I'm a sucker for any holiday. The opportunity to dress up, the chance to make a day a teensy more whimsical than usual? Sign me up! So, I always make it a point to create lessons that still teach Spanish vocabulary and often times culture. Last year I created a rainbow themed lesson activity that was primarily geared for younger ages and focused on colors. It's still a great lesson that I will probably use again this year. I wanted to create a lesson that was a bit more focused on vocabulary for the holiday and even give it a dose of culture so I created a new lesson that teaches key words to describe the holiday and even teaches about the connection between Mexico and St. Patrick's Day! 

​You can still download my rainbow themed lesson for FREE on TpT here or by clicking the image below. You can buy my new lesson by clicking here or the image below.

I hope you enjoy my lessons! Thanks for visiting!

I don't know about you but I LOVE to wear graphic tshirts! It is so easy to throw on a comfy graphic tee with a pair of dress pants, a cute jacket and some funky jewelry to make an outfit that looks pulled together, professional, cute and most importantly, COMFY!

However, I often struggle to find shirts that fit my aesthetic as a somewhat "cool" and mostly young teacher of Spanish. The Spanish ones are usually pretty meh and the teacher specific ones are often too cutesy for my taste. So, I decided to start designing a few tshirts that I would actually wear and sell them on Etsy! 

So, if you are like me and would love some cute teacher tees for Spanish teachers you should check out my offerings!

​For Kindergarten I created a story based lesson for my Kinders that teaches them some basic vocabulary. I chose to retell the story, "The Day it Rained Hearts" using Alex the Alpaca as the main character. Students focus on the words "corazón" and "tarjeta" during the story as well as the activities with the overall focus being on words for Valentine's Day, colors and numbers. It's a fun but still relevant way to bring the holiday into your Spanish classroom. You can see a few pictures of everything I include in the lesson pack on TpT below. Click on the button to go the item on TpT.

For my older kiddos I decided to make a story movie talk presentation using an animated short from Youtube. This method is used often in CI teaching and I really enjoyed using movie talks with my highschool students. I think older elementary students will have a lot of fun with this method too. Students are walked through screen shots of a digital short that is narrated by you, the teacher in the target language. After you talk them through the story using only pictures and Spanish, they get to watch the clip and see how much they understood in your narration. It's a great way to cram a lot of vocabulary into a short and engaging lesson. You can see pictures of the things included in the lesson below and click the button to go to the listing on TpT.

Our school is a STEAM school and we are encouraged to integrate STEAM concepts in our everyday lessons. That seems like a pretty tall order as a Spanish teacher but, I decided that if done well, it could also be a super fun time! So, I set to work creating lessons that I felt held true to my subject while also bringing in science concepts. "Alex el Científico" is what I came up with.

My goal since becoming an elementary level Spanish teacher last year (after 15 years at the high school level) was to create different lesson tracks for each grade that I teach, K-5. This would ensure that each year students are learning new things and participating in new and exciting activities. However, creating good quality lessons takes time and it has been a slow process. I am proud to say that I have now gotten a really great start on separating all of the grades into different learning tracks and I have managed to create three lessons for my new Kindergarten series and three for my new STEAM focuses series. Both continue with my the use of my alpaca named Alex for continuity purposes and I think they are both pretty fab. 

In "Alex el Científico", students are introduced to a culturally significant concept that ties into a science based activity. Students learn about the cultural side and science side together and then participate in experiments and activities using focus vocabulary in the target language. I just finished my first week using these lessons and I have to say that they were a smashing success. I decided that second grade was a perfect audience for my Spanish/Science mashup and we started out with a lesson about cloud forests in Costa Rica and the water cycle. 

Students made a rain cloud in a cup and a water cycle in a bag all while using key vocabulary like "nube, agua, precipitación, condensación, evaporación and lluvia". It was a ton of fun and I think they definitely absorbed some of the Spanish content.

You can purchase the entire lesson on my TpT including the lesson plan, water cycle worksheet, flashcards, cloud in a jar experiment sheet and presentation. Let me know how the activity goes for you and be sure to check out my other STEAM & Spanish combo lessons including a Don Quijote + Windmill Science and Galapagos + Animal Adaptations!

With littles it can sometimes be challenging to review vocabulary words in a way that engages them while still being effective. This is especially difficult if they are extra little and have not yet grasped reading. This is where the monster box comes in! 

This super easy activity simply requires you to make a box look like a monster (mouth hole necessary) and to write/type some flashcards with pictures of the vocabulary you want to focus on. After that it's a lot of repetition and a bit of excitement. Every time I do this activity my students are excited that the monster box has returned and they are on the edge of their seats hoping it will be their turn to interact with our monster box and vocabulary words.

I've created a FREE printable giving you directions on how to make and use a monster box with your next vocabulary lesson. It even includes a mouth and eyes for your box. To get it just click the image below!

I hope the monster box is as successful with your kids as it is with mine! In fact, I'd love to see how your monster boxes turn out so comment below with your pics if you like! Thanks for visiting and enjoy!

Do you need something for those kids that always seem to finish the activity before the rest of the class? You're in luck! I created this Sentence Square activity for students that is winter themed and you can have it for FREE! Additionally, I created some fun activity sheets for kids that are in Spanish and also winter themed and you can get them on my TpT store for just $1. You'll get three different activity sheets that are sure to keep those fast finisher busy while you help the other students wrap up the lesson.  Click the picture below to download the sentence activity sheet and visit the button below the image to purchase the winter bundle. Enjoy!

When trying to come up with an appropriate lesson for littles surrounding winter holidays I had to really stop and think. When I taught high school I would do lessons about various holidays that occur this time of year from around the world but conducted the lesson mostly in the target language this ensured that I was being sensitive to all beliefs while also using the language. With younger students I didn't feel that this lesson would work because their skills are not as advanced and they are not able to think quite as broadly. Additionally, I don't see every day and instead just once per week. I decided to select a Spanish tradition that was less rooted in religion but still celebrated this time of year and went with El Tío Nadal or Caga Tío and El Cagatero from Catalunia, Spain.

If you are unfamiliar with the tradition, Tío Nadal is a log that children and families give legs and a face. Then, they cover it with a blanket and give it a hat to keep it warm and feed it everyday during the holidays with the hope that it will poop out turrón and/or presents for Christmas. To get these presents they hit the log with a stick and sing a song. It's strange and a little cooky and is sure to surprise your students.

It's almost time for the beautiful celebration of Día de los Muertos! This is my first year working in an elementary school during this holiday and I am excited to do a few activities and get the students interested. To begin, I asked my principals if I could set up a school wide altar at the entryway of the school and was told absolutely! They also asked that I send a letter out to parents telling them about the altar and inviting them to send a photo to add along with making sure they were ok with their kid participating in activities in my class. 

For the altar I used things that I have accumulated over the years from my high school days including a day of the dead table cloth (plastic/fabric backed from walmart), electric candles, a bowl of salt and water, fake orange and yellow flowers (I think they are daisies but they work) and printed out photos a few famous Hispanics along with some of my loved ones. I backed the photos with orange paper and made a makeshift stand using the same paper. To make it tiered I used a small table and a cardboard box. To decorate the wall behind it I created a mural activity and had students color the pieces. I also made an informational bulletin board print out to post around the edges of the mural.

I love how it turned out and it is up just in time for parent teacher conferences this week so parents can see it. If you want a copy of my bulletin board facts and parent letter you can get them for FREE linked below. The mural is available on my TPT store with the link below as well.​

In regards to what I am doing with students for the holiday, I created two different presentations including videos and images to introduce the holiday and what it means along with some basic vocabulary. One is for 3rd-5th and the other is for K-2. They are pretty similar but the older one has a section discussing how Mexicans view death in comparison to Americans which I thought might be a difficult thing to discuss with super littles. Both presentations end with a craftivity. 3-5 will make papel picado and K with make calavera masks. If you are interested in purchasing my lessons complete with presentation, lesson plan and printables you can find them on my TPT store using the link below. You can also find a few additional free activities for students related to Day of the Dead on my TPT including a digital drag and drop/bitmoji activity.

We're slowly but steadily making our way through our lessons with Alex the Alpaca in my K-3 level classes and the kids are loving it! They definitely look forward to their time with Alex and even though I only see them once a week I am noticing growth in their knowledge and understanding of the language.

Today the lesson focused on different types of weather and clothing items needed. It reviewed content from previous lessons covering seasons and months. Students were given new vocabulary using a presentation that included videos, gifs, songs, and discussion in the target language using Alex. We wrapped up the lesson with a listening activity where students were given a large Alex paper and various items of clothing for him to wear. Then, they listened to my description of the weather and the clothing items he needed and put the correct clothing items on top of him to "dress" him for the weather. 

The kids loved the activity and by the end had gained a pretty good ability to describe basic clothing and weather. They ended class with a worksheet that we did together where they drew the clothing items onto him based on the images/text in each box using the worksheet pictured below and pasted the correct words next to each scene.

You can purchase the entire unit focusing on climate at my TPT store using the link below!

Hello! I started this site to share all of the amazing things I am doing with my elementary Spanish classes. When I made the decision to transition from high school Spanish to elementary I was nervous but also excited. After teaching at the high school level for fifteen years I had begun to question my future in education. I, like many other educators during the pandemic, was feeling burnt out, unappreciated and often attacked for simply trying to do my job. After dealing with hateful parents, micromanaged work environment and students who would rather do anything than learn I began thinking about ways to move to a new career path. In the fall of 2020, smack dab in the middle of a terrible pandemic, my family and I moved across the country from Arkansas to Colorado. This move wasn't entirely about me but and was mostly due to my husband's job. However, I was more than ready for a change.

When we realized we were moving I began searching for a job. But, finding a teaching job in the middle of the school year is no easy task. I ended up only finding jobs for elementary schools. While this was a bit daunting seeing as I had never taught elementary, I needed a job. So, I applied for any that I was eligible for in the district that, after a lot of research, I decided was the best option for me and my family. I ended up being offered three jobs and had my choice of them! The school I chose to work for is a Spanish immersion school with students in K-5th grades. 

After always being a department of one with no one to collaborate or share ideas with at my school I moved into a building full of Spanish speakers with a focus on incorporating culture and language in all levels! It was exciting but, I didn't have any idea how to teach elementary age kids! I began searching for ideas, curriculum maps, and lessons. Anything that could guide me to ways to create lessons for younger students and, unfortunately, I had a hard time finding anything that fit my aesthetic and goals. Most things were either too advanced, too simple or too cutesy for the students I would be teaching. Good luck trying to get a 3rd grader excited about nursery rhyme focused lessons!

I spent my first semester cobbling together lessons that worked and forming a better understanding of what my students needed and how to teach them. I had never thought about how difficult it would be to teach 5 year old's who can't read! During that time I worked on the "good" lessons that I would be using in the next school year. 

A Passport to Spanish & Spanish for Littles are both classroom tested and have proven successful with my students. They were designed to engage beginning language learners who know nothing as well as students who are more advanced in their language skills. This is because even though the school I work at is an immersion school, it is tiered by grade. So, each grade has a non-Spanish class, a 25% of the time Spanish class and a 50% of the time Spanish class. This means I have a wide variety of student needs and knowledge. I chose lesson topics that include some basics in combination with other content to ensure that no one is lost or bored.

In this blog I will share cool things I am doing and give readers insight into how my lessons work with actual students in the classroom. I hope you will join me on this journey and look forward to any and all questions and comments that may arise.