¡Ya Era Hora! - y un proyecto para San Valentín

If you've been following my blog for awhile now, and especially if you are a fellow teacher, you know how hectic things can get sometimes.  So, from time to time, I put the blog on a mini hiatus and take the time I need to attend to the chaos that I call life.

Right now, I'm working on updating my National Board Certification, getting my students ready for the National Spanish Exam, and my department is putting on an International Festival for our town.  Yikes!

Still, I wanted to share this with you so I've fought for a couple free minutes here to update the blog.

Every year at Valentine's Day, I take an hour of class time to have my students make valentines for the staff here at the school.  They are appreciation cards for those teachers, administrators, and staff who make a difference in the lives of our students.  We do them in Spanish (of course) but, since our audience is primarily English-speaking, we make bilingual cards.

The trick to doing this successfully is to make sure that the students express themselves in Spanish first and then translate their ideas back to English.  When students express themselves first in English, they tend to use expressions and vocabulary that they cannot yet say in Spanish.  So I give them a number of phrases and words they can use to express themselves in Spanish on the sheet. 

My students will be making their cards in class on Wednesday and Thursday so I will try to post pictures of some examples as they become available.

Update:  Here are some photos, as promised!

I hope you have an amazing San Valentín, amigos.

Hasta pronto,

--AnneK