You simply can't grade every piece of paper that students touch. It's too many papers and students don't need 857 grades at the end of each marking period. Besides that, your friends and family will miss you if you try to grade ALL THE PAPERS. Here are 5 tips for staying on top of grading (and having a life!):...

Bell ringers will get your students seated and working from the moment the late bell rings. Seated, silent , and on-task.  This activity does not actually include the promise of silence, but you can dream. ...

My 7th grade Social Studies teacher let us choose our seats.   On the very first day of school!   It was something I had never been allowed to do before and it was incredibly exciting.  We could all sit with our friends!  ...

This post could also be called "How to teach the Spanish Alphabet so good that you have to ban students from singing it" .  Or "For heaven's sake - it's March, please stop singing that song" . For the record, I've only had to ban one class from continuing to sing the alphabet song well into March.  That class was full of overly enthusiastic 7th-grade girls. 🙃 ...

It's so important to get your Spanish students actually speaking the language.   I like to tell my Spanish 1 students within the first week of school that no one ever says "Wow, you write Spanish really well."  They say "Wow, you speak Spanish really well."  ...

I'm pretty sure when I was learning Spanish in high school, we learned about culture in Spanish-speaking countries by reading blurbs in the textbook. Honestly, it's shocking we learned anything about how people live in Spanish-speaking countries. The internet is an amazing tool for teaching culture and truly letting students learn how people live in other countries. I love to use webquests to teach culture.  Here's how I create them!...

If you're looking for a great way to wrap up Spanish 1 and let students show off all they've learned this year - have I got a great idea for you! Meet the Spanish 1 Final Project . Students create a booklet about themselves and cover just about every topic they've learned throughout the year....