Day one: success!

I feel like I had a very successful first day of school today and would like to give you a glimpse of my Spanish 2 and IB classes on day 1.

Spanish 2

1. I began with some Latin pop/reggaetón music playing as they students entered. I greeted them at the door with a nonthreatening “hola” and a smile
2. Using slide 1 I welcomed them to class. I used the inclusive ending and simply mentioned that now some people use that ending to be more inclusive. More later!
3. Using slide 2 I explained we would be learning Spanish in a more immersive way – not talking about the language, but using it.
4. INTRODUCTIONS: I began by introducing myself and went back and forth with a few volunteers saying nice to meet you (mucho gusto) as well. I did a quick show of fingers of how they felt if I had them introduce themselves (5-confident, 1-not ready) and everyone was 4 or higher, so we began. It went like this:
   • I said “Soy Sra. Jensen.” (I’m Mrs. Jensen) and tossed them a plush pig.
   • The student said “Hola, Sra. Jensen, mucho gusto.” (Hi Mrs. Jensen, nice to meet you). Then they said “Soy (name)” (I’m (name) and tossed the pig to another student
   • The next student said “Hola, (name), mucho gusto” (Hi, (name), nice to meet you) and so on.
   • After everyone had a turn, they were ready to try it on their own!
5. I divided my class into 3 groups of 9 and gave each group a plush pig. I brought a bell for attention between rounds.
   • ROUND 1: Students do exactly what we did – first one says their name and tosses the pig to the next person. That person says hi, so-and-so, nice to meet you, my name is __ and tosses the pig to another person. If a group finishes before others, I encourage them to practice each other’s names because next round they have to know names! HERE IS A SHORT VIDEO
   • ROUND 2: A student says “Hola, so-and-so” and tosses the pig to that person and so on. Try to go fast!
   • ROUND 3: A student tosses the pig to another student who in turn must say the name of the one who threw it to them before catching it! HERE IS A SHORT VIDEO
   • ROUND 4: I take 4 kids from each group and move them to another group and we do rounds 1-3 again.
6. Now it’s time for my favorite – the song! We watched the video for the song. Students also completed the worksheets that accompanied it see this post.

IB Spanish

I’m not going to go into as much detail, but I had a very successful day in IB Spanish as well.

1. I did the same welcome and explaining how our brain learns language slides as above
2. We did a quick warm up from firstfives (sign up for these free in your inbox – you can thank me later!).
3. I explained we do a listening activity every other day to start class, with a short listening check afterwards and that we were going to do one now! I put up a slide with pictures from my trip to Panama this summer and told them about it in Spanish.
4. I told them 2 truths and a lie about my trip.
   • I went to Pride and danced all night
   • I swam in the ocean
   • I got my first tattoo
5. Then the class could ask me questions in Spanish to get more details to try to figure out which one was the lie. They asked some great questions and really got into it! At the end, They each held up a finger to indicate which was the lie. I fooled most of them!
6. We did a mindfulness exercise from a firstfive
7. We began Lotería humana (human bingo). They had to find someone who did specified activities on their card and write their name. They also were to ask 1-2 follow up questions because if they get a bingo tomorrow and can’t give me details, no bingo.

That’s it! It was a fun day where students were hearing and even speaking Spanish straight out the gate in a stress free way! What are your go-to first day activities?

P.S. Did you figure out my lie? Tell me in the comments!