Category: Beginning of School Unit

Parent Survey Questions

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In my last post, I talked about my favorite student survey questions to better get to know your kids. I’ve still got student knowledge on the brain (from our deep dive into NBCT Standard 1), and one of the best sources of information for students is, of course, their parents. Today I’m going to share with you a bit about what I include in my Parent Survey for Spanish class. I usually distribute a Google Form in four parts:

First, how do I get in touch with you?

I know every school has a million different ways to gather parental contact information, but I always include it on my survey so that I have the most up to date information all gathered in one place. I also make sure to ask communication preferences – e-mail or phone? This helps me communicate more effectively throughout the year.

Second, tell me more about your kid.

In my last post I talked about using a student survey to get to know a kids’ basic interests, how they learn, and their language learning experience. I ask questions of parents from all three of these categories. Some examples are:

  • What is the most important thing you want me to know about your student?
  • What are your student’s strengths?
  • What are some areas you’d like to see your student improve in?
  • What is your student genuinely passionate about?
  • What are your student’s feelings about school? About Spanish class?
  • What would you like me to know about your student’s previous experience learning a language?

Some parents are more forthcoming than others in this section, but usually I’ll gather up a few great gems of knowledge that I’d otherwise never have.

Thirdly, what is your family’s experience with Spanish?

In this section, I’m trying to get some more information about students’ cultural backgrounds so that I can make connections that keeps Spanish relevant in class, but I’m also shamelessly trying to recruit guest speakers to use throughout the year. You never know which parents may have experience with Spanish that you can bring into the classroom as a speaker or as a real life judge for a PBL project. I’ll ask if parents use Spanish in their personal or professional life, and if they’ve ever lived in or traveled extensively to a Spanish speaking country. This also helps me to make connections in class when we’re talking about cultural celebrations and customs. I’m more aware of the kids in the room who have actually experienced them.

Lastly, let’s make sure we’re on the same page about Spanish class.

The last section basically reads like a terms of use document, wherein I make parents check off that they understand certain things about Spanish class. I talk about expectations for language use in class, grading and absence policies, homework volume, etc. I briefly mention that the class will be conducted in Spanish and that students will be supported based on their proficiency level. This reinforces the idea of a proficiency-based classroom that I introduce at back-to-school night. As in all walks of life, I find that it helps to manage expectations up front so no one is surprised about what’s going on in class.

Benefits of a parent survey

Using a survey like this one helps me to make sure that the first contact I make with a parent isn’t a negative one. Of course you’ve got to make an attempt to briefly reach out to a parent who took the time to give you all of the information you asked for, which is time-consuming, but I find it starts the parent-teacher relationship off on a good footing.

Whereas I love giving student surveys on paper in order to capture more of their personality, parent surveys seem to be more effective with an online tool like Google Forms. There are different levels of parental involvement, and with an online form, parents can either quickly click through a form and type as much or as little as they want in each section. If you think you’d like to set up your parent survey similarly, an editable Google Form copy of my parent survey is available for purchase on Teachers Pay Teachers here.

What did I miss? Any questions you like to ask your parents at the beginning of the year?

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Student Survey Questions

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In my last post, I went through the first National Board World Language Standard, which is all about the importance of knowing your students. This is a great Standard to revisit in September, when you’re still trying to know as much about your students as quickly as possible. In my next few posts, I’m going to share my favorite tools to learn as much as you can about your students, starting with the getting-to-know-you survey.

There are a ton of beginning-of-the-year student surveys out there, and I’m sure you have your own favorite version that you use to start the year. For me, there are three goals for giving out a student survey in Spanish class, and thus three types of questions you need to include. You want to learn: 1) who your students are and what they’re interested in, 2) their attitudes towards school and how they learn, and 3) their experiences and attitudes towards learning different languages and cultures. As long as you have a healthy mix of each category, you’ve got a winning student survey. Below, I share some of the questions I’ve used in each category over the years that give me the most information.

First, who are you?

With this category, I usually try to give probing questions beyond the standard “Tell me something interesting about yourself,” though I always include popular culture questions in this section (favorite book, TV show, movie, musical artist) just to pick up on trends and see if there is anything popular right now related to our target language and target culture. The most revealing and useful questions that I include are “I’m secretly really good at…”, “In ten years I want to…”, and “My family is…” I’m always surprised about a few kids who I thought I had pegged, and I usually find some fun passions to tap into later in the year when I’m designing instruction.

Second, how do you learn best?

This is when you capture a bit more about the students’ attitude towards school and learning. Beyond learning what their favorite class is and why, you want to know the things they love and dread about other classes and other teachers so that you can try to tailor to their needs. My favorite questions in this category are “I like teachers who…”, “The thing I’m least excited about this school year is…”, and “I wish all my teachers knew that I…” I’m always surprised by the thoughtfulness in my students’ responses to these types of questions. Every year I anticipate getting a lot of “I wish we had no homework and watched movies every day,” but most students genuinely do want you to know how they learn best.

Third, what language and culture experience are you bringing with you?

These questions are trying to tap into the different cultural experiences in the room. Beyond the ever important, “Why are you taking Spanish class?”, the most revealing questions for me in this category are “Do any members of your family speak languages other than English? Which ones? Where did they learn?” I also like to ask the questions “The furthest I’ve been from home is…” and “I’ve lived in the following places…” This starts to paint a picture of who has been exposed to which cultures. Usually I can figure out which kid to talk to about modern slang in the target language or who may have taken part in one of the cultural traditions we learn about in class. It also clues me into which parents to contact about being guest speakers or project judges. You can read more about the questions I include in my parent survey here.

Paper or Google Forms?

I’ve given student surveys on Google Forms and on paper, and despite my love of technology, for me these types of surveys are best completed on paper. It just feels more authentic seeing a kids’ handwriting or doodles or penchant for multiple exclamation points. I also love giving detailed feedback on these surveys to each kid to build common ground, and it feels more personal to do so by circling or underlining things I love instead of trying to do so in a typed up document.

Putting it into practice

To see how I normally present my student survey, you can preview the product on Teachers Pay Teachers here. If you’ve already given out a student survey for the year, you can always present some of these questions as an early finisher next time you give a test or quiz, or as a warm-up activity. I find it doesn’t matter what time of the year you try to get to know your students better; they usually love getting the chance to tell you something genuine about themselves. Hopefully some of these questions help you to learn something new about a kid you wouldn’t have found out otherwise.

So, what have I missed? Which questions do you love to include in your beginning-of-the-year survey? Hope your September is going great.

 

 

La Tomatina Name Game

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Back-to-school time means back-to-blog time around here! I was going through my back-to-school materials this week, and one of my favorite activities from my dear Spanish 1B 7th graders jumped out. I’m sharing it here today in the hopes that someone else can enjoy it too.

This lesson started out as a very structured plan on La Tomatina, and then when we had 15 minutes of unstructured time at the end of the lesson, it evolved into a name game/paper throwing extravaganza inspired by this post from Amy Lenord. I’ll share with you how to turn this delightful improvisation into an actually great lesson for the first weeks of school.

First off, La Tomatina is such a wonderful cultural hook at the beginning of the school year. The actual festival happens in August, authentic resources are relatively easy to find, and food fights seem to be a universally engaging activity. I usually start the lesson off with this great wordless ad from Ray-Ban. It’s a beautifully shot video, and it lends itself well to your standard #authres activities. You can use it to anchor a movie talk, pause it periodically to get students to guess what’s going to happen next, or, my personal favorite with Novices, get students to write down as many words and phrases describing the video as possible. You can read more about this no-prep authentic resource activity here.

Once we get through the beautiful Ray-Ban video of La Tomatina, I’ll show a video that goes into detail about the what/when/where of the festival. This one from Tío Spanish and this one from SpanishPod101 are both pretty good. I usually have a worksheet that asks students to fill in certain details about the festival (when it is, where it is, what you wear, etc.), and we’ll watch this video a couple of times to give them the time they need to get the correct details down.

This is where it gets interesting. Once you go through the answers to the what/when/where of the festival and discuss the traditions as you please, hand out blank sheets of red (or pink) copy paper. Have each kid write down their name, two sentences that describe them, and what they’re wearing today. If this is the first day of Spanish 1, they can all write down “Me llamo _____,” and the activity will still work. Adapt what you’d like them to write based on where they are with their language level.

Once each kid has their info written down on their red/pink piece of paper, have them crumple it up (yup). Then, set some strong expectations about what happens next. Your kids are going to throw their “tomatoes.” They aren’t going to hit anyone in the head. They aren’t going to stand up to throw. They are only going to throw underhanded…Whatever you need to do to ensure that everyone in your classroom feels safe. This is when I give a very strong “don’t ruin this for everyone” look to my baseball and softball players who look ready to pounce. Once everybody agrees to the expectations, on your count, they throw their tomato anywhere in the classroom.

Once the tomatoes are on the ground (or wherever they ended up), the kids stand up to grab another student’s tomato. At this point, they have to find the person who corresponds to the tomato they picked up. This can be done in strictly Spanish-only mode by having people asking their new classmates “¿Cómo te llamas?” until they find the correct person.

You can have everybody sit down when they’ve found the right person and stay in Spanish-only mode to converse, have them ask their tomato person a series of questions that you dictate on the board, have them sign their partner’s tomato with a fact about themselves to practice their writing, you make the rules. There are many ways to adapt this for multiple language levels, have your kids practice each others’ names, and stay in the target language throughout. Repeat this process as many times as you’d like to get them interacting with more and more kids in the class.

Timely cultural authentic resources + get up and move around time + practicing get to know you language at the beginning of the school year + engaging in a crazy cultural activity = winning lesson for the beginning of school!

Have you ever tried a crumple-and-throw activity in your class? How did your kids respond to the chaos? Let me know! Good luck with your first days if you’re not back already!

 

First Day Prep Series: Stations

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I know most people are back-to-school or at least back-to-teacher-work-week (GOOD LUCK). If you’re not quite back yet, or you’re in the middle of first-day-over-prep syndrome, here’s some fuel for your lesson-idea fire. I’m going to talk you through my favorite First Day stations. I am a HUGE fan of using stations in class throughout the year. There are so many opportunities to work in reading, listening, speaking, writing, culture, and it gives those antsy teenagers a chance to get up and move as soon as their attention span on a given task starts to wane. The stations below are all about ten-to-fifteen-minute activities that you could use as stations or as a brainbreak/closing activity throughout the first couple of weeks of class to build classroom environment.

Last year was my first year I jumped immediately into stations on the first day of class. I had taught an overwhelming majority of my students the year before, so I felt brave, and wanted to do something a liiiiittle different with my kids besides your standard get-to-know-each-other/read-the-syllabus kind of day. The stations worked well in classes where I already knew all the kids and our environment was pretty well-established AND in classes where everyone was new to me and new to Spanish. I would definitely recommend giving them a try.

First, a word about how I do stations. In my classroom, I have assigned seats at tables, so it’s relatively easy to put kids into station groups based on where they sit. On the first day of school, people are mostly still figuring each other out, so you don’t have to stress too much about grouping people perfectly. I had 90 minute blocks, which meant with 5-10 minutes of warm-up and 5-10 minutes of clean-up and conclusion, so about five or six stations of ten to twelve minutes each was ideal. At the end of each ten to twelve minute time block, I’d play some popular Latin music (last year it was Soy Yo) to cue that it was time to rotate to the next activity.

The key with stations is to make sure each activity is SUUUUPER easy to figure out without much teacher guidance. Nothing is worse than spending five minutes explaining an activity to one group while another group is waiting for you to get over to them and keep them on task. Usually it works best when you can just wind them up and set them loose. That’s why having written directions at each station is key.

For the first day of school, my goals were always that students would understand their ownership in the classroom and its environment, that they would be held accountable for their behavior and work in class, and that they would be supported on the intimidating mistake-filled journey of language learning. Proficiency, setting language goals, and the importance of studying Spanish were saved for the second day of class. So my first day of school stations dealt a lot with the social-emotional sides of language learning and with the decorations I had in the room, so that students started the year off associating meaning with what was in front of them on the walls and buying in to the classroom environment.

My stations were as follows:

  • At station one, I gave them a worksheet that listed a lot of the words and phrases posted around the room, and asked them to work with the people in their group to write down as many meanings in English as they could guess or remember. Each of these words and phrases (question words, which you can find here, and classroom expressions, which you can steal here) is written in Spanish with a picture next to it, so even students with zero Spanish experience could potentially try to make a guess at meaning. I like that they have the support of their new classmates for this activity as well. I also gave them the freedom to get up and look closer at each picture if they wanted to (movement in middle school is a good thing).
  • At station two, I gave them the answers to station one (except for the kids who started at this station, obviously), and gave them their syllabus. Their task at this station was to read through the syllabus and write down three or more questions about the class, me, or learning Spanish. This task usually doesn’t take a full ten minutes, so I’d also give out their student surveys at this station, which I usually give as homework on the first day of class (yes, I’m evil, but whatever kids like talking about themselves).
  • At station three, students would sit down and chat with me. This was my FAVORITE. They’d arrive at the conversation station with questions they’d prepared in the syllabus station, and after that conversation ran dry, I got a chance to get to know kids and chat with them about their summers. Student relationships are the best, so this was a fun one for me last year. If something comes up at a different station that you have to tend to, the kids also can work on their survey homework while they wait for you to bounce back to them, which is also a good deal.
  • Station four was supposed to be a “silent” station, but I had a hard time enforcing this from where I was sitting at station three. At station four, I had written down the six activities from our syllabus that are essential to learning Spanish. I stole some of these from La Maestra Loca last year and tried out a version of her “chalk talk” idea for this station. I cut out titles of the activities and glued them to butcher paper on the wall. I asked students to write or draw pictures about what each activity meant to them close to each title. I left these up for the first couple of weeks as a reminder too.
  • I directed students to my handy dandy Meme wall for station number five. Basically I had them read through the Memes and write down the meanings for as many as they could. This was a great activity in Spanish 1B and Spanish 2, but resulted in some blank stares in Spanish 1. I didn’t quite have enough scaffolding about cognates before this activity for my Spanish 1s, which made this my weakest station for them. You could do a similar activity with whatever posters or cultural materials you have in your room for upper levels.
  • Station six directed the kids to a series of maps. The goal of this activity was to get them immersed in culture and get them thinking about the concept that language is different everywhere. I listed a few countries, then had them fill in what continent each country is on, what the capital is, and how you say “cool” in that country. I thought about using this bro map as well, but the language on there is pretty strong for middle school. Overall, I loved this station as a review/introduction to the variety in the Spanish-speaking world.
  • I know a moment ago I said five or six stations were ideal, but I also used a seventh station in a couple of my classes, or as a conclusion activity depending on time and the number of kids in the class. The last station was to come up with a class “silent signal” to use in our class when we transition from group activity to silent activities. Each group would propose a signal and then the class would vote on their favorite. They’ve used the silent awkward turtle, the silent llama, and a “live long and prosper” butterfly in previous classes (middle school is the best), but some classes like making up clap rhythms too. It’s a fun team-building exercise that you can use or change as the year continues. I just love giving them that extra additional ownership in the classroom routines.

Whew! These are a lot of different activities for the first day of class, but I hope you can steal something fun. I love group work like this to start the year and build some strong community from Day One, since it’s so necessary to that risky, brave process of language-learning. Let me know if you use anything! Good luck with your first week!

For more in the First Day Prep Series, check out my intro post, free decoration ideas, and infographic syllabus.

First Day Prep Series: The Infographic Syllabus

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While I know many of you are already back to school this week (omggggg), we’re still holding it down until after Labor Day in Virginia, so this is the time of year I usually reexamine my class syllabus. I totally bought into the Infographic Syllabus craze a couple of years ago, and I wanted to share a bit about what I’ve found the past three years I used mine. 

  1. The kids tend to view it positively. I think they get a little excited about seeing a syllabus that is catchy and exciting, and while it is full of the same information they’re getting from every other teacher on the first day of school, it’s a different way to get the information, which signals to them immediately that your class is different.
  2. The parents tend to not be AS excited about it. I only ever received compliments about the infographic syllabus, but I definitely had people look at the piece of paper full of weird symbols and colors on back to school night, eyes glazed over, and then say “This is so neat! Can I have your supply list?” I ended up making a “parent-friendly” copy of my syllabus that was just straight text with supplies and grading information on it, as that is what they were used to, and what they tended to care about the most on back to school night. My syllabus for the kids usually focused more on the welcoming environment of the classroom, so I’d give the more “fun” copy to the students.
  3. It backs up the interpretive skills we emphasize in language learning. This is a bit of a stretch, but hear me out. I think that having pictures associated with our words on the very document that explains the class starts to expose kids to the different tools we use to interpret meaning – think of how many times you tell your kids to use “context clues.” If you’ve got visuals on your syllabus, it gets them started on the first day getting used to associating meaning with something besides the written word.
  4. It’s helpful to back up the syllabus with a signature sheet, either on paper or on a Google form. I love using Google forms for parent and student information surveys at the beginning of the year, and use that form to also make sure that parents and students check a box on important policies like grading, homework, absences, testing retakes, etc, so that if there is ever an argument, you can gently remind people about the policies they signed that they understood in September. (This is what we refer to in the biz as a CYA move: Cover Your Bum!)
  5. It’s (selfishly) a fun August ritual for me. I love revisiting the syllabus every year to tweak it and make it relevant for the kids and courses I’ll be teaching. The first time I made it, it took HOURS, but now I have a version ready to go that I can easily switch up. Every year I make mine more and more simple, as most of the kids don’t remember the intricacies of every policy until they apply to them anyway (see: the first time a kid bombs a test and loses her mind with joy when her classmate reminds her about the retake policy).

I’ve loved the infographic syllabus, and while I’m not entering the classroom this year, it still makes me smile to look at it. Like most people, I created mine using Piktochart (don’t fret, it’s free). You can check it out below:

syllabus

If you’re interested in an editable version of my syllabus, it’s available for purchase on Teachers Pay Teachers here (in French too!).  What have you experienced after a few years with the infographic syllabus? Similar experiences? Different ones? Let me know!

For more in the First Day Prep Series, check out my intro post, free decoration ideas, and fave First Day stations.

First Day Prep Series: Free Language Class Decor

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One of the most exciting (and stressful) things about the first day of school for me is prepping classroom decorations. There’s no shortage of inspiration online, but I thought I’d share a post on what I’ve used in my classroom in the past, with a special focus on the decorations that are free (yay!).

One of the favorite things in my classroom that I love adding to and changing slightly every year is the Meme Wall. Here it is in all its glory:

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There was this very ugly piece of white plywood nailed over top of a door that used to be an exit in my trailer, and Memes were such a great way to cover it up with authentic resources (maximize what you’ve got!). I ended up bribing the teacher that runs the lamination machine in our building with candy because I felt so bad asking her to laminate all of these cute images, but it was perfect for my little classroom (#trailerlyfe).

The best part about the Meme Wall is that with the glorious world wide web at your fingertips, you have free resources for years. For a short cut, here is a link to my Spanish Meme Pinterest Board.  Since I taught Spanish 1 and Spanish 2, I tried to pick Novice level language and loved hearing kids throughout the year understand more and more of them as their proficiency level increased. I’ve found that jokes seem funnier and more satisfying when you “get” them in another language, so my middle-schoolers tended to get a kick out of it. It’s also a great idea to have kids bring the memes in themselves as part of a choice homework or participation deal. Anything to get a little bit of buy-in in your classroom is a plus, and when they feel like they’re building the environment themselves, even in the classroom decorations, they start to feel like a stronger part of your community.

Another one of my favorite ways to use Pinterest is for the theme board next to my handy dandy Scholastic Calendar. Sidenote – does anyone else use one of these pocket wall calendars? After four years, mine has a ton of numbers missing and is wearing and tearing. This is what mine looked like after I told some of my lunch kids to decorate it for the end of the year:

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Gotta love it. I think the only one available on the Internet right now is on Amazon, but I hate to say bye to the Scholastic one. Such a mainstay. ANYWAYS, I bring up the calendar because of the free stuff to put NEXT TO the calendar: authentic cultural resources. My goal in the past (which I, admittedly, have never achieved) has always been to rotate and change the bulletin board next to my calendar each month based on cultural occurrences of the season. I’ve always envisioned beautiful info-graphics and photos dealing with a holiday or an important historic event that occurred that month. Zachary Jones’ Zambombazo is a (free) goldmine for this type of thing.

In past years, I haven’t had time to pore over Pinterest each month, but this year I do! Here is a Pinterest board that has lots of fun printables and authentic resources for a beginning of the year culture board in your classroom. The themes I picked out this year were Regreso a Clases, Viva Mexico (16 de septiembre), Fiestas Patrias de Chile (18 de septiembre), and Hispanic Heritage Month (15 de septiembre). I’m sure you could find plenty more on other Central American Independence Days, but this felt like enough of a start for August/September. If there’s something else for August or September you want me to dig up for you, let me know in comments below!

Creative Language Class has a few resources that I’ve used in the past that are free and beautiful and useful in the classroom. If you haven’t seen their question word posters, print them out today. When I walk into a Spanish classroom that uses them I automatically smile because I know I’m in a teacher’s room that loves the same blogs I do. This year they’ve also released some awesome greetings posters and “how are you” emoji posters that are free and functional as well. Sidenote: I love using emojis in instruction because they’re fun and kids get them, but the language nerd in me sees them as a universal form of expression which I think is SO cool and fits nicely into the conversations we have with our students on guessing meaning by facial expressions, using context clues etc. Someone write a dissertation on the emoji in language learning; get on that please!

I’ve also stolen a page from Creative Language Class and created a proficiency scale in previous years that I hung at the top of one classroom wall as a reference for everyone throughout the year. Mine was an adaptation of ACTFL language that I brought to life using different colored masking tapes, much like the one featured in this post. I honestly didn’t use it as a reference too much once the year got rolling, but every year my goal was to use it more and more. I start out every year with a big talk on proficiency as a concept (a post on that soon), and in previous years that theme has been buried beneath a pile of mandated curriculum materials, but I hope to share more proficiency-based activities this year so that you can be a better teacher than I have been in the past.

Beyond that, I also created my own “key classroom phrases” using Piktochart; you can steal them here. Those phrases are the ones my students used the most, but this packet is also a free and useful set of posters that you could get kids to color as a brainbreak, early finisher, or stations activity to give them ownership of the decorations on the wall.

The rest of the decor in my classroom changed based on whatever we had recently studied, but I LOVED using twine and clothespins to show off their most recent work. At the beginning of the year, I use this section to post advice from previous students, which is an excellent filler activity on those days at the end of the year when everyone is just totally over it. My new students often get excited when they see their friends’/siblings’ advice, so it’s a fun thing to put on the wall at the start of the year to build relationships in a small way.  Here’s a picture of what it looks like with some novice low comic strips:

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The only other resource I’ll mention is this beauty on Teachers Pay Teachers from Brooke Hahn. It’s only $3 if you want to buy hers, but you can easily make your own version of this with words that you think kids will need. I posted mine on the ceiling as a very generous way to give kids those key conjunctions and linking words they need to climb up the proficiency scale. Yes, this meant that they spent testing blocks staring at the ceiling hoping the word they wanted was up there, BUT I saw no problem with that. In my view, it gives them an opportunity to learn while they test, and eventually they’ll remember the word and won’t need to agonize at the list above their heads.

Whew! Good luck to those of you who are already getting your classrooms ready. If there’s a particular resource or theme you want me to gather for an October culture board, please let me know!

For more in the First Day Prep Series, check out my intro post, infographic syllabus, and fave First Day stations.

First Day Prep Series: Intro

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So I’ve been living under a pre-wedding/wedding/honeymoon rock for several weeks now (yes, it was a beautiful and amazing day and my name is Mrs. Erwin now yippee!). Because of this about two days ago I had the shocking realization it is August. This year the knots in my stomach that form when I see back-to-school displays in July have been a little bit muted since now I am a year-round teacher in the business world, but I definitely did a double take when my rockstar third-grade-teacher cousin posted a “first day of school” Instagram picture of her classroom WITH KIDS IN IT. Where did summer go y’all???

In Virginia, we’re on the start-after-Labor-Day school schedule, which means when August hits the reality and excitement of a new batch of kids is really starting to heat up. For me, this usually means three straight weeks of prepping and planning for the first day of school. And ONLY the first day of school. I don’t know why, but Over-prepping-for-the-First-Day-Syndrome plagues me every year. I always get sucked down a wormhole of post after pin after article after tweet about building community and setting expectations and establishing relationships and creating the environment and the First-Day-of-School is just really important!!

If you’re also in this mode of overplanning, my message to you is this: take a deep breath. The First Day of School yes, is important, and yes, presents a ton of opportunities to start the year right, and yes, only happens once a year, but at the end of the day, you only have one class period with each group of kids. For me, this was 90 minutes. There’s only SO much you can do in 90 minutes to set the tone and get to know every child and establish behavioral systems and introduce proficiency and get kids excited and ready to start the work of learning. You have to pick and choose what you do in those 90 minutes. And for the kids, the first day of school is such a blur anyway, that the real good stuff doesn’t start until a couple weeks in. Give me September 15 and the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, when a kid gets really pumped to talk about his obsession with a Colombian soccer player and realizes that 1) no one is judging him and 2) we all WANT him to be excited and 3) he can use that passion as part of LEARNING AN ENTIRE LANGUAGE. I wish I had the time (don’t we all) to put just as much love and nervous planning energy into every day of learning, not just Day One, which is such a weird day anyway.

That all being said, my goal for the coming posts is to go through my standard August First-Day-of-School crunch with you. I’m going to present to you a lot of ideas (most of which I’ve tried, some of which I just have never had enough time to put into action), with the hope that you can pick and choose at least one to put into action during the first day, week, or month. Part one of my First Day Prep Series: the best free classroom decorations for the proficiency-based classroom and where to find them. Get excited!

For more in the First Day Prep Series, check out my free decoration ideas, infographic syllabus, and fave First Day stations.