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Sunday, August 12, 2012

A little prayer for you!

Found this little prayer on another blog on TBA, and loved it!  I'm giving it to my kinder team and wanted to post it here for everyone to see.  May this year be the best yet!  It is a mighty job we do and we need all the help we can get!  Bless you all...


Wednesday, July 18, 2012

I just love the inspiration and beginnings each new school year brings!  Our school is adopting a program called No Excuses U...turnaround schools.  This program is about teaching ALL kids to be ready for college if they choose to go!  This is really important when you work in a title 1 school, as so many kids would never imagine this could be a part of their future.  Today, at our training we were talking about how we make excuses for kids from underpriveledged circumstances, under the misconception that we are being compassionate.  Make no mistakes, we are compassionate, but with "making excuses" we lower our expectations of these children.  We cannot do that!  We must believe in them and help them overcome obstacles so that they can realize their dreams!  Many of which they have dared not dream yet!  We must believe in them, so that they will someday...believe in themselves! We must push and teach and do what some think is the IMPOSSIBLE, though it is not.  Below are links to No Excuses U and the video we watched today that brought me to tears...if these two young men can overcome their impossible odds, and help each other...who are we to say that anyone cannot??

No Excuses U




Saturday, June 30, 2012

I can't believe it's been so long since I last posted!  Life is crazy busy, the end of our year had some challenges and I was pretty stressed!  Thankful for my returning team members and the three new girls who are brave enough to head down this Dual Language path with us next year!  We are going to ROCK!
I am spending my Summer writing IPG's (instructional planning guides) for our district and that is keeping quite busy as well.  While doing this, I am creating more items for my TPT store.
Pictionaries are a new thing I am working on!  Pictionaries are literally "picture dictionaries" that I create for the units we teach.  Being a dual language teacher, and a monolingual teacher for many years, I was always trying to find new ways to engage my children more in writing.  Some children take risks easily, while others worry that their writing isn't like ours, and they seem paralyzed to get going.  Through the use of the pictionaries I created this past year, I noticed that both my  native English and native Spanish students were more engaged and writing more, creating stories, and rhymes with less stress!  This gave them the vocabulary they needed and how to spell the words that were central to their writing.  I believe it is a good support tool for emergent writers, just like learning sight vocabulary is good for emergent readers.
I have posted My Farm Pictionary, and Spooky Fun Pictionary on my TPT store!  Check them out...there will be many more to come!

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Wow!  I am so blown away by all of the sweet awards my little blog has gotten recently!  I am just one teacher sharing the biggest part of my life...a love for kids, a passion for teaching, and a new addiction to dual language teaching!  Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Krista atThe Second Grade Superkids for giving me this sweet award!  I am now your newest follower too!
Many blessings!

Many Heartfelt Thanks!

Many thanks to Kimberlee at twofulbrighthugs and teachertimesavers for giving me this award!  It means a lot to me to know that someone out there is liking what I love...sharing ideas and communicating with my fellow teachers!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  Oh and I love your blogs too!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Individual Counting Ropes! Easy and Fun!


I came up with an idea to combine building both fine motor and counting skills in a fun and engaging way!  I made these individual counting ropes using colorful shoe strings and black and white plastic beads.  Just slide 10 of each color bead on a shoe string and tie off the ends.  Voila!  Your kids will love using the pinching motion (so critical for developing the pencil grasp) to slide the beads from one end to the other to practice counting to 20, use more than one to get to higher numbers, make simple number combinations for developing addition skills, and more!  Enjoy!

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Letters Alive!!!!

Ok, I've had this technology since last Spring, and as life is with new technology, there a gliches and endless hoops you have to jump through.  Well, today we finally got it up and running, and it is AMAZING!!!!!  If you  haven't had a chance to see it, you must view the video below!  Augmented Reality ROCKS!  And my kids were totally engaged!  This is fantastic!



Letters alive 2.0: Augmented Reality 3D Reading Program

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Happy New Year!  I can't even believe I have been so busy that I haven't blogged since Thanksgiving!!!  I went to the dual language conference in Albuquerque, NM...La Cosecha!  It was awesome, what better time can one have than hanging out with fellow teachers, learning about how to better reach our kids and help them acquire a second language????  Then we came home and when 90 mph into Christmas and all the activities that come with it...time flies when you're having fun with 5 year olds!!!  I am working on some things to post, ideas, etc...that are floating around in my crazy brain.
Here's a link if you have iPads in your classroom to another blog that has some great ideas for apps that use Blooms Taxonomy (love this), digital story telling (even kinders love this), etc.  Great for older kids as well!

Langwitches...the Magic of Learning

Check them out!