descriptions of the neighborhoods they had designed. Here are some of my favorites...

This one not only is very nicely drawn, it has amazing and clever details. My favorite is of course the temple to Juan our class mascot. 

Me & My Community - Teaching Places in the City

The city unit has always been one of my favorite units to teach. See my posts here about using beebots and coding as a way to teach third graders how to give directions. However, in middle school I have had adapt how and what I teach for this unit. 

Some considerations:

This unit falls in 8th grade and programming beebots is a little babyish for them. They would still probably like it and I think I will add it back if I can, BUT the emphasis cannot be on giving directions. I will save that for the travel unit where it makes more sense AND we can spiral back to places in the city vocabulary.

I teach in an IB school which means I need incorporate certain things. For this unit we focus on sustainability and connections. They did background reading in English about the UN's Sustainability Goal 11 and then learned key terms in Spanish such as espacios verdes, uso mixto, transporte público, el reciclaje, paneles solares, sostenible, etc. 

There are multiple parts to their summative assessment - first they listen to a conversation about where someone lives and answer questions - interpretive listening. Then they write a description of their own neighborhood - presentational writing, and finally they work with a partner to plan a sustainable community  - interpersonal speaking - also with a written description - more presentational writing (although next year I think I will make this a recorded speaking assessment because they struggled with this kind of task on the STAMP test.) 

Unit focus:

sustainability

places in the city

the verb to go

frequency words

Review of Tiene, Hay, and Es

description words     

What we did in class:

We started out with this Basho and Friends video and students filled in a picture dictionary. They also took notes on the verb IR and we used this song from Real Language Right Away to reinforce the structure "Voy a..."

We played ¿A dónde va Juan? This game is one of my favorite ways to practice vocabulary. I picked a place in the city where Juan (our class mascot) was going and students had to guess using a complete sentence. This was also a way to practice the sentence frame "va a..." Later they played with a partner. You can also mix it up and guess where I'm going, where we're going, etc. to get in different verb forms. We also played scattergories where we spun a wheel and students had to list places in town that started with that letter. 

Students completed two different class surveys. One was a find someone who page where they asked if classmates went to different places. In the next one they picked one place and asked classmates if they went there and how often.    

 

La Casa Craftivity - Practicing Rooms & Furniture

 It's nearing the end of the year when kids are in out due to field trips, field day, and make-up testing and I need something that is fun and crafty and doesn't require a Chromebook (because they're sick of being on them and also because they'll be collected soon.) My 7th graders are making alebrijes that go nicely as an end to our pet unit (click here for that post) and 8th graders are making these cool house foldables. 

Students color, cut, and then glue their furtniture into their rooms. Then they label the items. Finally, they will write a description of the room on the floor

. I anticipate that some students will only have time and/or interest to make one room which is totally fine with me. Not everyone loves crafty things. These students will pivot to a reading assignment from Español con Randy. 

Here is the video I used to learn how to make the foldable itself.

And here are links to the furniture. 

Furniture Set 1

Furniture Set 2 - Scroll down to the individual furnture -  I also recommend printing at 80% rather than 100 so that the furniture fits in the house foldable.

What kinds of activities do you do to finish the school year? Share in the comments below! And check back later for pics of student work!

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Spanish Class Mascot - Engaging Students & Creating Classroom Community

I attended a session on Creating Class Lore at the beginning of the year and it was just what I needed for my too cool for school 8th graders. 

Getting started - First up, we co-created a character in class. I gave them the choice of a capybara or a llama because those were two animals from the target culture that I had stuffies for. Then we named it, decided how old it was, and what it liked to eat and what sports it played. Somehow both classes picked a capybara and named it Juan so Juan became the 8th grade mascot. 

The second day I pulled out my stuffed capybara and held it during class. The kids got excited and several asked if they could pet Juan. I told students that Juan was sad because he was lonely. He didn't have any friends or family. Then I handed out cardstock with black and white capybaras and told them to decorate them however they wanted and then name and describe their capybara. This took two class periods. 

Exploratory Spanish - What to teach for 9 weeks

 At my school all our sixth graders take exploratory language classes for a quarter. One quarter of Spanish, one quarter of French, and one quarter of Chinese. Then they choose their language to continue with the rest of middle school. This is our opportunity to showcase our classes and what they should expect if they continue on with us. It's also a great time to emphasize the basics so we can hit the ground running when they come back to me. 

So what do I do? 

I do a unit I call My Passport to the World. Students learn how to answer basic questions about themselves, calendar time, the Spanish-speaking countries, colors, numbers, and if there's time clothing. All in 9 weeks! At the end we do a passport control role-play and they take a virtual field trip to a Spanish speaking country. 

Here's the breakdown - click the links for the videos that I use!

Week 1 - expectations, Sí se puede bubbles & proficiency levels, ¿Cómo estás?, and calendar time - months, numbers, days of the week, and weather. 

Week 2 - ¿Cómo estás?, calendar time, ¿Cómo te llamas?, Greetings - Buenos días, Buenas tardes, & Buenas noches, Hasta mañana, Hasta luego

Week 3 - All of the above + Spanish speaking countries, ¿De dónde eres tú?, & ¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños?

Week 4 - All of the above + colors, Spanish speaking country flags, & ¿Cuántos años tienes?

Week 5 - All of the above + clothing in calendar time, passports & their function, ¿Dónde vives tú?

Week 6 - All of the above + students create their own passports and research countries that have the strongest and weakest passports. 

Week 7 - All of the above + Clothing for different weather, packing lists, ¿Qué necesito?

Week 8 - Passport role play and virtual field trip - students "pack" a paper suitcase that they've drawn their clothing on, "fly" in a paper airplane that they make to their country of choice, "arrive" and go through immigration with me, showing their passport and answering all of our questions, and then "visit" with a virtual field trip. 

Week 9 - It never works out to be exactly 9 week so most of the time by this point we are catching up, playing review games this week. 

Making it work

The trick is to create routines and then each week add on, building their vocabulary while always reinforcing what they have already learned. 

I start with the calendar routine - I have songs for months of the year, numbers, days of the week and the weather. We practice greetings and ¿Cómo estás? by repeating after me and then practicing with our shoulder and face partners, then doing Kagan structures like Hand Up Pair up, and Mix Pair Share. At some point in the week we do listening practice with a video, and we fill in a page of our Spanish notebooks (a stapled packet of all our worksheets for the quarter.)

I repeat that formula for each week. We start class by practicing all the questions we know how to answer. We do a new song for the latest question, Kagan structures and games to practice, listening practice, and a page or two in our notebooks. 

Additional Notes

Students get really good at answering the questions and introducing themselves. Some of them get really good at knowing the countries but it's not something I test them on because labeling a map is not considered an authentic assessment for Spanish class. The same goes for colors. 

 

I usually do 3 formal assessments in the 9 weeks - a calendar and greetings quiz in week 4. It's multiple choice and on paper. And then two speaking tests - one just me walking around asking questions while they work independently and then our passport roleplay. Unless a student has goofed off all quarter or has a ton of absences, everyone gets an A or a B for the quarter. They also get a feel for my class and when it comes to the first unit in 7th grade we can hit the ground running because they already know how to introduce and talk about themselves. 

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¡Sí se puede! 10 years of celebrating students' success

If you've seen me at KWLA or NNELL then you have probably heard me talk about my ¡Sí se puede! bubble system I use to track student participation and to motivate studnets. I've posted a couple of times on my Instagram about it but can you believe it's been TEN years since I first talked about ¡Sí se puede! bubbles? Ten years ago I got the idea from Nadine Jacobsen-McLean and for 10 years it has been a staple in my classroom!

How does it work?

It's pretty simple - for each class that I teach I print out a class list with 10 bubbles out to the side of each name. 

During class when students answer a question, write on their whiteboards, have a conversation with a partner during Turn & Talk, Hand Up, Pair Up, or Quiz Quiz Trade, I tell them "¡Sí se puede! con verde or another color. 

Students go over to the binder where the lists are kept, find their name, and color in one bubble according to what I told them. 

Yellow is for novice low. Green is novice-mid and blue is novice-high. 

Once they fill in all 10 bubbles then I check it off and they get a prize. Right now in middle school they get a jolly rancher or a sticker. In elementary school I had colorful pencils and erasers to choose from.

Why does it work?

Students like getting up and moving. It's like a game - they have to earn points in class to get the prize. I like it because it's both instant and delayed gratification. They get to get up and fill in a bubble which feels like a reward but it takes work to get all 10 and earn a prize. 

The color coding is truly a secret weapon! For students who have taken Spanish for a little bit it motivates them to do more. My 5th graders would ask me how they could get a blue (novice high) and I would explain they needed to add details or write in complete sentences. Some of my 8th graders won't even get up for a green bubble (they don't do mid!) but make sure to ask me a question or add details to get that blue bubble. 

For students who are new to class, feeling overwhelmed by all the Spanish they are hearing, they can still get a yellow bubble. It helps motivate them to jump in and try as well as contributes to them feeling like they belong. They too can be successful!

A few other tips & tricks I've learned in 10 years

At one point I tried to include the success criteria and only give bubbles for what we were working on but that got to be too unwieldy and I wasn't giving out as many bubbles. 

You have to explain the proficiency levels you are targeting and give examples so that students understand what the color coding is for. 

My overachievers are sometimes way ahead of the rest of the class and it does get to be a little messy with all the extra pages or a kid gets irritated with me because I haven't put a new sheet in for them. So every once in awhile I print a bunch of new sheets, go through and organize the binder the best I can. I'll consolidate sheets where I can and take out old ones (I transfer the few kids who haven't made it to 10 on the new sheet). It does take a minute but the extra engagement in class makes it worth the effort. 

Yes, some kids will cheat and try to fill in more than one bubble at a time. It was pretty obvious in elementary school because they would fill in all 10 in one go. Those students would get banned from doing Sí se puede. I only ever had to do that two or three times. They're sneakier in middle school so I put the binder up when I know I'll have a sub and I don't worry too much about it. 

Get a link to the bubble template HERE.

And click HERE to get a free proficiency pyramid poster!

Do you reward participation in your class? How did you get students to level up? Share in the comments below!

Hobbies and Sports - Authentic Resources for Spanish Class & How to Use Them

A staple of every Spanish I class is hobbies and sports and we just started this unit with eighth grade.

This is actually a mini-unit that is a review of last year's content but the challenge is to expand on what we learned last year for students who had me in 7th grade but keep it accessible enough for students who are new to the school and/or didn't have me last year. The solution? Lots of comprehensible input using authentic resources!

First, students filled in a picture dictionary of different after school activities.

I love to have students make picture dictionaries to put in their Spanish notebooks. This helps us to avoid translation and I think it helps them to remember if they have to write it down rather than me just giving them a vocabulary list. 

School Schedules for Spanish class

 I love an authentic resource - it lets students see the language out in the real world and the right one can stimulate good conversations (in the target language of course!) My 7th graders are in the middle of their school unit and we are comparing and contrasting school schedules and talking about our own classes. Here are some of the schedules we're looking at.

From Chile

10 Tips for Communicating With Students' Families

Teaching is my second career. I didn't go to school to become a teacher and spent 4 years in the corporate world working with large accounts doing contract management and customer service. I also spent several years in high school waitressing. Those experiences helped me when I came to teaching. And subsequently, I have had very few bad interactions with parents or families of my students. Here are some tips that have helped me create meaningful partnerships with my students and their families. 

✅Address the problem with the student before you call home. 

I always try to have a conversation with the student, brainstorm some ideas of how I can support them going forward or strategies they can use in class to stay on task. I also let the student know that I'll be contacting home about what we discussed. This means that YOU (and the student) are taking steps to solve the problem. You are not blaming the parent or asking them to fix anything for you. 

✅Do your research.

Read the contact log if there is one. Talk to their other teachers and see if they have talked to the parents. Sometimes colleagues will have a better idea of who to call to get results or if there are special circumstances you should know (ie. Dad is more responsive or they don't speak English so it's better to text rather than call.) And don't forget to update the log for your own contacts!

KWLA Session Slides 2025

 If you were at KWLA conference this past weekend and wanted my slides from my webinar and Saturday session here you go!

From Classroom to Community: Engaging Students as Global Citizens - this was a webinar so if you're a member of KWLA the recording of this session should be available at some point. 

Real World, Real Results: Authentic Resources in Summative Assessments - from Saturday's session. 

As always it was great seeing everyone at conference! Reach out if you have any questions. 

Visita al doctor - Practicing body parts in an authentic way

Years ago I used to do a doctor roleplay with my third graders and it was super fun. But then our district gave us a unit framework and that vocabulary was moved down to kindergarten and I just couldn't make it work in the same way. So I was super excited to have the freedom to do kind of whatever I wanted with my sixth graders this past year. The doctor roleplay was back! And it got an upgrade because I saw my students every day!

Side note - Every student at my school takes a quarter each of Spanish, French, and Chinese the first three quarters and then fourth quarter they choose which one they want to continue on with through the rest of middle school. 

In the first quarter I had them we learned basics like greetings, introductions, birthdays, where we lived, feelings, and numbers. More on that later because I also really like that unit! We started with a review since I hadn't seen some of them in months. But also because we would be using most of it in our roleplay later.

First up we learned body parts and we learned the alphabet so that we could spell our names. 

We learned how to use the verb doler and practiced with a card game called Hola Doctor. I love to use this game with all kinds of vocab but in this case I had a ton of Me duele + body part cards and 1 or 2 Hola doctor cards. The students pass out all the cards and hold them face down (like in War.) They take turns asking ¿Qué te duele? The other player flips over their top card, read what hurts, and places it in the middle. They continue to ask and answer until someone flips over the Hola doctor card. When the doctor card is flipped the other player has to take ALL the cards in the middle pile. The person who gets rid of all their cards first is the winner. 

I also used the same cards to play Quiz Quiz Trade. Students found a partner and asked them ¿Qué te duele? and then answered what was on their card. Then they switched. I walked around and encouraged them to act out what hurts and/or point to that body part. Needless to say I have several Oscar nominees amongst my sixth graders. 

After we learned the Sana, sana colita de rana rhyme I added in the Hola doctor card into the Quiz Quiz Trade. If your partner had that card they would recite the rhyme over your hurt body part before they traded cards. That also was pretty hilarious. The Canticos song below was also a huge hit. 

We also watched Mi Burro Enfermo Está and practiced different vocabulary for remedies. Again we played Quiz Quiz Trade. 

Students then filled out a doctor visit dialogue and practiced in lines. One line stayed still while one shifted every time I rang the bell so they got to practice with multipe people. When I felt that they were ready we finally got out the doctor toys and took turns being sick, checking people in, and of course being doctors!

Students had to check in at the front of the room with a receptionist. Then they sat in the middle rows until a doctor was free. Our doctors sat in the back row and assessed the patients. When students were done they went back for a second, third, and sometimes a fourth opinion. 

To make it work I waited until I knew the majority of students could handle the language they needed to do the roleplay. They also got to keep their notebooks on them and refer to them as needed. I also reminded them that if they were not speaking Spanish they would have to sit out. We never played more than 10 minutes or so because I didn't want them to get bored or slip into English. And it worked! We played over the course of a week so everyone had a turn to do each role and on my end of the year surveys most kids wrote they wished we had played more. Classroom management tip - always leave them wanting more!

Grab the worksheets and flashcards I used in this unit in my TPT store by clicking the picture below!

Alebrijes - a Chromebook free way to end the year

 Between testing, Chromebook collection, and the general unwillingness of middle school students to do anything at the end of the year I knew I needed a good project to see us through to the last day. I decided a quick mini unit on alebrijes would be perfect.

First we learned what alebrijes are with a few videos spread over several class periods. The longer one does a good job of explaining the difference between cartonería y copal alebrijes.

         

 

Then we practiced saying what our favorite animals were and describing them. 

We spun a wheel and drew two animals together on our whiteboards as practice for later. Click the picture to take you to the wheel.

And we played Lotería. Click the picture for the link.

We also read a short reading and designed our own alebrijes from this website. (p. 3 & 11 but there's more great activities if you have the time!) 

Finally it was time to make our versions! We weren't doing paper mache BUT with some ideas from this website and this video I figured out how we could make them 3D and give the kids a way to be creative. Here are my two examples I made. 

And here are what my students made! I had them open them up and write a short description on the inside in Spanish so we got to practice both language and culture as we finished up the year. 

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Three Things I'm Loving in My Classroom Right Now

 I survived my first Valentine's Day in middle school! There was a lot of ccandy, a lot of presents, and a lot of drama but we made it through. Here are some things I'm loving right now!

💖 Interchangeable mini anchor charts

I only have so much room on my walls and I didn't have a good spot for my numbers this year so I made a desk mat instead. But I also wanted some interpersonal phrases that students could use to liven up their conversations. First quarter I had both taped down but they ended up so gross that I had to scrap that by October. Instead I used velcro and I can change them based on what we're doing in class that day. I'm currently working on making one for present tense verb endings. 

Want to make your own? I make them in Powerpoint but Google slides would also work. Resize under design or Page Setup to 8.5 x 11 and then insert a small square about 1/3 of the page. Put in any images and text you want. Then print, laminate and add a velcro dot. 

Fun Family Project for Spanish class!

 Are you looking for something beyond a family tree for your familia unit? How about a children's book? There are LOTS of real world examples you can look at before AND it's a perfect authentic task. 

Check out my last post to see which books (hello authentic resources!) I used with students before we created our own. They also had lots of practice with personality and physical descriptions during this unit.

This project was a summative assessment grade. I didn't want them using translators or AI so I gave them a paper graphic organizer for their children's books that they filled out in class, Chromebooks closed. This gave me a good idea of what they could really do with the language and it prevented me from giving them a grade based on how pretty they made their children's book. This is a language class, not a design class, so even though some students made some amazing looking books they might have only gotten a B based on their language. We are an IB school so I used an IB MYP Language Acquisition rubric but any proficiency based rubric would work for this project. 

Getting started teaching la familia in Spanish class

One of the benefits of moving from elementary to middle school is time. I have so MUCH time! And with that time we can do so much more. In elementary school I could only get to immediate family and maybe abuelo and abuela, but not much more. In middle school we have ALL the family PLUS how to describe them. Here are some activities that I used with 8th graders. 

Introducing the vocabulary

I started with the same story I used in elementary school - ¿Quién comió mi dona? Someone has eaten my donut and I interview every family member to figure out who. There was a commercial awhile back ¿Quién tomño el jugo? that was very similar and gave me the idea but now I can't find the video. If you have it, please share!

Once we finished I hid a donut behind different family members and they had to guess who had it. Then they played in pairs using Pear Deck. I gave them the interactive slide and they moved a draggable taco to a family member and a partner guessed. You could also do this with paper and a file folder. 

They also practiced with Flippity flashcards and Blooket.  And they loved this old school song (well some of them rolled their eyes but they also were sad when I didn't play it - so middle school!)

Authentic resources for your school unit!

The transition to middle school has not been easy but I'm back with some great authentic resources that would work for any novice learner from 3rd grade on up. 

First up is the chain of private schools in Chile. Each school has a virtual tour and a fantastic Información Práctica page that includes school supply lists, schedules, lunch menus, and uniforms. I actually had my 7th graders look at these and then create their own Información Práctica page for our school in Spanish as their final project for this unit. 

These tours were great for learning places in school

These schedules were great for practicing subjects, time, and comparing & contrasting

This Instagram page for a school in Colombia has some great posts - there are students talking about their favorite subject and one that would be great for adjectives. 

New school - new look

 Every winter for the last 12 years there have been discussions about ending the district support for our elementary World Language programs and for 11 of those years they decided to keep us around. Mostly because it was usually too late in the year to start thinking of how to restructure things to make it more fair (not every elementary school had a district funded World Language teacher.) 

Every year until this year. This year they finally decided that it would make more fiscal sense to allocate our positions to the middle schools. 

From a district standpoint I 100% understand the decision. It hasn't been fair to over half the schools that don't have a World Language program and this will allow them to get more "bang for their buck." 

From a personal standpoint it has been incredibly hard. I have loved working at my school and the little kids. I'm more than a little nervous about moving up to middle school. 

The good news is I'm going to an IB school where World Language is highly valued! I won't be a lone ranger anymore - I'll be part of a departement of 6! I already have friends who work there! 

If you have followed me for elementary lessons and ideas - thank you! I hope you continue to read along as I adjust to middle school. I suspect (hope really) that many of my elementary ideas will also work with older students. And if you teach middle school - please send me good thoughts and any advice you might have!

Using Beebots in Spanish Class

 My third graders last year learned about places in the community and how to give directions around town - so the perfect excuse to borrow the beebots from the STEM Lab!

We started with learning places in the community with the game ¿Dónde está mi perro? I told the class my dog had escaped and we needed to find her. They had to guess where in the city she had ended up. It's a great low prep way to practice lists of vocabulary over and over. 

We then practiced our direction words as a whole group and then in pairs using worksheets and tiny chancla erasers a second grade teacher loaned me. 

Next up, the students practiced with the virtual beebots. I would tell them where I wanted to go and they had to give directions in Spanish and program their beebot to get there. This time really allowed them to experiment and see how the beebot responded. It also helped that they had played with the beebots in English with the STEM lab teacher!

Finally it was time to play with the beebots! First we sat in a circle and just used one map and one beebot. Everyone wrote their directions and I picked one student to program the beebot. If they didn't make it, then we troubleshooted as a group to debug the code. 

The next class the students worked in groups of four. Like in whole group, everyone wrote their directions and I rotated who got to program the beebot so that everyone got a turn. Having lots of visuals and a set order of who did what really helped mitigate any arguments (though we did have couple.) 

The map I use is no longer available but here is a link to the same site I got it from originally. 

After finishing up with the beebots we have moved on to designing our own communities and drawing maps to put in our interactive notebooks. But more on that later!

Have you used beebots or coding in your room before? Share in the comments below!

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