It has been a great school year. My seniors are down to just 4.5 weeks left and my underclassmen have only 5.5. It’s a lot of time and yet SO LITTLE TIME. With all the interruptions of the spring, it will go by in a blink. I’m very proud of this year’s Spanish classes. They took the STAMP test in February (this was our first time trying STAMP instead of AAPPL and we loved it) and they performed so well. We are awarding 41 IL State Commendations toward Biliteracy at Intermediate Low, 14 Global Seals of Biliteracy at Intermediate Mid, and 8 State Seals of Biliteracy at Intermediate High. The coo ..read more

It’s that time of year at Wildcat Spanish… testing. Yuck! Since 2014, Illinois has offered a two-tiered State Seal of Biliteracy program. The lower tier, the State Commendation toward Biliteracy, is awarded to any student who demonstrates Intermediate Low + level of proficiency in all 4 skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening). The higher tier, the State Seal of Biliteracy, is awarded to any student who demonstrates Intermediate High + level of proficiency in all 4 skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening). In addition, the Global Seal of Biliteracy offers a THREE tiered approach w ..read more

Sometimes it feels like the winter CRAWLS by… this year I feel like I blinked and its the end of February! Here are some things we’ve been up to in Wildcat Spanish! Spanish 2 is reading Mata la piñata by Kristy Placido. (Side note, if you are planning to order readers for your class, be sure to contact your Wayside Publishing sales rep to get the classroom price on them!) This book is always such a hit. I got a Fortnite piñata and some purple streamers from Amazon, so our zombie piñata is making it real. (See him in the background?) In this picture, they’re playing “The Scene Machine“. Each s ..read more

I had a surprise in my mailbox yesterday! A new book for my FVR/SSR library called No somos amigos. It is a prequel to the Diego y sus amigos video on senorwooly.com, but it is not necessary to have seen the video to enjoy the story. Two notable things: I received a free copy of this book to review for you. Also, I helped write the story, so I may be biased about how amazing it is… but I don’t think so. I think it’s pretty great. JAJA (Check out those scribbles in my planbook in the background. Very representative of every day of my life) In this book, Diego and Tomás are lost at sea. They ..read more

While I don’t love going back to school mid-August, I DO love that the semester ends at winter break so there is a clean split between first and second semester courses. Early in my career, I had to come back from break and prepare students for exams… I don’t miss that! Whenever your exams fall, we are getting into the window of time when we start thinking about how we will assess a semester’s worth of learning. Somewhere to Share hopes to help you by offering the opportunity to watch a MasterClass we released last year called “That’s a Wrap.” In this session, I’ll talk to you about how I plan ..read more

In an upcoming episode of the CI Diaries Podcast, you will hear from my dear friend Martina Bex of The Comprehensible Classroom about the value of follow up activities. I love reading with my students, especially longer texts, but I’ve gone through a lot of different ideas for how to follow up those readings! Here are some things we have done this week as we read in my Spanish 2-4 classes. In Spanish 2, we are reading my book Bianca Nieves. The teacher’s guide has so many options for follow ups that I feel like I can pick from low energy to high energy, low prep to high prep every chapter! My ..read more

At SCHS, all of our level 2-4 students just wrapped up their two day attendance at the virtual Global Y Cred conference. Hosted by the Global Seal of Biliteracy, this conference is designed for students (and their teachers). We were impressed with the variety of sessions available and the 4 pillars of the conference: Level Up, Link, Leverage, and Listen & Learn. Honoring students with the Global (or state) Seal of Biliteracy is one of my favorite parts of their upper level language classes. The sessions we attended at Global Y Cred were designed to help them set their eye on a goal with t ..read more

If you haven’t signed up yet, it isn’t too late! Global YCred, sponsored by the Global Seal of Biliteracy, is a GREAT way to get your students excited about language and their future!! We are attending Monday and Tuesday. I’m letting students choose the sessions that are most impactful to them, so they’re doing an independent visit to the conference. I like for them to reflect a little, so if you ARE attending, I want to share my reflection sheet with you! I’d love to hear how the conference goes for you and YOUR students! Y-Cred-Response-sheetDownload ..read more

In Spanish 4 we were doing some scary stories leading up to Halloween. We had an odd little 18-20 minutes extra after reading Chac Mool and I needed a quick activity for them. I decided to put them in groups of 3 and have them do a sort of $10,000 Pyramid style game. If you’re not old enough to remember that game, one player sat with their back to the pyramid as the other tried to get them to say different words that were revealed. In my class of 24, I asked for 8 students who felt like they were decent at drawing. These 8 sat at my tables with their backs to the board. I put the other 16 kids ..read more

The first time we played “Game of Quotes” in class last year, I was so excited about the way it got students re-reading the text to find answers to the prompts. I knew I wanted to incorporate more activities that encouraged re-reading this year! Last week we did “Freeze Find“. And this week we tried a game of “Bad Google Translate”! We have finished Huellas 1.1 Bajo la mesa and are reading Kristy Placido’s biography of Frida Kahlo. Now that we’re at the end of the book, I wanted to revisit some of the scenes to help review the storyline. First, I read through the book and selected 10 events I ..read more