More secret input! (post-story or reading activity)

Here is a secret input activity that I decided to do when I was exhausted and trying to teach on crutches.  Note to self: stop getting injured!!!  This, plus FVR and a post-reading review activity, took up a full hour and they didn't finish.  Hooray, Monday plan!  This secret input activity, with storyasking, was 2+ days.   It qualifies as Some Prep, in that you do have to take pictures, print them, and make a response sheet.

Secret input + being out of their chairs!

Day 1: First, I asked a story.  This story was one I created to teach some structures  for  Brandon Brown Quiere un Perro, and if you have the teacher's guide, it will soon be (or already is!) part of the online supplement.

It was one of those days where I finished the story mid-class, and had to come up with something to do for the rest of the hour.  You may be familiar with this!  Luckily, Martina Bex has lots of great suggestions for what to do in this post:  The story is done but class isn't over.

This is a mural.  

I had the kids grab mini white boards and markers, and introduced a mural to them.  (This step, for me, is really important because they tend to draw comics or more linear drawings, and I wanted something different for this activity.  We draw comics all the time.)  Murals are: non linear, with events happening in different places, all different sizes.


I retold the story from memory (which helps me remember for later when I type it up) while they drew.  I quickly took pictures of each mural.

SOME PREP:  The next day, I typed the story up and made copies for each kid.  Then I quickly imported the murals into google drive* and made a slideshow that could be printed.** I printed it in black and white.Finally, I created this response sheet: 

Click for a downloadable version!  

In class, after some FVR and reviewing the story as a class (this day, I did a volleyball translation, but  you could do any kind of oral reading activity with them or skip it and go straight to the secret input), I posted the murals around the room and gave kids a copy of the story.  They walked around the room, quickly sketching, and started finding the sentences and translating.

Some thoughts about this:  
It took a while for kids to do- longer than I was expecting.
Students were 100% engaged.
They can self differentiate- choosing the sentences that they feel like they can translate.
Some of them went around the room and did all the illustrations first (and then moved on to the next sections),  some did illustration-sentence, and some did illustration-sentence-translation, in that order.

Truthfully, I am playing around with using it as a reading assessment and assessing their translations, but I haven't decided.

STEPS for Murals/Read the Room
1) Find or create a text.
2) Explain what a mural is.
3) Read it out loud and have students draw the action as you read (or retell).
4) Photograph the murals.
5) Create a quick slideshow (or otherwise find a way to print them) and print the murals. (see below for Tech tips)
6) Give each student a copy of the text and the response sheet.
7) Hang the murals around the room.
8) Students look at the murals, quickly sketch one element, then find the sentence in the text. They transcribe the sentence, then translate it.


Technology Tips:  
*How to quickly import photos into GoogleDrive:  install the app on your phone or tablet.  Open the app and tap the + button.  Choose Use Camera, OR, if you have already taken the photos, choose upload.  They will go directly to your drive and are super easy to import into GoogleSlides.

**Change the page size in GoogleSlides.  Open a new Slides document.  Go to File>page set up> Custom.  Type 11 by 8.5.  Now your slides will print nicely.

The Highly Structured Class pays off! (Procedures and Routines)

Last year, I had a couple of tough classes.  Really, really tough classes.  They had great attitudes and were excited about learning, but never, ever stopped talking.  In English.  Running commentary about EVERYTHING that happened.  Constantly.

It was enough to make me groan every time I saw them on my schedule. (Which was every day.)  I tried Plan B.  I tried every trick in my book.  They still made me crazy.

But...(you knew there would be a but, right?) they learned.

Despite all the time I spent away from providing comprehensible input (trying to create community, practicing routines and procedures, redirecting behavior, having class conversations about goals, and loosing my temper) they learned.  They learned a lot.  They retained a lot.

When they came back this year, they blew me away. 

They remembered all the Spanish.  Well, maybe not all.  Probably not the stuff we did in May.  But most of them have a strong hold on everything else.

I have to ask myself why.  Why did that work for them?  The only thing I can fall back on is my greatest strength as a teacher: procedures and routines. (Hey- you have a greatest strength too.  What is yours? It's good to ask yourself.)

 These together form the structure of my class and make it a highly predictable class with a lot of tolerance for chaos (e.g. kids barking, hooting, and stuffed animals flying through the air.)

WHAT ARE MY PROCEDURES AND ROUTINES (P&Rs)?

It doesn't matter.  It truly doesn't matter what mine are.  I am happy to share them (below), but it doesn't matter.  What matters is knowing what they are, and how you teach and practice them.

I came up with my P&Rs by asking myself the following questions:
1) How do I want students to enter and leave class? (procedures)
2) What are the routine tasks that we do most days (sharpening pencils, passing out papers) that can be made faster or more efficient? (procedures)
3) What are things that kids do that make me absolutely crazy that I can train them not to do before they do them? (procedures)
4) How can I make my classroom feel more like a place where we are family, with in-jokes, predictability, and closeness? (routines)

Bryce Hedstrom defines a procedure as:

"Procedures are ways of doing routine activities that help the classroom to run more smoothly so that we can focus on learning. Procedures are not exactly rules, but repeated disregard of procedures will affect learning in the classroom.  There are several specific ways we do things in this class and you will learn them during the first weeks of school."

An aesthetically pleasing notebook arrangement makes me think of procedures.

Some of the resources that helped me develop this list (and my overall approach) include:
Bryce Hedstrom's classroom management philosophy and practice (including passwords and jobs), Alina Filipescu's philosophy of "Discard the Discipline Plan" and Angela Watson's amazingly useful book "The Cornerstone for Teachers", which I suggest that every teacher read.  

A SAMPLE OF MY PROCEDURES
Entering and leaving:

• Kids line up outside, receive their seating card for the day, give me the password, and enter.
• They get their materials for the day (usually scrap paper, glue, and scissors) and get started on the starter.
• When I ring my chime three times, they drop their pencil to indicate that they are focused on me,  and I greet them.
• At the end of class, someone tells me it is time to clean up. (Student job)   
• The kids quickly clean up the entire room and put away their materials.   
• One person picks up the seating cards and puts them away.  (Student Job) 
• A student inspector  (student job) tells me that they are ready: "Listos" and I reply in TL: Thank you for learning.  They reply "Thank you for teaching us" (in TL, of course) and I say good bye.

Papers: I give papers to the two kids sitting in the middle and they pass them outwards.  Kids sitting on the end of the horseshoe put the papers back on the paper table. (rotating job)

Absent kids: I wrote about that job and procedure here. (student job)

Moving chairs from one configuration to another: I model what I want, we practice, they do it.  We practice often, I narrate positives, and if need be, we practice over and over.

Whiteboards: If students are writing on whiteboards, I ask that they do not "show" their work to me until I make a specific sound with my rattle.  This way, I have time to look at individual work, make suggestions or give praise, and see who needs to work on what.  Everyone has think time.  Plus, they know that being the first one done doesn't get rewarded.

Late work: Students have somewhat relaxed deadlines and rolling deadlines.  If they miss something, they put a Missing/Late work slip on it so I know what I am doing with it.  If one kiddo has a lot of those slips, it is a good conversation to have during (or before) Parent Teacher conferences.

Here is a link to a document that I modified from I am sad to say that I can not give credit to the original as it is no longer available.  I am pretty sure I got it from Bryce, but not 100%.  If you know where the original document came from (ABCs), please let me know in the comments or by email!   Here is a link to the document I use in class. 

UPDATED 2023: 

Please note- in looking at the ABCs from a few years ago, my thinking has changed a lot on how I would use them. Now, I still think this is a really great exercise for me but I would not give it to students, and there are some things I would change.  

A SAMPLE of my ROUTINES 
To me, routines are different than procedures because they add fun and a little chaos into the class.  Most of these routines I learned from Alina.  Here are some of the ones I have adapted:

I was very impressed with this class! 

• ¿Quién?- when I say this question word, a student holds up a stuffed owl and says "woo whoo"
• Sneeze- when someone sneezes, a student says "uno-dos-tres" and the whole class says "salud"
• If a student impresses me, I say "Clase, estoy impresionada" and they respond (as if they can not believe that I could be impressed "¿Usted está impresionada?" and then I explain, in L1 or L2, why I am impressed (someone was a risk taker, someone was extra kind, etc.) and then I throw that person a stuffed animal to cuddle with.
• Pero...all kids hold up their index finger, one kid goes "dum dum dum..." in a slightly ominous way
• Perro- someone barks.
  
• Queso- any time someone who is not in class walks in my door, someone jumps up and sings/dances "¿Qué es esto?" and the whole class responds "Esto es queso" and then we pretend like nothing ever happened.  

Our director of admissions giggles EVERY TIME she walks in our room with visiting parents.  It's so awesome.

Differentiation in the TPRS/CI classroom

Definitions: 

Differentiation:  "Differentiation means tailoring instruction to meet individual needs. Whether teachers differentiate content, process, products, or the learning environment, the use of ongoing assessment and flexible grouping makes this a successful approach to instruction."

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/what-differentiated-instruction

I chose this definition, not because I love Reading Rockets, but because I have a lot of respect for the author of this article- Carol Ann Tomlinson- who has written a great deal about differentiation in the classroom. 

Barometer student (aka Pacesetter): the student in your classroom who is often the slowest processor and needs the most supports (visual, gestural, etc.) to fully comprehend everything.  They also need more think time and comprehension checks.  Note: TPRS/CI teachers use this term differently than behavior specialists.  

Every class, regardless of level, has a wide range of students.  That includes (but is not limited to): processing speed, previous exposure to L2, emotional status, gender, executive functioning, motor skills, basic needs being met (or not), attitude about learning, attitude about self, motivation, literacy skills, critical thinking skills, etc.  

photo taken from https://calicospanish.com

In one class, that may look like: native speaker, student who came from immersion school, student whose grandparent only speaks L2 (and lives with them), an extremely good test taker, student with strong oral skills and low reading ability, one with strong reading ability but slow processing speed, one with sensory integration issues, and a student diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum.  And that is only 6 of them.  In my already tracked "honors" class.  

My job is to teach all of them, right?  TPRS/CI is about creating equity in the foreign language classroom and helping each kid succeed.  Right?  (At least it is for me.)  

So, here are some strategies that I use to differentiate for all students.  However, most of these strategies are for faster processors and native speakers because your TPRS/CI skills are supporting your barometer students already.  

My goal is that my barometer student(s) comprehend everything and my other students stay engaged and are pushed. 

 I want to add that this is HARD.  It takes constant practice (on top of juggling all those other TPRS skills!).  This is work that I have been engaging in for years, with a lot of reading, workshops, thinking, trying, failing, trying again.  I am not an expert, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve.    

(I am going to assume that basic TPRS skills are being developed or are in place, because those are the skills that you need to reach your barometer student(s).  These skills include pause and point, going slow, staying in-bounds, translating low-frequency or new vocabulary, comprehension checks.)

Class Jobs that require output for fast processors

(I would like to credit the people whose ideas these are adapted from (or taken from) but I honestly don't remember the specifics.  Probably Bryce Hedstrom, Alina Filipescu, and Ben Slavic, but also probably others.) 

Faster processors during stories can be challenging. Give them a job that will challenge them and help you. 

Story Writer: This student writes the narrative in L2 as best they can.  Great for heritage learners as you can later drill down on the kind of input that they need based on what they write.  You can also use their narrative for when you sit down and write out the story- invaluable for when you have multiple classes all doing different stories!   You could also have a student do this in L1.

Quiz writer: This student writes 5-10 true/false questions in L2 (or L1) based on the story.  You can use this quiz later, at the end of class, to check for overall story comprehension.  

Hint:I print out the directions for each job and stick them at the front of two notebooks, used only for either story writing or quiz writing.  Here are the directions for quiz writer, and here are directions for story writer.  

Daily Records Keeper: This student keeps track of paperwork when a student is absent.  They also note the activities, homework if assigned, any low-frequency vocabulary, etc. that comes up.  I could not function without this job.  Requires no output in L2.  For more about this job, read this. 

Class jobs that require staying focused on the input

Question word sign holder:  They hold up the question word signs (one per kid) when you say them.  Alina Filipescu calls this her 3-D classroom as it moves the pausing and pointing that you do from a wall to the center of the student.  I usually only assign who and what.  This is also a great job for kids who benefit from having an active job that helps them stay focused.

Rejoinder sign holder: This is a great job for a fast processor because they demonstrate their understanding of the story based on when they hold up the sign.  However, I don't only give this job to fast processors.  It just depends on the kid.

What about jobs for the slower processors? Don't they get jobs too?

Yes.  Of course.  But this is a post about differentiating for fast processors and native speakers. 

Teacher Strategies for Differentiation

One place where Bloom's might be valuable!

Questioning: All students should be able to answer yes/no, either/or, and "what does ___ mean?/what did I just say?" questions.  Right?  Good.  But "who/what/where/when" questions are a little bit harder, even with question signs and supports.  You probably should be asking all kids those question word questions too, but they are more challenging. 

"How" and "Why" questions are the hardest, and a great way to ask more challenging questions of your faster processors and/or native speakers.  Yep, they do require output, but you know your kids.  It might even be junky (incorrect) output, but you can rephrase it, and it helps hold them accountable.

UPDATE: Here is Bryce Hedstrom's very in-depth take on differentiation with questioning.  I think he deserves the credit for my basic ideas!  

Partners and Groups:

This is tough.  In a TPRS/CI classroom, I rarely do partner and/or group work, unless the activity is completely input based.  And it is something that I am sure they can do on their own.  And it is completely scaffolded.  And...you get the idea.

However, here are some strategies that I have used successfully. 

1) Homogenous groupings with embedded readings.  Groups or pairs of faster processors start with harder versions of the embedded readings, and progress further.  Groups of slower processors start with the easiest versions of embedded readings, and progress at their own pace.  

2) Heterogenous groupings for input based group games.  (Whole class activities like Word Chunk, scrambled eggs, running dictation, Jeopardy, Unfair Game, etc. are different in that the teacher is still controlling the input.)   I don't love games in the classroom.  They take forever to make and require a lot of work to make them truly input based (or secret input based), and a lot of teacher management to justify their use in class. (In my opinion.) 

 However, if you have a good input based game, faster processors and/or fluent readers can help provide the input by reading out loud.  That is not to say that the others don't read.  I just don't use homogenous groupings when I want things (sentences, not paragraphs!)  to be read out loud.  

What do I mean by input based group games?  Here are examples:  

Chain Reaction

First, Second (I haven't played it but plan on it)

Go Fish with TEXT on the scenes (so students read the text and get the input!)

Memory- I made this one for the last chapter of Brandon Brown Quiere un Perro.  In each "deck", there is a question, an answer, and a visual of that answer.  (See images)

Using Profiency/Standards based grading- I can't even start to discuss why this is a good practice for differentiation. It is too big of a topic and I am not an expert. And this blog post is getting really long.

There are a lot of resources available on this topic; assessing knowledge and competency is, for me, the core of differentiation.  Carol Ann Tomlinson, Robert Marzano, and TPRS teachers/trainers such as Lance Piantaggini (MagisterP) and Scott Benedict (TeachforJune) have a lot of information.  Books such as Grade Smarter, not Harder, Fair is not Equal are good resources as well. Here is a good great  intro written by Scott Benedict over at TeachforJune.


There are many more differentiation strategies. These are just a few that I turn to daily to try to meet every student's needs.  I didn't even go into alternate assignments or novel-based independent studies.  For more on that, check out Martina's blog post on multi-level classes.

Updated: I just stumbled across this incredible post by Kristy Placido.  Read it!  You can thank me later!  

 Updated again:  I am presenting on Differentiation in the CI classroom at Comprehensible Online 2020.
Use code ELICIA for a $25 discount!

https://comprehensible.online/

Transitioning a department to TPRS/CI ...my first thoughts

So, at the end of last year, I saw a need.  I'm the kind of person who, for better or for worse, tries to solve problems.  One problem I saw was that our language department was not working as well as it could.  I knew that TPRS/CI was one solution that had the power to a) bring the overall level of the students up in the long run, b) make teachers happier, c) make our program better.

There were two Spanish positions opened and my administrators were on-board for interviewing TPRS-Friendly (or already trained) teachers, if possible. I presented a budget and plan, along with a letter to educate them about what TPRS/CI is and why it is in alignment with our school.   I budgeted for training 2 full time teachers and the purchase of K-5 curriculum to supplement our 6-8 curriculum that we already own.

 (Aside: our school is increasing its focus on project based learning, student centered classrooms, integrated projects, and other initiatives.  This is a whole other post, however, making TPRS seem like a 21st century pedagogy (student centered, highly personalized, and not your parent's grammar class) was a really easy sell.)

 We ended up having a rough time filling one of the positions (hired in late July or August) and, due to enrollment, hiring two more part-time teachers.  (Yay! Enrollment!)   So, with four new hires, it is now my task to help them along: using the curriculum, understanding TPRS, etc.  And wow, this is a tougher job than I thought!

First, we started the year with no training of 3 of the four new teachers.  (The other middle school teacher attended NTPRS16 and completed the beginner track- it was awesome to find an open minded colleague who was ready to learn!) I gave a 30 minute "What is TPRS" explanation and showed them the curriculum.  And that's all they got, until last week.  We brought Von Ray and TPRS Publishing in for a one-day workshop in-house for all the language teachers (and a couple of other local teachers).

Now, experienced TPRS teachers know that a one-day training is barely dipping in your toes.  It's barely long enough to develop a common vocabulary, and not nearly long enough to start to shift a traditional teacher's mindset to a more CI approach.  But, it's a start.

So, for all those who are trying to do the same thing, here is my letter/proposal to my admin team.  Feel free to share and distribute.


And, as this journey continues and I keep learning (because I keep saying to myself and others: 3-5 year process), I will keep reflecting.

More sub plans: Brilliant No Prep Sub Plan

Brilliant No Prep Sub Plan
This amazing sub plan is from Scott Benedict.    If you haven't yet explored Teach for June, I highly recommend that you do so.  His workshop on grading freewrites this year at NTPRS was a revelation for me.

This single  page and a master class list is all I am going to leave in my emergency plans this year.
He has graciously given me permission to repost, so here is the Brilliant No Prep Sub Plan (my title).

Sub plans...ugh.

Sub plans really challenge me.  I mean...they REALLY challenge me.  I was a sub for 3 years and suffered many, many poor plans, challenging classrooms, and humiliating days.  So I am super picky about sub plans, and you know what?  It NEVER works out.

Sub plans in the foreign language classroom are even more challenging.    On a recent SOMOS Curriculum Collaboration facebook group post (wow, what a title!), someone was wondering about sub plans, and it got me thinking.

Read and Illustrate 
A plan that I really, really love (but only works when you have a few familiar stories under your belt- so better for the end of the year) is the "read and illustrate" plan.  I wish I knew how I came up with it or who to credit.
1) Copy each typed story and post on the walls.  For multiple levels, I print the stories in different colors so students know to only read their class color.
2) Students "read the room" and fill out a short sheet with space for an illustration and caption for 4 (or 6) of their favorite stories.

3)  Then, they get into groups and illustrate the stories on 4" x 4" computer paper.  
When I return, I can either make books using this storybook template  or just select the best pictures and glue them and the original story on 11 x 17 paper, folded in half, and add them to our library.

Here are the directions I leave for the sub:  Sub Plan: Read and illustrate the room 
Here is a I leave for the sub to project for the students: Example instructions for Read and Illustrate the room
Finally, here is the sheet I have them fill out when they read the room: Student Response Sheet: Read the Room

The evolution of an assessment

Last year, my school sent me to a 2 day workshop on differentiation. It was a great workshop and I came back all fired up with ideas to try to apply in my class. One big take-away for me was the idea that I don't have to have each unit differentiated perfectly right now. In fact, the trainer suggested picking one unit and focusing on one activity or assessment to re-create, and test drive it. This dovetails nicely with Angela Watson's suggestions for planning units (scroll to number 5) without losing your mind and spending too much time planning.

One idea that I really wanted to try with a unit was a RAFT, a type of writing prompt that lets students choose their perspective or topic, and directs them on what to write. So I wrote a RAFT for a unit that I felt that my students would enjoy. The idea was that they would pick the perspective of a parent of a participant, an item of clothing, or participant in one of the human tower building teams in Tarragon, Spain.  (This is the Castellers unit from Martina Bex. It's a great unit.)  I spent a lot of time on the assessment rubric, ran it by the trainer of the workshop for a second pair of eyes, and taught it.

Big flop.

The learning that was demonstrated was...well, it showed me that even if it was fun, it wasn't a very good activity in terms of comprehensible input. For example, it's an output activity. It isn't a novice activity either. I taught it 3 times, refining it, trying to make it work if only because I put SO much time into it. It didn't really work. The students did love it and did some creative things with it, but...it wasn't a good activity for the levels I teach.

It the whole process made me think about output, writing, and assessment in a whole different way. I got really exited about assessment and spent a lot of time thinking about what I was really trying to assess, and in that way, it was a great activity for me. I might even try to use it with my highest level group...at the end of the year.

So this time around, I decided to take the main idea- writing from different perspectives using target vocabulary, and change it up.

I printed and found pictures to represent the different perspectives, and wrote up prompts. I posted the prompts around the room and gave each kid 5 sticky notes. They had to write one or two sentences on that sticky note and stick it up, gallery walk style.

I then led a discussion, reading their answers out loud with extreme drama and student actors, reframing their language to be correct. (I want to point out here that a year ago I would have read the previous sentence and not been able to understand it nor actually do it. So I am making some of my own progress.)

Finally, they wrote their student numbers on each sticky so I had them collect their pile at the end. Bam- super easy formative assessment. It could have been a summative, but based on the language that I saw, they have not yet internalized the target structures, so now I can give them some feedback and use their errors to hopefully inform my teaching. Since I already had a rubric that was specific (from the abandoned RAFT) to the language, it is easy to adapt it to give them specific feedback.

So, for your enjoyment, here are the prompts and rubric.  For pictures, I just used creative commons images from Google Images.  (I used search terms such as "enxaneta, castellers, tourists, scarf, and parents")

Click for downloads.
Rubric
Writing prompts
Directions in English

Letting them do the work and dealing with absent kids- updated

Updated 8/25/17: I added the paperwork that I actually use!

Update 7-12-17: I have heavily modified what I do for absent students.  While the overall system is the same, the actual activities I give my students are based on a series of co-created activities based on the SOMOS curriculum that a group of dedicated teachers (including myself) created. See more about that below. 

I teach 4 levels of Spanish and I also co-teach a service learning elective class. Keeping track of materials, absent kids, assignments...sometimes it's hard! Especially at the end of the day, when I am trying to find that one piece of paper that is tiny and probably buried under 100 other identical tiny pieces of paper.

One big challenge that I decided the kids could help me with is keeping track of what we do each day on a written form, and collect any assignments or notebook items for absent kids. Since kids are expected to come see me during office hours, (at the end of the day, before I get a chance to clean up and re-organize), this simple document has been a lifesaver.

I decided that students who are absent have 3 tasks:
1) Come see me during office hours and check what they missed and get any work that they need to make up.
2) Check the class web page for anything I might have posted.
3) Pick one (yes, just one) item from the Absent Student Make Up list that was recently shared to the TPRS Listserv.  Thanks to Ben Lev for generously allowing me to share this document! 
3) Pick one activity that the curriculum collaboration group created.  (These documents can be found in the Collab Drive, accessible for members of the [free] Somos Collaboration Group on Facebook.)

For tracking daily activities, I created a form called Absent Student Tracking (super original, I know).
Two kids get to trade off the work during class to keep daily notes in a binder, and when someone comes in to make up their absence, all I have to do is open the binder and the notes and handouts are there.

Each class has a section with a folder in the binder, and each section is color coded as well.  So far, it has worked incredibly well and the kids have really appreciated both the chance to have the note-taker job as well as my improved efficiency and organization.  Win-win.

Enjoy and modify. (Don't forget to attribute! See the fair use notice on the lower right hand side of my blog.)

Absent student tracking: a form for students to fill out during class


Click for an editable document.



Old Option:

Absent Student Make-up Work- 33 options
(Modified from Ben Lev's original document)
Click here for an editable word version.  

The days before a holiday...

When I first started teaching I totally ignored the holidays.  Part of that is because of my personal beliefs: I don't celebrate Christmas and I think it's fundamentally a Christian celebration, and in a public school, I don't think it has a place.  I feel deeply sensitive to students of other religious backgrounds who are forced to sing about Jesus. I certainly don't begrudge anyone's beliefs or spirituality, I just don't want to feel forced to celebrate it, nor do I want to force it on others.  I don't mind taking a stand.  I feel the same way about most holidays, but for different reasons.   I also completely ignored the fact that the kids are wound up and unfocused.  I tried to just go on with class.

Guess what? It didn't work.  At all.  I got a lot of negativity from kids, from families, and the work the kids produced was a waste.

Luckily, I started getting smarter.  My first year teaching elementary school, I had a read-in the last day before break, where the kids brought sleeping bags, pillows, and stuffed animals, and we read.  ALL DAY.  Parents donated and served tea and healthy snacks, and it was truly one of the greatest days of my teaching career.  I think it worked because a) It was in line with my values as a teacher, b) Who doesn't love to read with tea and stuffed animals?  c) Because it acknowledged the holiday without impinging on anyone else's values.

As a middle school teacher in a school that is culturally and ethically Jewish, Christmas is not an issue.  It's great.  However, there is still the issue of kids being wound up and it not being a great time to do assessments or present new information.  I'm trying this year to be more responsive and aware, so in my planning I decided to do some activities that are still CI but maybe not aligned exactly with what I'm doing in each class.  One lesson worked out particularly well because I had a sub and the kids could work on the activity without any language support from me.

Activity 1- ¡Yo Soy Original!
Novice learners- This is a follow up for ¿Qué te gusta? mini-unit from Martina Bex:
(This activity has been adapted from this blog post and Pinterest.)

Students (as homework or with a sub) made drawings of their bodies out of things that they like.  They had to label them in Spanish.

In class, we reviewed me gusta(n) and a él/ella le gusta(n) using our notes from a prior lesson and my beloved stuffed animals.  Students first told me what they like and got to hold that stuffed animal, then in order to keep it for the rest of class they had to give me one correct sentence about someone else.  To scaffold, they got to use their notes, try several times, and there was LOTS of repetition.  AWESOME!

To follow up, I took their "original" drawings and put them on the document camera and discussed a few.  Students wrote sentences using the examples on the document camera that we did together, then I put up all the drawings around the room and students had to write 8 original sentences about their classmates, guessing whose paper belonged to whom.  I told them that if they couldn't guess, to just use él/ella (he/she).
Here are the directions for the activity:  (click on image to download)


 For an editable word version with rubrics (6 directions to a page), click here.


Here are the directions I gave the students for the writing/follow-up activity:

Directions: Write at least 8 GREAT sentences about your classmates and what they like. 

Example:                                                 A Juan le gusta esquiar.

A Julia le gustan gatos.

Challenge: (Do these in addition to the previous 8.)

Write about two people:                                 A Juan y a Julia les gusta esquiar. 

Write about you and someone else:               A Juan y a mí nos gustan gatos. 

Click here for an editable word doc.  

Activity 2- Strip bingo about Hanukah  
(I have only done this with my more advanced classes, but I'm going to try it with my 1Bs.)

I found this great free story on Teachers Pay Teachers.  I created a document to project and had kids choose six words to write down on their strips.  See here for an explanation of Strip Bingo from The Comprehensible Classroom.  The kids LOVE this game but the best part for my level 2s is that they try to trick me into saying the words before I get to them (so they can win).  This generates a ton of language and laughter, and sometimes they even succeed.  By the way, I used it with my 1Bs and it worked!
Click below for the projectable document and "strips".  (But really...use recycled paper from the paper cutter, please!)


Activity 3- Un sapo de otro pozo
This is another of Martina's great games.  I do not know how well it would work in a novice classroom, but my level 2s ate it up and had a blast.  Please follow this link for more information.