Super Duper Bilingual Teacher

Sunday, October 25, 2020 - Post a Comment

Celebrating Halloween with Our Students

Celebrating Halloween with our students can we incredibly fun yet instructional., instructional yet fun! There are plenty of activities that teachers can conduct in their classroom to make this a day of interaction and exciting learning, not to mention the fact that we all need a little time to celebrate and do things a little different, especially this year!

These activities can be integrated within language arts, writing, spelling, math, science, and social studies. For example: Language Arts can involve read aloud of Halloween books. You can head to the nearest bookstore and find your pick because they have so many to choose from. After that you can ask students to write in response to the book read aloud. Spelling can involve the study and manipulation of words related to the celebration such as: Halloween, celebration, pumpkins, jack o lanterns, candy, trick, treat, costume, parade, festival, etc.

During Social Studies teachers can teach students about the origins of Halloween; where and how did it start and how it has evolved with time. This can be accompanied by graphic organizers, task cards or responding to the learning in any other way you’d like.

Math can involve center/station activities in different topics all Halloween themed. There are so many wonderful resources both paper/ manipulative as well as digital. For digital stations you can use google classroom resources, boom cards, or pdf’s that you can upload to Seesaw.

Science can involve pumpkin investigations!!! These can include drawings, labeling, life cycle, measuring, tasting, graphing, etc.

And, after all that… time to celebrate in the classroom!!!!! During this time, I like to...

Hand out baggies with candies and goodies

Watch Halloween videos (Brainpop jr, Dr. Seuss, etc.)

Juice boxes, water bottles

And, a cute Halloween themed cake

During this art of the day they are watching videos, eating, and coloring for fun!!

P.S. I have a completely free resource that includes the origins of the Halloween celebration, graphic organizers, task cards, and coloring pages.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Origins-of-Halloween-English-and-Spanish-6161479

Happy Teaching,

9 Tips for a Successful Parent-Teacher VIrtual Conference

Wednesday, October 7, 2020 - Post a Comment

It is that time of the school year… Parent-Teacher conferences. However, this year, that process will be a little different. Instead of welcoming our students’ parents to our school classroom, we will be welcoming them to our virtual classroom via whichever platform we are using; Google Meets, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, etc.

Nevertheless, it is up to us, the teachers, to make this process be as amiable as possible. Here are a few tips to conduct a Successful Virtual Parent-Teacher Conference.

1. Be prepared ahead of time: paperwork, data, and login punctually. (I like to prepare a folder per student. I make it pretty, color coded with a really nice personalized cover, and Student Data Information completed on the inside. This information that I will share with the parent, I will later on send it as well; this can be done through our class app, email, google, etc.)

2. Give them a warm welcome and a nice smile.

3. Always begin your meeting with positive aspects about the student.

4. Share with the parents the student’s strengths (Glows) and aspects of growth (Grows) based on all the information you’ve been able to collect about the student: Data about assessments, class work, and informal observations.

5. Ask the parents if they have any concerns, observations of their own, questions about the student’s academic and behavioral performance.

6. Make a plan, along with the parents in order to support the student’s growth; agreements between both parties.

7. Keep it short, sweet, simple, productive, and effective.

8. Take notes of the meeting.

9. Send the parents notes from the meeting along with a Thank you note for being present in the meeting and their child’s academic growth.

Teamwork between the parents and the teachers is pivotal in student success. It is like co-parenting!

What do I prepare before meeting the parent?
a. like to have my students fill out a goal sheet: What aspects would they like to become better at and to what extent?

b. I have my students fill out a Self-Evaluation sheet.

c. I prepare a Student Data Information sheet in which I include all assessments data, observations, strengths I see on the students and areas of growth for the student.

d. I send a Conference Reminder Sheet home.

5. e. I also remind my parents via email and class app.

f. I prepare s conference schedule for me to be organized and on time.