Calendar Time in the Elementary Spanish Classroom Part Two

In a previous post I wrote about setting up a calendar area. Once you've got your calendar area set up then you can start putting it to good use.

Decide when and how long you will do calendar time. 

A lot of this will be based on how much time you have. My classes are only 25 min and our full calendar routine can take up to 7-10 minutes.

During a unit where one of the elements is part of calendar time then we take the time and do it every class or every other class. When it is not part of our unit of study then we do it only once a month (so that students don't forget the different elements.)

If you have 50-60 minute classes then you might consider doing calendar time every class period.

Decide what your routine will look and sound like.

I love teaching with music. I introduce the following songs one at a time as we build up our calendar routine. Once the students have learned the song I stop showing the video and we sing a cappella.

We go over the days of the week using this song from Basho and Friends. We dance the macarena as we sing. Then we do Hoy es... Mañana será... Ayer fue...

I use Calico Spanish's song Meses del Año to practice the months. Then we talk about what month it is and count up to the date.



We don't sing a seasons song during our calendar time but I did use these videos from Calico Spanish and Basho and Friends to introduce the vocabulary. Once they knew it, I just ask students what season we are in.





We sing this song from Super Simple Spanish to practice the weather. Then students talk with a partner about what the weather is that day. After a few seconds I look it up on my phone (I'm in a windowless room!) I call on a few students, and then we move the area on our weather chart to the weather of the day. Most days we also guess the weather in Mexico and another Spanish speaking country (usually in the southern hemisphere so students start to understand that the seasons are opposite there.)



Then we dress the weather bear. Like with the seasons we don't sing the song once students know the vocabulary but Calico Spanish has a great one to introduce clothing. I like it because it also has the seasons. I usually give students an either/or choice and they tell me what I should put on the bear.

You can get your copy of the weather bear and his clothes in my Teachers Pay Teachers store here. In addition to using it during calendar time you can also print them out as paper dolls. Or laminate and put magnets on them and have students play with it on cookie sheets.

Keep your students engaged and accountable.

My goal for the last part of this year is to implement calendar pages with students. My students already love calendar time but this will help those students whose attentions wander and get in some writing practice. My plan is to put them in sheet protectors so they can be used over and over. The first graders will use the simpler one below and I have another one with months and seasons for 2nd graders. You can get your copy here - it's included in my Weather Bear Activity Pack!  For an assessment I'm thinking I'll make smaller paper copies and have students fill them out and turn them in every once in awhile to track students' progress.

So that's my calendar time. It's a work in progress and after I finish my second grade benchmark testing I will probably make more changes based on what my kiddos need spiraled more. How do you do calendar time? What are your favorite songs or routines to use during calendar time? Share in the comments below!

Calendar Time in the Elementary Spanish Classroom Part One

Calendar time is a natural thing to do in the elementary World Language classroom. Students are used to doing it in their regular classroom and it's an opportunity to introduce and practice content - math, science, and even geography. I got the chance to observe some of the regular classroom teachers and even some Dual Language Immersion teachers to see how they do calendar and I've copied what I liked, adjusted what I needed to, and now my kiddos love calendar time. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Set up your calendar area.

Have a calendar area that all students can see. Consider what you want to go over. I have the calendar with months on the side so students can access them when they need to. There is also a weather chart, a seasons poster, numbers to practice the temperature and a weather bear that we dress based on the weather.

I also have other language students need - Sentence starters above from Miss Maestra on TpT, a ¿Cómo estás? poster, hands with right and left, and even some adjectives we often use in class. I also have a growing group of stuffed animals that we greet with Hola and Adios every day in kindergarten (It's amazing how much better they know their animals this year doing this!)

I got my calendar set from the local Teacher Parent Store but here is a link to it on Amazon. Here is another cute one as well.

The weather bear is magnetic and I wasn't sure how I would move it from the white board to the bulletin board but my student teacher had the great idea of using command strips on a cookie sheet. Her clothes are kept in a bucket on the bookshelf and we can easily dress her based on the weather.

My seasons poster came from my Scholastic Let's Find Out subscription. I highly recommend Let's Find Out for any Spanish FLES classroom. I've gotten so many good resources from it! If you need seasons cards/posters you can get them in my TpT store.  Also included are weather cards, clothing cards, student calendar pages, and a weather bear to dress.

Other ideas -

1. Clocks to practice time. You could have multiple clocks to show what time it is in other countries. 2. Multiple weather charts to show the weather around the world. (We usually talk about other places but only post Lexington on our chart.)
3. Shapes or colors on the days of the calendar that make a pattern. The teacher turns over the day  but before she dose students must predict the next part of the pattern.
4. Number of days in school. Deconstruct the numbers by 100, 10s and 1s.
5. Number of the day. For younger students you could use a 10 frame. Or you can have one more, one less, 10 more, 10 less.

A calendar bulletin board in an immersion kindergarten classroom

So that's my calendar area. What does yours look like? What elements do you have? In my next post I'll talk about how I introduce the vocabulary and what our actual routine looks and sounds like.

March Madness with Animals and their Habitats ¡en español!

I recently saw Mundo de Pepita's blog on how she did March Madness with a Twist. Instead of basketball or even music (like a lot of high school Spanish teachers do) she had her students decide their favorite Latin American animals. It's a genius idea for this age group and I can't wait to try it especially because my second graders are getting ready to start a unit on where animals live. This will be a perfect way to grab their interest.

I'll start the unit with my new Animal Habitat Posters with sentence frames. I plan on projecting on the board to introduce the new vocabulary. Then I'll put them up on a bulletin board and print them for students to use in a writing center. Get your set here!

Once I've introduced the habitats and where animals live, we will start with the bracket. As I started to decide which animals I should use and looking for authentic resources for class I came across the Madrid Zoo's page on their different animals. They are absolutely perfect for my novice mid learners.

There are beautiful photos and icons for type of animal, what they eat, habitat (YAY!) and what continent they live on. There's also a section for their status in terms of conservation. Lots of accessible language that we can talk about in class.

I picked 8 animals that had easy enough names and lived in the right habitats and came up with my own Marzo Manía bracket. I made 8.5x11 posters for each animal and then a sheet with the bracket that I will either project and/or hand out to students to keep track of which of our animals is winning.

Get a FREE copy of the posters and bracket sheet HERE!

Do you do March Madness with animals, music, or something else in your classroom? Share in the comments below or on Twitter using the hashtag #earlylang!

Dancing in Spanish Class - Rueda de Casino

Two years ago I posted about how I connect with the target culture through rueda de casino. I get to practice my Spanish, stay in shape, meet new people, and learn about Cuban culture. See that post here.

Now I want to talk about how you can incorporate dance and specifically rueda de casino (salsa square dancing or Simon Says for dance) into your classroom.

For high school: Try something like Mis Clases Locas does with Baile Viernes. If you aren't comfortable teaching the salsa steps yourself there are plenty of videos and websites that you can pull up. I've compiled a list here. And here is a powerpoint that you can adapt to introduce the dance. Students could learn a step a week, working up to a list of calls.

Or you can devote more class time to it either as part of class or a special event. I recently taught rueda at KY's Sociedad Honoraria Hispánica Convention. Here was my 25 min lesson plan. (You could also facilitate and pull up videos for students to follow.)

Warm-up in lines
Vamos p'arriba (walk forward in salsa rhythm) in lines
Vamos p'abajo (walk backwards in salsa rhythm) in lines
Move to circle and have Ss find a partner.
Explain closed position - Ss may choose to just stand in front of their partner or "hover" (closed position but not actually touch.)
Practice Vamos p'arriba and Vamos p'abajo without music.
Learn un tarro (leaders walk forward to next follower in the circle.)
Practice the three calls with music.
Learn dos tarros (leaders walk forward to second follower in the circle.)
Practice without and with music.
Learn tarro mentira (leaders start to walk forward to new partner but turn and come back to original partner.)
Practice without and with music.
If time also learn Un fly and mambo.

I also suggest checking out the dance studios in your area. The Salsa Center here in Lexington has come to my school to do a full day workshop with my elementary school kiddos (they still talk about it 3 years later.) And I know a high school teacher in the region who brings her Spanish classes to the studio each year as a field trip. If you're in the Central Kentucky area I highly suggest checking them out!

Social dancing casino at a party. 

For elementary school: Ok, so for this age group I have had to get a little creative. For them, switching partners is not the main focus (because I've tried it and they just don't have the spatial awareness to figure it out.)  Instead we all walk in the same direction.

Vamos p'arriba - everyone walks forward.
Vamos p'abajo - everyone walks backwards
Giráte - turn around and walk the other direction
Mambo - stop and tap each foot in the middle of the circle (see example here)
Pilón - stop and "stir the coffee" (see example here.)

This year I also want to add palmas where we clap in the middle then clap with the two people on each side and then clap to the middle again (see example here.)

This Youtube playlist also shows the different musical instruments and timing.  I like to use them to reinforce what students are learning in music class.

Because Rueda de Casino is such a community building dance and because different ruedas have their own calls, last year in fifth grade I had each class collaboratively create their own call. Then during their end of the year dance I called a rueda and when I called their calls the students in that class stepped into the circle and performed their move. We had calls named Soy Yo and Mariposa among others. It was super fun!


So there you go! That's how I incorporate rueda de casino and do some community building through dance in my classroom. If you are a teacher in KY you can join me in Danville this summer for Kentucky Center's World Languages and Arts Integration Academy where we'll be learning about Rueda de Casino, Mexican folk dance, and Appalachian Flatfooting.

The Magic of 4:1 Positive Feedback in the Classroom

Last year I was a New Teacher facilitator for the electives teachers in our district. I didn't do much except email them when the meetings were and planned some ice breakers and reflection activities. But I got to go to all the trainings with them and honestly I think I got more out of them than they did. (As a first year teacher it's hard to be presented with a ton of information when you're already so overwhelmed.)

The best take away I got? Use a 4:1 ratio for positive to negative in classroom management.

Now, I had heard that before. In my first year of teaching even, but what really made it stick was that the PBIS coach told it didn't mean for each student but the class overall.

Mind blown!

Here I was thinking I had to say 4 nice things to that kid rolling under a table before I could correct him.

Now I simply say muy bien or gracias to four students doing the right thing before I correct little Johnny for being under the table. Usually by the time I've recognized 4 students for being in their seats criss-cross and eyes o me, Little Johnny has made it back to his carpet square. Then I say thank you to him (or just smile, nod, or give a thumbs up) and we move on.

You don't even have to compliment or thank the kiddos doing the right thing but just describe what they're doing. Emily se está sentando con las piernas cruzadas. Henry tiene la boca cerrada y está listo de aprender.  It helps that in K-2 we start class with piernas cruzadas, bocas cerradas, manos dobladas, y los ojos en la maestra. That way I can refer to these expectations later without switching to English.

It has really upped the positivity in my room, my students are much more likely to be on task, and we are all staying in the target language.

Here's a link for more information - https://www.pbisworld.com/tier-1/positive-praise/
And here https://vkc.mc.vanderbilt.edu/assets/files/resources/psibehaviorspecpraise.pdf 


#HighlightReal - This has HELPED in my rowdy fifth grade classes but it has not completely solved the problem. If there was a solution then me, the other 5 Special Area teachers, the Behavior Coach, and/or their classroom teachers would have figured it out by now. Some groups of kids when together are harder than others.

Using Bitmojis in the Spanish Classroom

I recently discovered the bitmoji app and I realized they had a LOT of food related ones AND that you can change them into other languages like Spanish and French. So when I went to revamp my slide presentation to introduce our My Food Choices unit in second grade I decided these silly pictures of their teacher would be a good way to capture my students' interest.

They loved it! I told them a quick story about how eating too much pizza, hamburgers, and ice cream gave me a stomachache using different bitmoji images. I needed to eat healthier. Then we practiced healthy food vocabulary with the slide above and they told their partners which healthy foods they liked and disliked.

In later classes we looked at different authentic posters. Eventually we will make our own informational posters (more on that later!) The bitmoji story was a great introduction to the unit.

How to get bitmojis in another language:

1. Change your phone to the target language.

2. Open the Bitmoji app and choose your bitmoji.

3. Save your bitmoji to your favorite photo app. I have mine uploaded to Google Photo.

4. On your desktop, open Google Photo and download the bitmoji to your computer.

5. Insert into your powerpoint, slide, or word files. Use and have fun!

6. Be prepared to have students argue over whether the bitmoji is really you and just how much it looks like you. (Apparently my red glasses are not really reed according to several of my students.)

Other Ideas:

Print them on sticker paper with ¡Buen trabajo! or other encouraging phrases to put on student work or hand out as prizes for games.

Add them to worksheets for a fancier word bank, especially for food, likes/dislikes or days of the week.

Put them on newsletters and bellringer slides to start the day to add a personal touch.

Print out phrases like ¡Me gusta! or ¡Qué asco! and put on popsicle sticks and use to model conversations in class.

For older students, have them change their devices' language and have them make their own TL bitmojis.



Do you use bitmojis in your target language? Share in the comments below!

Presentational Writing Practice in the FLES Classroom

Last year I realized that I don't do a lot of writing in my room. I teach at a Title I school and while our scores are going up, we still need our students to be writing more. Writing in Spanish is a good way to get in more of the presentational mode and I use it as a way to reinforce L1 skills like punctuation and handwriting.

But how to do it?

1. Do group writes. Especially for younger students, start out by modeling how to write. Ask students to give you the sentences and you write them. Then let them come up and write the sentences.

2.  Have students partner write - One person has the whiteboard and marker but they have to listen to their partner as they dictate. Then they revise it together. My second graders loved this last year as they wrote animal riddles during our zoo unit. And it was great scaffolding for later when they wrote on their own at the end of the unit.

3. Whiteboards during our Hola time. We have a time where we practice our interpersonal conversations. Some of these times instead of orally practicing introducing ourselves and talking about what we like, we write our answers on whiteboards.

4. Make it fun. In our My Food Choices unit in second grade we take laminated place mats and write what we like and don't like on them. It takes what would be a boring activity using a worksheet into a fun activity because they are writing on the plate. Later we do the same thing when talking about school schedules and our favorite subjects. They write on a large laminated schedule.

5. Write on the tables - My fourth graders wrote descriptions of their friends using expo markers on my tables. Each table had a different adjective. Working with a partner they took turns writing who they knew that matched that description. They had a lot of fun and it was super low prep. Before my third graders did the notebook foldable below they did the same thing. Writing with a partner the names of their family members. Each table was a different person in the family.

6. Interactive notebooks - a lot of our activities in our interactive notebooks have the students writing. This activity in third grade, had students writing about where they lived and the members of their family.

7. Use social media - my students are too young to be on social media but Instagram on paper was a big hit right before Thanksgiving break. Some even asked if they could take a picture and post it to their real Instagram (I pretended not to notice they are about 4 years too young to have their own accounts...)

8. Lengua Lunes - Outside of class, as part of our morning show, students write the answer to a question and turn it in. On Tuesdays, someone is drawn and they get their name announced on the morning news show and get a pencil from our school counselor. If you don't have a morning show like I do you could use a bulletin board with a weekly question. Or put up butcher paper and have a Spanish graffiti wall. Just be sure to show and model to students how to use it appropriately.

So that's how I get my students writing more in class. What are some activities that you do in your classes to get in the presentational mode? Share in the comments below or on Twitter using the hashtag #earlylang!