Teaching in Spanglish

Monday, October 14, 2013

Problema Del Dia

Even on a day off, teachers work. Doesn't it feel like our brains are on work mode 24 hours a day? I was making a purchase today and saw two children not being very friendly towards one another and I tried very hard to not to say something as I would in my own classroom, but I failed miserably and had to say something about their behavior. Needless to say it stopped, but I wouldn't be surprised if one day someone decides to punch me in the throat and tell me to mind my own business. Luckily today was not that day. =)

Teaching is a disease and there is no cure..... no one is safe around us. Lol.

Anywho, Do you guys solve a daily math problem? I started doing this a couple of years ago with my Firsties and it has been very successful in my classroom (in the past).
My first year teaching first grade I didn't do this until January (when I was sure that all but a handful could read and handle their own). Last year, I started at the very beginning of the year, but only because I had a high group of 1st and 2nd graders.... we solved a problem every day until school was out.
Below are some sample images of their P.O.D. notebooks.
Not bad for Firsties, right?


Although they have been successful before, this school year I tried to implement them a bit early, but it didn't go as well as it had in the past. Maybe the problems were a bit overwhelming for the little ones due to not all of them being able to read just yet. I'm going to try a different approach this week as I make an attempt to implement P.O.D. yet again. For this purpose I made a cute little pack of Halloween themed word problems to get the excitement going.... I mean, who doesn't love Halloween, right?


CLICK HERE for a sample of this packet.
For the full product CLICK HERE to go to my TPT Store!

If you do grab a copy PLEASE leave a comment below and tell me if you like it. If it's a hit, I can try to make a pack of word problems for November.

As usual, thank you for checking out my page! See you soon, Lovely Peeps! =)

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Calendar Math

Happy Saturday!

TGFIO- Thank God Friday Is OVER! Maybe one day I'll enjoy Fridays again... in the mean time... waaaaaah (in my Snookie voice). Lol.

I'll try to stick to the REAL reason for posting without going off on a tangent about some random thing. =)

Last year, when I taught my 1st/2nd split, I was looking for a way to incorporate calendar math in my daily routine without it being too babyish for my 2nd graders or too difficult for my 1st graders; I came across this Calendar Math/Number of the Day Sheet on TPT....
(If you want a copy of the above Calendar Sheet you can click HERE)

..... it was JUST what I needed.... EXCEPT..... I needed it in Spanish!

Random thought: Why is it so hard to find resources for such a large population?! Ugh!

The resource itself was perfect, so I did the next best thing I could... I translated it. =)


It's not IDENTICAL to the one above, but it is very similar.
Click HERE to grab your Calendar Math sheet in SPANISH! =)

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Villa Cuentos

Hi, Guys!
Hope you all are well! I'm excited that it's Wednesday, but not excited that Friday is near. I know what you're thinking, "What the heck is wrong with her?!" Lol. Believe me, I've asked myself that same question before. Although many of us LOVE (or should love) Fridays, they are kinda dreadful and stressful around my end. We (our school staff) have to turn in parent logs, reflection logs, and grade logs by the end of our school day (3:15) and also we have to submit our lesson plans by midnight Friday evening. It's a little overwhelming to say the least. We have "Freaky Friday's" (and not freaky in a good way) rather than "Fun Friday's". LOL.

Enough of that... moving on.

Do any of you use Villa Cuentos as your reading series? I know we are in a Common Core day and age, but I still use Villa Cuentos for phonics, grammar, and extra skills practice. At our school we are required to submit 15 grades into our electronic Grade Book weekly, so our students have to constantly complete assignments, worksheets, and other mumbo jumbo so that we have stuff to grade and submit. Definitely not Best Practice if you ask me... but hey... I'm just a teacher. =/

I've created a couple of tools and assessments for a few of the lessons in Villa Cuentos. Today's post is for the story Gala y Vito or Dot and Bob. In this lesson, we are studying the V+vowel and the L+vowel syllables. The first printable has those syllables plus additional syllables to help students create the weekly spelling words.
You can get that freebie by clicking HERE

The next freebie assesses the skill for this lesson which is Characters. It also assesses comprehension by asking students about problem and solution. For number 1, students draw each character in the large boxes and write the names of each character in the small boxes beneath the larger ones (I hope that makes sense). The rest of the sheet is self explanatory, but if you have any questions feel free to ask. =)

Click HERE for the SPANISH version.
Click HERE for the ENGLISH version.

That's all for today... Thanks for stopping by! Happy Wednesday! =)