Going with the flow

I think that the past two weeks have seen me hit some kind of magic flow. I wish I knew why everything is working so well, but for now, let me just celebrate.

I started teaching Brandon Brown Quiere Un Perro with my smallest, most challenging class. I had no idea what to expect from them in terms of comprehension or interest. I didn't really know what kind of activities would work for me and them, what the pace would be, and how much to plan that was other than reading. I still have no idea about pacing or activities, but I am finding myself creating compelling input easily and naturally, and the students are responding in truly incredible ways.
Here's what I wrote in my little reflection that I'm keeping about teaching it.

I am clearly planning too much- tareas de la casa seems like the past already.

There is no way we'll get to the ciclovias movie...even if I desperately want to show it and talk about my friend Clarence the moviemaker.

But, I feel like they are getting SO much better at spontaneous conversations, and I'm getting better at PQA. Today, I asked them about bikes in their house, then skis, and made a quick graph on the board. We compared and discussed, then I showed them the bicicletas slideshow very quicky. We also had a hilarious discussion about pet collars, and one girl swore that her hamster had a collar while her friend disagreed. There was SO much language. I love teaching this novel.

 I love that I have the headspace to sit and write a quick paragraph about my lessons!  Of course, those 50 narrative progress reports are not being written, so there's a trade-off.

Also, I hit the local Goodwill this weekend and scored on stuffed animals, mostly cognates.  I have enough for every kid to have one.  So far, one class got to snuggle with them while we talked about ghosts and monsters and I did a Movietalk about El Cucuy (from a great unit from Martina Bex).  Another class had to explain why their chosen animal would not make a good pet.  And finally, one class got to do a spoken retell to their chosen stuffie today.  Just because it's fun!

S