I love collaborating with other elementary language teachers.  One of the things I find most helpful is hearing about how others teach a certain concept or topic.  I always seem to come away with new inspiration and a great idea to try.  So, I’d like to share some ideas on teaching colors in Spanish. I reflect on my general process for planning lessons in a separate post–check that out if it sounds helpful.   Today my focus will be to go through my favorite ways to teach colors in Spanish at the elementary level. Teaching Colors in Spanish to a Kindergarten Class When ..read more

Have you played board games in your elementary Spanish class yet?  I used to think the only way to use board games was to bust out Candyland during our colors unit.  Thankfully my awesome colleagues introduced me to the idea of making the board games fit the content in our elementary Spanish curriculum.  Shout out to Sra. Schreiner & Sra. Gloudemans! Why play board games in Spanish class? My goal for using board games in class has always been to increase student engagement while giving them a reason to communicate in Spanish.  Each turn provides an opportunity for a que ..read more

Are you looking for a fun way to get your elementary Spanish students moving during class?  We know kids benefit when we incorporate movement into our lessons at school.  One of my favorite ways to do that is a simple movement game: 4 Corners. I’ve heard about a variety of different ways to play 4 Corners and I thought I’d share how my students and I like to play.  When I plan to play this game in class, I have two goals: get students moving while engaging with Spanish. Movement Game Set Up I love this movement game for several reasons…but my favorite might be the easy pr ..read more

Woah, start the countdown to the end of the school year!  I love this time of year.  You can actually feel the energy and excitement in the air as the weather gets warmer and the calendar moves closer to summer. I find myself looking at my planner every year around this time–trying to make sure I can fit everything in and still have time for some fun end of year activities before we send the kids home for summer. My Favorite End of Year Activities for Spanish Class Reading Stories It won’t come as a surprise that I love teaching with stories.  Reading and talking about summ ..read more

Finding balance is not an easy task for a teacher.  The more we just say it’s important to have a good “work/life balance” or “practice self care,” the less impact they have.   The less we think about what it actually means to find balance in your life.  It turns out, finding balance has been my saving grace this year.  Finding balance as a teacher and a person might just help me continue on with teaching. Reflecting on Balance I have been reflecting on my relationship with the idea of balance.  Comparing the first few years of my teaching career to the pre ..read more

Are you having trouble wrapping your brain around teaching a new level? When you’re used to teaching older students, it can be quite a shock to switch levels and think about teaching students as young as kindergarten.  You’d think this would be a fairly uncommon occurrence (switching from teaching high school to teaching elementary).  However, I hear questions about it quite often.  Having gone through this experience myself, I’d like to share my thoughts in case it might be helpful. If you didn’t initiate the change (or even if you did), I want to first encourage you to take ..read more

Cart & Señora. Decorated for an all school celebration--definitely not always this pretty. Are you on a cart or do you have your own classroom?! Having a classroom or teaching from a cart makes a huge difference in the day to day experiences of a teacher.  I’m here to give you all the details on how I set up my cart and how I make it work for me.  That said, it’s definitely one of those things that each person needs to figure out what works best for them.  Teaching from a cart is definitely challenging, but, in my opinion, getting to teach elementary students makes it all ..read more