Teaching in Spanglish

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

First First Grade Field Trip = Success!

Went on my first First Grade field trip today to our City's Aquarium and I was completely TERRIFIED! I'm talking NIGHTMARES, people! LOL. I dreamed that one of my bad listeners went to pet a shark and it gobbled him right up! LOL. Thank God it was just a dream; I was stressing! Don't get me wrong, I've been on field trips in previous years, but NEVER with firsties! They sure give you a run for your money! Holy Guacamole!!! I'm exhausted, but relieved that ZERO students were lost (or eaten by sharks! Lol.) in the process! Woot woot!! Because we had such a successful field trip, I'm in charge of planning the next field trip and would love suggestions as to where to take a group of first graders that is both fun and educational at the same time. Chicago has a bunch of amazing museums and a wonderful planetarium, but these places are always SOOOO PACKED! Would love to take them somewhere low key.
Please Leave a comment with your wonderful ideas!

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Giveaway!!!

I have got to get better at this whole blog thing! I don't want to be a once a month blogger, but that's what I've become.
Note to self: Get yourself together!!! Lol.
Anywho, as I was doing my usual Thursday "Blog Stalking", I came across an amazing giveaway! A Cupcake fore the teacher is giving away a $10 TARGET GIFT CARD! Woot! Woot! I LOVE Target, but we seem to have a love/hate relationship. I go in there for toilet paper and come out having spent over $100 bucks... happens all the time! Does this happen to you too? I wish i had some sort of cure for this, but sadly, I don't. =(
I'm sure $10 would help you... so go check out her blog at:
A Cupcake for the Teacher

Good luck, Everyone!

Friday, November 11, 2011

Veteran's Day!

So grateful to live in a Country with such honorable men and women that serve and protect us! We are truly blessed!
In honor of Veteran's Day, I created a worksheet for my kiddo's which they filled out only AFTER reading a Veteran's Day book. I have to admit, I had to read the book 3 TIMES, so it was definitely a bit of a challenge for them! I guess I could have made it a little easier by making it a cut and paste activity for this time of year being that they are still in the beginning stages of writing, but my expectations are HIGH! We're reaching for the stars, BABY! =)
Click on the title of the link to download.

Una Celebracion Especial

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Saturday, October 22, 2011

My First Upload!!! =)

I can't believe how much I have underestimated my little ones this year. I taught 3rd grade bilingual before and some of the assessments I've used in my classroom have been a little over their heads; this year as a 1st grade bilingual teacher I thought, "there is no way these kids will be able to use an Exit Slip at they end of every day".... well, guess what!? They CAN!!!!! Can you hear the Angels sing?! OMG!!! I'm excited!
So here's a brief explanation of what we do.
1) At the end of every day, I give my students the sheet listed below titled, "Que Aprendiste Hoy?" which basically means, "what did you learn today?"
2) On it, they write 1 thing they learned throughout the day (it could be ANYTHING!).
3) Then, we hole punch it and put it in our "Mi Aprendizaje Folder".
So simple, right?! The folder will be a great way for them to see how many things are in their schema by the end of the year and how much their writing has changed throughout our time together.
By January, I will increase it to two things, and by April, 3 things. The sheet itself isn't as amazing as some of the work I've seen on other teacher blog sites, BUT it is one of those things that WORKS. Hope it becomes as useful to you as it has for me.


Que Aprendiste Hoy?


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Thursday, October 6, 2011

OMG!

OK, so here I am at home, on my two week intersession (Yes, ladies and gents, I get two weeks "off" from my teaching duties! Heck yeah!), deciding what to write on my FIRST POST EVER.... Should I be witty? Charming? A sweetheart like Sammi (I know you guys watch Jersey Shore; don't pretend you don't)? I guess I'll be all of the above... my regular self. Lol.
Being that this is my first post ever, I'll just give you a brief description about what I'm all about. I'm a Spanglish (my word for bilingual) teacher in Chicago. After teaching 3rd grade Bilingual for 3 years, I decided to take a PLUNGE into 1st grade bilingual (I don't know what I was thinking!). I never realized how much I underestimated the primary grades until I got my own set of NEEDY munchkins. =) Kudos to all the teachers out there that have done this year after year... I now bow to you as though you were Egyptian Queens because HOLY MOLY, teaching first grade is TOUGH! Thank God for a year round calendar because there's NO WAY, I would have kept my sanity much longer. Today is day 4 of my time off (not including Saturday and Sunday) and after stalking a few teaching blogs (I confess: I'm a blog stalker! Eeek!) I feel a bit refreshed and ready to go back to work (OK, I just lied, I don't think I'll be ready to go back until I officially have to, but if I had to go back today, I think I'd be OK for a few DAYS [does that make me a terrible teacher?]).
 Please join me on my wonderful journey of self, blog, and teaching discoveries...
Oh, and please forgive my typos and grammatical errors; I write what I'm thinking exactly the way I'm thinking it and because of that I mess up... A LOT! =)