This year, I have an incredible job!!! I get to teach part time at my school and spend my afternoons with this adorable nugget! I am still sticking to what I said in my last post and am still taking a step back from posting, buuuut last semester, I started something that is really making…
I thoroughly enjoy sharing strategies that I use with other teachers. Over the the years, I have done this at conferences, PD sessions, and through this blog. I still have a passion for helping teachers, but I also have a sweet new addition to my life! Bishop is now 8 months old and a bundle…
I am so honored to have had opportunity to present at SWCOLT‘s 2021 Virtual Conference! Here are my presentation slides:
This year has been absolutely crazy for all teachers. From asynchronous to hybrid to remote to live and back again, we have all had very different yet similar experiences. From what I can tell, the common thread is that we are still trying our best to engage students while maintaining health and sanity. My experience…
Edpuzzle is my new favorite thing for Remote Learning! It is the bessssst. You upload a video, and you can make cuts, add questions, and add notes all in the same website. Not only that, you can disable skipping when students watch it. Lastly, grading has never been easier. I learned REALLY quickly that my…
WOW! So many possibilities with Remote Learning! Today I recorded a MovieTalk using Screencastify. I also made a doc with questions to go along with it! If you’d like, please feel free to use my video (you may want to cut out my announcement at the beginning) and doc (make a copy and make changes…
I am in week 2 of Remote Learning, and it is a beast. I know it will get easier each week, but I don’t really enjoy doing something that I don’t feel good at. I also get overwhelmed by all the resources available and all the things I could or should be doing. So, if…
My district gave us an extended spring break before starting up Remote Learning which has been really nice. I was able to step away from work for a bit before engaging in a teaching style that is brand new to me. Luckily, some of the Comprehensible Input strategies that I use fit really well with…
In Learning Family (homeroom) this week, we asked students to write a One Word New Year’s Resolution on a word bubble to be made into a bulletin board. (I found out that Annabelle is doing the same this year!!! Great minds…) As an example, I shared my reasoning for picking BALANCE. I love my job…
Training middle schoolers to “do” CI is hard. They’re sooooo bouncy and excited, which is GREAT for having an interesting stream of conversation and story ideas, but it also creates a challenge when asking them to look and listen without shouting out!!! Last year, I started using a daily rubric to help them learn the behaviors…
I’m a HUGE proponent of nonfiction/news/cultural topics in CI classrooms (here’s a blog post of mine about it). I LOVE to share these with students because they are super high interest and are exciting to me. A few of my faves relate to Koshik the talking elephant and Peru (including the 4,000 varieties of potatoes that are native to Peru…
The leadership class at my school puts together these sweet messages for teachers. I thought this one should be shared. Students knowing the objective of a Comprehensible Input classroom… PRICELESS! 🙂
I’m working on my Locura de marzo stuff for the week and had the most amazing discovery. I stumbled across the music video for El Mismo Sol (Alvaro Soler), and it reminded me of one of my favorite music videos of all time Latinoamérica (Calle 13). Both videos show scene after scene of culture from their respective regions!…
Another year, another GREAT spring conference! I love connecting with language teachers! I’m lucky to have access to great professional development in my district (when they don’t cancel it, that is), and CCFLT gives me a chance to add to my knowledge base with access to presenters from across Colorado and the country! I picked…
I wrote this article for CCFLT’s (Colorado Congress of Foreign Language Teachers) Winter Newsletter, and I wanted to share it here as well. Kids are like Puppies Last year, I had the pleasure of attending Connie Navarro’s presentation entitled “Kids are like Cows.” (Of course there is a story to this title, but for that, you’ll have to…
If you haven’t seen today’s Google Doodle, it’s ADORABLE! AND, it was created by a 2nd grader named Sarah Gomez-Lane (with a little help from the fine folks at Google)!!!!! I’m going to use this for a super fun, interactive MovieTalk/PictureTalk activity! I always pre-plan Movie or PictureTalk so that I’m ready for any out-of-bounds vocabulary…
Happy 2019! As a new semester is upon me, I’m thinking of all the things I need to do next week. The biggest one for me is continuing to build relationships with students since I have year-long classes and already know my kids! Relationships with students are the key to teaching success especially when teaching…
Mary Overton 