We love SkippyJon Jones! 2nd grade

Posted on April 10, 2012 by lbeversdorf Leave a comment

One of my favorite lessons to teach is the one I am doing now with the 2nd graders.  We learn the words, read, write and book and as I teach them those words in Spanish I get to read the students lots of LIBROS (books)!  Some books in particular that we love are those written by Susan Middleton Elya.  Her books are written in English with Spanish words intermixed throughout.  Usually they rhyme and the stories are funny, cute and entertaining.  It really helps the kids learn the meaning of new words in context.  It is great because that is how I teach them Spanish as well…TPRS=contextualized learning!

More of my favorite books to read with the students are any of the Skippy Jon Jones books by Judy Schachner. Her website is awesome and her books are so imaginative and promote such great creativity and inspiration to use your imagination within the students.  Her books are also written in English, but her character (a Siamese kitten) believes that he is a Mexican chihuahua and goes around with a band of chimichangos (more chihuahuas) speaking un poco (a leetle bit) of Spanish.  They are GREAT!

The 2nd graders and I decided to make a video of all the words that Skippy Jon Jones taught us in Spanish.  Here it is below!  ENJOY!

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2nd grade

Kindergarten + iPads = Success

Posted on March 23, 2012 by lbeversdorf Leave a comment

The Kindergarten Spanish class used an app today called Kids Spanish.  It was great!  The app practiced many words that we already know and also other that we have not learned yet.  It was so fun to hear them each talking to the iPad in Spanish and repeating the words after the voice on the app said it.  What beautiful accents they have!  Check out our video below.  Here are a few of us in action practicing the words we hear!

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Kindergarten

2nd grade iMovies

Posted on March 22, 2012 by lbeversdorf 2 Comments

The 2nd grade Spanish class used the iMovie app on the iPads to create videos using the three new vocabulary words we learned today.  Check them out below!  This was their first experience using the iMovie app to make their very own videos.  They did a fabulous job! The students chose their own pictures doing a Google image search, saved them to the camera roll on the iPads, bounced the pictures they chose right into the iMovie, and then recorded their voices saying the words in Spanish and in English. We watched the videos in class today.  It was so fun!  It was our first experience hearing our recorded voices in Spanish!  :lol: We laughed a lot.  Enjoy the videos! ;-)

 

 

 

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2nd grade

La familia-2nd grade

Posted on March 19, 2012 by lbeversdorf 5 Comments

In 2nd grade Spanish class, we learn family words.  We learn how to talk about our immediate family and our extended family.  Thank you so much to those of you who sent in some pictures for us to introduce our families.  It was a great practice for us and so fun to see and meet your familias.  :-D

I show them old photos of my family and introduce them to my immediate and extended family.  It is always fun to watch their faces as they see me as a young girl.  It seems almost incomprehensible to their 2nd grade minds that I was ever that little or as young as they were!  So cute!  Here are just two of my photos.

 

We learned how to talk about our families in 2nd grade Spanish class a couple months ago,  I made this video and forgot to post it here!  So here we are introducing our families!  We started all together by introducing Mrs. Kramer’s familia first!

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2nd grade

Doodle Buddy 1st grade

Posted on March 19, 2012 by lbeversdorf 3 Comments

The first graders are learning some words to express their feelings in Spanish class. They are learning to say happy, sad, and cries. Next we will learn how to say tired, sick and sleeps.
The iPads were available to use one day while learning to say happy, sad and cries, so we used the app Doodle Buddy to make a little picture with sound effects and a little face to show each feeling.
Here is what we made below. It was a simple activity and fun as we pressed each face onto our doodle, it either laughed, whimpered or cried.

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Me gusta-I like, 3rd grade iMovies

Posted on March 14, 2012 by lbeversdorf 1 Comment

The 3rd graders have become iMovie app experts in Spanish class.  We recently learned how to talk about our likes and dislikes and the likes and dislikes of others.  After practicing the vocabulary, we made iMovies to put our likes into action on the iPad.

They each chose three things that they like, then one thing that a family member likes and one thing that a friend likes.  They chose five pictures to depict what they like and then made a movie using the iMovie app.  They recorded their voices speaking in Spanish about the three things they like (and also in English in case any of our blog readers aren’t so proficient in Spanish) and also talked about one thing a family member likes and one thing a friend likes.

Enjoy our movies below!  They are so good!

 

 

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3rd grade

Constant contact…never miss out on a day of school, FACETIME-5th grade

Posted on March 14, 2012 by lbeversdorf 1 Comment

As I finished teaching 3rd grade Spanish class today, I heard my iPad ringing in the back of the classroom.  I thought, “Hmmm, what is happening over there?”  As the 3rd graders left, I ran to my iPad to answer it and found one of my 5th graders calling me from home. :-P

I tell all my students in 5th-8th grade that if they are every absent from school, my Skype is always connected and my FaceTime on my iPhone or my iPad is always ready.  Many of them have added me as a contact on Skype, and we’ve used Skype many times to bring students into the classroom when they are sick or on vacation.  I am always so impressed that they are motivated to call in and be here!

I have never explained how to use Skype or FaceTime to any of my students.  They just know how and I am constantly surprised when they actually call me from home to be part of our class.

So far in 5th grade, we’ve had several students call from a vacation that they were on with their families!  So awesome! Joey used FaceTime to call while he was on vacation and Gaby called us using Skype from her car! Amazing! Today Kallie called us from home because she was sick.  Awesome!

Unfortunately there is ISAT testing this week and Kallie and I were waiting in Spanish class for her classmates to arrive, and they never came.  So we walked down the hallway (me walking, Kallie on the iPad screen) :lol: to see where everyone was and what the delay was…

We arrived to her classroom to find Mrs. Wilson and her class taking a break from ISAT testing.  Kallie and I were able to say hola and adios and realize that no one was coming to Spanish class today because of ISATs.  :-(   Sadly, we said adios to the 5th grade class and walked back to the Spanish classroom.

Technology continues to enrich my classroom, my life and my students’ lives in ways I never thought possible.  It is so exciting to see my students motivation to be a part of Spanish class even when they cannot be here physically.  ;-)

I carried Kallie around school today on the iPad and my iHome portable speaker system to amplify her voice.  I use it outside to play music with my students and now I’ve found a new use for it!  I can carry my students any where when they decide to be a part of class form where ever they are!

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5th grade, All School

El día de amor y amistad-The Day of Love and Friendship

Posted on February 28, 2012 by lbeversdorf Leave a comment

The title of this post is one of the names for Valentine’s Day. It is also called El día de los enamorados (Lover’s Day) or El día de San Valentín (St. Valentine’s Day).

In 8th grade Spanish class we had secret valentines.  We chose names the day before Valentine’s Day and then made videos depicting all the wonderful things that we thought about our secret Valentine.  It was fun.  Click here or below to be directed to our class blogs.  Click on a student’s name (on the right) to watch the videos specific to student, or click on the posts in the center to watch each post.

8th grade blogs

 

 

Here is one that I made for a student who was absent.

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8th grade

Kindergarten 123 Color HD

Posted on February 13, 2012 by lbeversdorf 1 Comment

Look what we painted with 123 Color HD: Talking Coloring Book!
Here is a link to 123 Color HD in the App Store: 123 Color HD: Talking Coloring Book

Here is a link to the 123 Color HD website: http://123ColorApp.com

We are learning our numbers, colors, and alphabet comes in 1st grade, so this app was perfect for Spanish class today!  We just had to change the language to Spanish and away we went! We are also learning how to say fish, so this coloring page was perfect as well.  Check it out in the app store.  It practice fine motors skills too.

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Kindergarten, Uncategorized

The Blizzard that never was…February 1, 2012

Posted on February 8, 2012 by lbeversdorf 1 Comment

This winter our weather has been so crazy and mild, so the 8th graders and I decided to spend a moment outside on the anniversary of the Great Chicago Blizzard expressing ourselves about the WARM weather we experienced instead of cold and 10 feet of snow!  It was such a beautiful day in 2012!

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Uncategorized