Ellie la elefantita creativa - ¡Vamos a leer!

¡Vamos a leer! 

Ellie La elefantita creativa

*Este artículo contiene enlaces afiliados*

Si tus alumnos son como los míos, todavía necesitan mucha practica en escribir una historia en secuencia. Me he dado cuenta que el uso de organizadores gráficos hace toda la diferencia porque les permite organizar sus ideas y los obliga a utilizar sus palabras (y el espacio para escribir) cuidadosamente. 

La historia de Ellie es una hermosa forma de repasar esta habilidad. Me encantó el mensaje y claro, la podemos utilizar para seguir practicando la secuencia. 

Este libro nos cuenta la historia de un zoológico que está a punto de cerrar. Todos los animales intentan hacer algo, utilizando sus talentos, para salvar su hogar.

Ellie tiene problemas encontrando su talento pero al final de la historia lo encuentra y logra salvar el zoológico. 

Puedes encontrar el libro aquí.

Puedes utilizar esta actividad junto con esta historia para que tus alumnos sean los mejores en escribir la secuencia de una historia.

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Topito terremoto - ¡Vamos a leer!

¿Alguna vez has tenido a Topito Terremoto en tu clase? ¡Estoy segura que sí! Te aseguro que esta hermosa historia te recordará a uno (o tal vez más de uno) de tus estudiantes.

Topito Terremoto me recordó a un estudiante en cuanto leí las primeras páginas. Me encantó el mensaje de este libro y pronto lo leeremos en mi clase. Te aseguro que las ilustraciones y la lección de la historia te van a gustar a ti también.

 Topito Terremoto es un poco travieso y le cuesta trabajo estar quieto...

Los papás de Topito deciden buscar ayuda. Cuando Topito Terremoto conoce a Brenda, ella sabe inmediatamente lo que él necesita. 

Tantos malos comentarios acerca de su comportamiento, llevan a Topito a tener un mal momento. Pero Brenda le enseña acerca de encontrar nuestra PASIÓN. 

La mejor parte del cuento es cuando Topito encuentra su pasión. 

Después de hablar acerca del comportamiento de Topito y de aceptar a las personas aun cuando no se comportan igual que nosotros, hablaremos de la palabra PASIÓN.

No estoy segura si alguien alguna vez ha hablado con mis alumnos acerca de encontrar lo que mas nos gusta hacer: nuestra pasión. ¡Definitivamente será nuestro tema de conversación la próxima semana! 

Este libro ofrece muchos temas y lecciones que puedes discutir con tus alumnos. ¡A mí me encantó! 

Puedes encontrar el libro AQUÍ

Utilizaremos esta actividad para hablar de nuestra pasión. 

Puedes descargarla GRATIS aquí y utilizarla con tus alumnos. 

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Dragones y tacos - Vamos a leer!

Let me share with you this super funny book your kids are going to love! I will use it during Valentine's day week to talk about things we love... but you can pretty much use it any time of the year. 

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Letter Oo

Back to school is just around the corner for me which means prep, prep and more prep! It's a lot of work but it's one of my favorite times of the year. Sparkling clean classrooms, brand new borders, fresh laminating aaaah!! But when your room is ready for those little ones to come in you can't forget to be ready with quality work as well, which is exactly what I've been working on this week. I've been preparing all the activities and planning my lessons for the first weeks of school.

During the second (or third) week of school I will be introducing my little ones to the vowels. I know these activities will be fun and engaging and I'm super excited to use them one more time with a new group of kids!

Let me show you what I've prepped for so far...

I like having a mini word wall (separate from the one we use for sight words) to focus on the letter we are learning. I've noticed how much more vocabulary my kids learn. I change it every week and my kids love referring back to it!

I always make sure my students have plenty of opportunities to learn how to trace and write each letter. 

Just as important as tracing letters correctly, I give the kids plenty of activities to recognize the beginning sounds. I usually use this coloring activity at the beginning when I first introduce the letter since it's quick and easy. 

One of my students favorite activities is the mini books we do every week. I have two different versions and I pick a different one every week depending on how much time (and copies/paper) I have for the week.

And sometimes we do an extra activity on Fridays just for fun! This is when I really push my students to get creative!

You can find these activities HERE.

Letra Oo

I hope your planning and prep is going great!! 

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Please, Mr. Panda - Vamos a leer!

You walk into Barnes & Noble, Target (or anywhere really) and you go straight to the children's books section...trying to find books for your students in Spanish but there's only a few and not really anything you want/need. You glance at the English section and  you wish it was that easy for you to find books! Sound familiar? 

I bet it does if you're a bilingual/ESL/dual-language teacher!

Don't get me wrong. I love teaching in Spanish but all the time I see these amazing ideas on Pinterest using the best books out there and then it hits me... the activity is in English! UGH!!!

Great news is I will be sharing with you some books and ideas that you can use in your Spanish elementary class. Since I will be teaching kindergarten this year I will try to keep my ideas closer to k-2 but maybe someday I'll share some of my ideas for the upper grades :) 

And most importantly! I will most definitively try to give you a link from Amazon, Barnes and Noble or Target so you can purchase your book online! Searching will be way easier for you!

Today's book is one I plan to use on the first day (or week) of school. It is one of the best ones I have found to teach my kids about the word PLEASE.

It starts out with this sweet 'grumpy' panda and a box of donuts. He runs into many friends and offers them a donut but all he gets are rude responses and decides not to give them a donut.

Until he finds a cute little friend who says PLEASE! 

This book is simple, to the point and perfect for a back to school manners lesson! Plus the text is in English AND Spanish! 

As I promised, here is a FREEBIE you can use with your kids to go along with this book:) 

Click HERE to download

You can find this book on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. 

Have a great school year!!

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Interactive Notebooks

Do you use interactive notebooks in your classroom? I'm sure you have seen them... they're all over Pinterest. If you haven't, I would love to introduce them to you...

Interactive notebooks have changed my classroom and my teaching. I love the idea of introducing my kiddos to a concept and allowing them to take ownership of their learning. The best part is that the more you use them, the more independent kids become.

Im not going to lie to you, the first time using interactive notebooks got a little crazy but that's ok!

I try to do interactive notebook entries as much as I can, but.... if I don't get to it I just stick them in a center!

I usually start with the most basic form of entry I can find like this one:

I love it because it's simple and to the point. Color. Cut. Paste. Perfect to survive the Monday craziness (and of course) introduce a letter. 

If you're considering using these beauties in your classroom, I EXTREMELY recommend using interactive notebook vocabulary: tabs, corners, fold, etc...get your kids used to these words and they'll be super used to them in no time! 

At the beginning of the year, my students had the hardest time putting these tabs together, now they can do them with their eyes closed!!! ok, I might have exaggerated a little;)...

I usually leave the "more fun" pages for us to do on Fridays. They are always looking forward to the activities that are a little more challenging and fun...

My favorite part? I can actually use these as quick assessments that I know my kids will actually enjoy!

How do you use interactive notebooks in your classroom? Have you given them a try? 

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Fluency

Hello friends!! I'm excited to FINALLY be back with some ideas to share! 

This post is all about FLUENCY! 

Fluency is hands down one of the skills my kiddos like practicing the most. It is NOT because it's naturally appealing, it is simply because we as teachers MUST MAKE IT appealing and attractive to them! 

My fluency station is pretty simple... a box with several fun items the students may use while reading...i.e. glasses, microphones, mini teddy bears, different kinds of timers, etc...  I also have different sets of fluency cards that I rotate throughout the year, depending on the skill that we are working on.... I promise I will get some pics of my fluency box soon!!! 

I use these cards from Stephanie Stewart for fluency in English and these for Spanish fluency. My students love working with both!! 

As YOU KNOW, it is very easy to a student to get off track or distracted in a center where they're expected to work independently. That's why I'm constantly reminding them of ways to be responsible during our centers. 

Just in case... I do 2 things to keep them accountable for their work: 

1. My students know that I will test their fluency at least once a week. I don't always use it as a grade. But whenever I test them or practice with them, I like to use the same cards they've been using in their center that same week. 

2. I have my students fill out an accountability sheet every time they go to the fluency center. That way, they know I'm checking their work even though I'm not there. 
You can grab this FREEBIE for your fluency center. 

You can grab my fluency cards in Spanish here. Levels 11+ will be added soon!

How do you teach fluency? 

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When a Lesson Goes Wrong......Idioms

Today was our second day back. Its been wonderful but I'm EXHAUSTED!!!

This week I had a great terrible idea... Introduce idioms to my students............... AWFUL! 

Lets admit it... not all lessons go as we plan. And well... this was one of those. 

I had everything planned out and ready to go... We were going to read one of my favorites: Parts by Tedd Arnold. We were even going to read More Parts on Friday. 

Everything was ready, books, anchor chart, even the copies of this perfect Idioms worksheet from Ginger Snaps I found on Pinterest.

                                      (Find it HERE)

I started my lesson talking about some idioms that we use in Spanish (I teach a bilingual class). We sat on the carpet and I started reading. Let me tell you, there's nothing worse than expecting tons of giggles from students and getting nothing but... crickets! 

It was obvious... my students (most of them ELLs) were not understanding a single thing about Idioms. I was so disappointed and frustrated at the end of the day! I decided to take a step a back and forget about my Amelia Bedelia unit for next week. I can only imagine how that would go! haha 

Today was a brand new day and I gave it another try. This time we started simple with a pocket chart that I bought on amazon a couple of years ago... I completely forgot I had it!!! 

We will work with one of these every week. 

Hopefully we will be able to revisit Mr. Tedd Arnold's books and Amelia Bedelia next month. 

In the mean time... I will be talking about idioms all day every day!!

Go slower next time... lesson learned... 

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