Los primeros días...

I'm reading and re-reading the Rapport section of Teach Like a PIRATE and getting excited about what I can do on my first three days of school. I wish I could just take a Dave Burgess pill and have his persona flow through me for the kids. I wonder if he speaks Spanish??

The language part is what is holding me back a little bit. I definitely did NOT hit the 90% target language goal set by ACTFL in the classroom. I don't think I even hit 30% on some days. It is what I am going to strive for this year, so some of the community building activities I've been reading about in the book and on the Livebinder for the first 5 days are challenging me to think about how I could do them in Spanish. The problem is this: how deep can I really get with the kids if they're guarded about using a language that is not easy for them? I want to know more about the kids other than "Me gusta el chocolate." 

The ideas I've been throwing around seem to be pretty good, I just need to focus on making them fit together with a seamless transition. I thought of having a party theme for the first day back. I designed the invitation and I'm hoping the kids don't see it as lame!

I thought I'd get some balloons to have around the room and maybe give some out as prizes for something...Do I want to spend the money over two days to have the balloons though? I teach a block schedule and would need for 2 days. I don't want to leave a class out, but doubt my husband will go for the idea of me spending $30 on balloons. What else could I use or make for the same effect? 

I want to try putting the kids in a different seating arrangement every day based on various line-ups like the ideas from this article. It will be interesting to see how the students work together to find their seats. I think it might be fun to keep up at regular intervals throughout the year as well. 

I've created QR codes with 4 questions about myself that I do not expect the students to be able to answer easily. I've done it before as a quiz format, but I think the QR codes will bring more excitement for the kids who really like to use technology. I will post the questions on each wall of my room and I will have the kids up and rotating around to the different codes. I think I will then have them enter their responses in a Google Form or use www.polleverywhere.com so that we can see them all on the SMARTboard when the activity is over. I have the questions already in Spanish and English so that both my upper and lower levels. 

In order to get the kids playing, I do want to use the Play-Doh idea from the book, or perhaps the Marshmallow Challenge. They both seem really fun, and they are good for different reasons. The Play-Doh will allow me to get to know the kids a bit better as individuals, and while they're working I can chit chat with them (in ENGLISH or SPANISH??) to get to know them better. The Marshmallow Challenge will help them create their own community by allowing them to work together. 

An idea I have to get them speaking in Spanish, getting to know each other by finding things in common, AND allowing me to see what they are interested in is the People Search - or Human Bingo. I created a document (that I might shorten to be more like Tic-Tac-Toe for the sake of time) where they must fill in the blanks about themselves. There are words like "I have ___", "I wanted to ____ this summer", and "I am ____". They fill them out in Spanish, and then when everyone is done they will circulate around trying to find other kids who wrote the same things. This can be tricky because they will have to change the "I" form of the verbs to the "You" form in order to make the questions. If I do make it a Tic-Tac-Toe board, I could have two versions so that they don't always know what is going to be asked of them. I will participate, of course because I want to be immersed with my classroom!

The last idea I have, I would most likely coincide with the silent seating challenge. I know that students have a lot of anxiety when it comes to speaking Spanish, and I would like to prove to them that they can communicate without speaking at all. If they can go a whole block (or even half of one) communicating without words, it MUST be easier to do it with limited Spanish rather than no words at all. This was an idea I had for my level one class, but I think it would be a good point for my upper levels too. I would give them improv skits to act out where they would have to get their partner to understand them, or maybe give them something that they need to get someone to understand at some point during the block. For example, when José comes into class, he gets a piece of paper that says "I'm hungry" and Juan will get one that says "I'm thirsty" or "I don't feel well." Maybe I will give out other instructions like: when someone tells you that they're hungry, offer them some food, or if someone says they feel sick, let them know you feel badly about it. What are some other ideas with this that you have? 

So there you have it. My brainstorm for parts of the first three days of school. What are you going to do in your World Language classroom??