Anyone else stressing about this fall?! I know it is the last thing many of us want to think about. At the same time, I know there are teachers who are working right now to turn in lesson plans for a possible entire first quarter online. The biggest stressor of them all: How do I start Spanish 1 or middle school Spanish online?!
In emails from local language teacher friends, social media and DMs the stress over what to do in those first few weeks with baby novice Spanish students is frightening. On my daily walks with my boys I brainstormed and have been hard at work at a project that I am really proud of. I created a completely digital sister unit to my most popular resource ever, the high frequency verb unit for week 1 of Spanish class, and here she is:
This is my own personal plan to start Spanish 1, as well as 7th grade exploratory. If completely online, it would be about 7 weeks of daily plans (15-30 minutes, which is all we have been allowed to do. If you can or want to assign more at a time it would go faster). I plan to add a week or two of Sr. Wooly unit “No lo tengo” to round out a whole first quarter plan.
- M – Intro Vocab & Quizlet Practice (maybe add own teacher video?)
- T – Speaking w/ Special Person ?s on Flipgrid or on zoom/meet
- W – Listening – comprehensible reading of song intro, listen to song with activity & optional Lyricstraining
- Th – Reading w/ 3 authentic jokes
- F – Write & Review
- Repeat x7 verbs + (Fun story ½ way)
Knowing that there is talk of A/B classes or week on/week off, I included variations of the plans for those possibilities as well, which would each be about 4 weeks. They shift the heavy input of vocab intro & special person interviews to the precious possible in person time, and the listening, reading and vocab practice to individual practice. It is an editable slideshow, so you can move everything to make it work for every unique situation.
If school starts in person (which is looking likely in Iowa) I will start the high frequency verb unit like I normally do in person, but will have these 7 weeks of digital emergency sub plans, for if heaven forbid my kids or I get sick, or there is an outbreak at school and then we close for 2 weeks. Then I can just start This new unit at the verb we left off with and keep moving forward. *Edit: Now I think I will be on a block schedule & will be adding my block schedule variation to the resource.
If you want to be prepared for both digital and in person learning and do not already have some of my high frequency resources, you will want the brand new Blended Learning High Frequency Verbs Bundle. It includes the high frequency verb unit, the new distance learning unit, plus in person activity ideas of Find Someone Who and Question Cards, all recycling the same material. It will help you be prepared with some paper activities if you get a chance to see students in person, as well as digital while learning remotely.
Theresa Jensen has created story videos that go perfect with the distance learning unit! There is now a storytelling video for each week of the plans. Check them out here & subscribe to her channel!
New! Free Sample
If you want to use a similar unit with upper level in past tense, I have a brand new similar unit in the imperfect! It is set up in the same way as the present tense unit, except for reading practice, instead of three jokes for each verb, there is one joke and one “guess the classic story,” where students read a small except of a story and guess and summarize the story. Get the imperfect unit here!
- NEW Bundle of Present, Imperfect & Preterite Distance Units
- NEW Preterite Distance Learning Unit
- NEW Preterite Blended Bundle (for both online & in person)
- Imperfect Distance Learning Unit
- Imperfect Blended Bundle
- The present distance learning high frequency unit
- Blended Present High Frequency Verbs Bundle
Make sure to also read How to use High Frequency Verb Units for more information
originally posted 5.15.20 – updated 7.20.20
Allison, great stuff! I relief to many teachers out there. Thank you!
Thank you John that means so much! You should send me an email 🙂
Gracias! I have the original version and will definitely snag this as well if that's what the fall is looking like. Thank you so much for your hard work!
I am glad to help you out!
I love this! Wonderful job! I really admire all of your work. Keep it up. 🙂
Thank you for your kind words!
Allison, Thank you for offering a peek of your unit with the free sample on TpT. I've downloaded it, and it looks very user friendly! Such a big help in a time of need!
I am so glad you like it!
This is awesome! I just have a couple of questions. Could these be used for 5th and 6th grade? I am in Texas and am only allowed 30 min max synchronous time and the rest of the week (60 minutes total) has to be asynchronous. Could I modify this for that?
Everything is editable, so I am sure you could make it work for 5th & 6th grade. I would just preview the song videos and jokes to make sure they fit the culture of your middle school. There is also one question about do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend that you could remove if you did not think it fit your students.