Doscientos

I have been away for a month now and I have felt the strong pull to blog here but two things have prevented me from doing so.  The first is that it's been a tough quarter for me; lots of preps, lots of students, lots of special situations, and very little time.  (Isn't that always the story though?)  The second reason is that this is a special post and I wanted to do something special to celebrate it.

This is post number 200!

Back when I did my 100th post, I created a list of 100 craft links for teachers to use in their Spanish classes.  That was an enormous chore and I was not keen to take on something like that again.  So days turned into weeks, turned into a month and still nothing.  Blah!

So today I have compelled myself to blog now, even though I don't have 200 of anything to share with you.  I'm still going to share something special, because I feel the need to celebrate my 200th post.

So I have decided to share some of my works in progress with you.  All of the following are destined to be paid products some day soon over on Teachers Pay Teachers, once I've put in final details and a teachers' guide.  Some of them need notes sheets to accompany them or other little things that just haven't come together yet.  But all of them are very usable right now and, even though I haven't given them over to my testers yet, they are professional and polished.

And one other thing, these are here for my regular blog readers only.  I'm only going to make these available here on the blog for 30 days.  Once that time has expired, I will take them down and eventually migrate them over to my online shop.  But, I want you to have access to them, in thanks for coming by all the time and for filling me with merriment with your comments and encouragement.

Note: The 30 Free Trial Period that I offered here to my regular blog readers has expired and they are no longer available for free.  If you are interested in these files, you can check my Teachers Pay Teachers store for them.  Please consider joining my blog and reading regularly if you are interested in free products, ideas, downloadables, and collaborations - not to mention a lot of great fun conversations and a place to share with other Spanish teachers!

When I start with AR verbs in Spanish 1, I teach students the Yo and Tú forms first.  We then can engage in simple conversations.  The above Power Point reviews the pronouns in English and in Spanish, animates the conjugations, and gives some conversation guidelines.  Questions in the tú form and answers in the yo form are the most basic and elemental conversations, so this is a great way to start students with verb conjugations.

I don't know how many times I will teach, re-teach, remind, and offer practice opportunities for Saber and Conocer.  Nothing seems to be sufficient and too much is just too much . . . .  It occurred to me to put it into a cultural context.  The above Power Point goes over the conjugations and some very simple uses of these two verbs and features pictures from Peru.

The weather . . . this time with pretty pictures.  I tried to find culturally-appropriate pictures, but I haven't been able to find them for every slide.  Still, this is a good review of weather terms and most of the pictures come from the Spanish-speaking world.

Personally, I think Joan Miró is the luckiest guy to ever walk the Earth.  I don't think he had much artistic talent at all, but he managed to make it work for him and it made him wildly successful.  I created this Power Point to introduce this famous Spanish painter and his work to my Spanish 3 students.  It is very colorful and my students loved it.

Just a few Valentine's Day vocabulary words accompanied by clip art to illustrate the meaning of the words.

And this last Power Point is my masterpiece of educational awesomeness - no kidding.  It illustrates a lot of the complexities of Salvador Dali's work - including hidden images revealed, explanations of his imagery, an introduction to surrealism, and a little bit about his life.  Dalí is my favorite artist and I put a lot of love into this one.

Now remember, these are only here for 30 days.  So if you want them, you have to download them now.  They are under my copyright, so please do not redistribute them.  Keep them to yourself and your students.

Thanks again for being such awesome readers!

200!  Viva!

--AnneK