Day 1: Goal Reflection & El Alfabeto

I hope everyone had a wonderful and rejuvenating 3 day weekend, I know I did! This month I am going to try and participate in the te@ch thought 30 day blogging challenge. (Follow along by searching #reflectiveteacher on Twitter.) Day 1’s blogging topic is “Write down your goals for the school year.” Well I guess I was telepathically ahead since I already posted my goals for the school year in a blog post.

Click HERE for My Blog Post on My Goals for the School Year

Since this challenge is all about reflecting here is the progress I have made on my goals so far in the first 7 days of school:NO D/F STUDENTS

– So far, I have done my best to hound students, and refuse to give them 0’s for missing work. They are required to do everything and communication with them and their parents is key.

SEND 5 POSITIVE PARENT EMAILS PER WEEK

– I contacted all parents via email by sending the first edition of my newsletter. I sent 2 positive emails, and this reminds me I need to send the rest for last week. It really does make me feel so great to say positive things about my students. ATTEND 2 CONFERENCES

– I was notified that my proposal was accepted and I will not just be attending, but PRESENTING at the IWLA conference in October in Des Moines, Iowa about utilizing music and dance in the classroom. I would love to see you there! SUCCESSFULLY IMPLEMENT NEW NOVELS & EL INTERNADO

– The first week of Brandon Brown Quiere un Perro in Spanish 2 was a success and you can see my reflection and plans in this post.

– Friday was our first day watching El Internado in Spanish 3 & 4 and the kids LOVED it. We only got through 10 minutes of the show in 45 minutes, but they GOT IT and were ENGAGED. I plan to blog on that soon!

I still need to work on the goals below 🙂

INCORPORATE SERVICE LEARNING
SPANISH SPEAKING GUESTS CONNECT WITH SPANISH SPEAKERS AROUND THE WORLD

El Alfabeto

Since the point of a blog is NEW material I will also share one of the highlights of my week. I know that many people say teaching the Spanish Alphabet is boring and unneeded in Spanish I, but from my experience, they always love learning it, and it is a great way to introduce the differences/similarities, as well as the vowel pronunciation. Well, this week we spent a day on the alphabet including learning this song. It is military cadence style with call and response, and my class was REALLY into it.

We stood up to march in place to the song while singing and I joking told them they could march around the room if they wanted. All of a sudden my entire class was proudly marching in a giant circle around my room loudly and proudly chanting the Spanish alphabet. While our class parade circled the room my principal peeked his head in with a huge grin and said “I love how I always see learning going on in this room.”

Happy planning!

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Allison Wienhold

Allison Wienhold of Mis Clases Locas has a decade of experience as a #deptof1 secondary Spanish teacher in Iowa. She enjoys creating curricula using novels, films, and music. Allison provides professional development to World Language teachers, including being the keynote speaker at MALT and Comprehensible Iowa, and workshop presenter at dozens of state & regional organizations, school districts, AEAs, and virtual conferences.