
#1 Best Movie Talk for October!🎃
Somehow it’s October! I feel like the routines are just starting to feel tighter and things are picking up momentum. The first summative assessment of the year is coming up soon. But after that, what? Halloween, that’s what! Candy, costumes and chaos. Do I lose their attention and watch the routine crack and fall away, or lose my mind trying to hang on to those things? Nope - neither! Why, you ask?Because I use the #1 Best Movie Talk for October to keep them engaged and acquiring.


How to Engage Students on Day of the Dead: Make Barriletes Gigantes
Since I started teaching Spanish, the focus each October was the Día de los Muertos celebrations and traditions from Mexico, but often the beautiful variations in traditions from other countries take a back seat. I wanted to draw light and attention to other cultural events, and chose to begin with Guatemala’s Barriletes Gigantes. I found an incredible authentic resource to help me teach my 8th graders to create their own Barriletes Gigantes, which we then hung up in the classroom.

Sick? These Sub-Plans Will Save your Sanity
It’s 3 am and I can’t sleep. My throat burns, my head throbs and in 4 hours I’ll be trying to corral 25 eighth-graders with a box of Kleenex in one hand and a bottle of Advil in the other. Panic overwhelms me as I realize I have no sub plans ready! Do I call out? What if I’m still sick tomorrow?
BUT THEY SHOULD REMEMBER THAT!
What happens when your students come back in the fall and say they don’t remember anything from last year? How do we handle that? Here’s a little encouragement to help you through those comments during back-to-school review days.

August…The Sunday Night of Summer?
How I cope with the Sunday-night-ish feeling of August…my go-to tools to calm the anxiety

Herding Cats? Use a Weekly Packet!
How using a daily graphic organizer keeps me on track to give compelling input - I couldn’t start the year without this tool!
Categories
- Assessment 3
- Chat Mats 1
- Classroom Set-up 8
- Classroom management 2
- Community Building 2
- Comprehensible Input 31
- Culture 17
- Día de los Muertos 1
- Encouragement 1
- Games 19
- Grammar 1
- Holidays 4
- How to 5
- Lessons 4
- Movie Talks 1
- No Prep 2
- October Classroom Ideas 2
- Organization 1
- Planning 1
- Reading 20
- Resource Round Up 1
- Review 1
- Speaking 3
- Stories 1
- Sub Plans 6
- Technology 2
- Thanksgiving 1
- Vocabulary Activities 2
- behavior management 2
- classroom community building 4
- teacher sanity 2