La vuelta al cole

Wait, what? Already getting ready for Back to School? What happened to Summer?
I follow many teachers on Instagram, and I am also an administrator in the Facebook's group Spanish Teachers in the US, and I see you guys are already getting ready for school!!!! yeah, yeah... some schools start earlier than others, but still... your classrooms look amazing ALREADY!!

Well, I AM excited to get my classroom ready for the new school year, maybe in a couple of weeks I'll bring my kids to school to help me set up my room (or at least to keep me company).

Ever since I got my own room, since I have been teaching my five classes in the same room, I am VERY excited about bulletin boards... A high school teacher going crazy over bulletin boards? yes, and you might be surprised to find out that a lot of Spanish teachers we have that in common! :)

At the beginning of the school year I always have one of my bulletin boards with a set of posters that give the students reasons to learn a foreign language. This is a picture of my bulletin board.

It's funny because we tend to think students pay attention to our bulletin boards, but they do! I always find one or two students reading these 10 reasons why they should learn languages .

Another one of my favorite bulletin boards to set up at the beginning of the school year is a "Frases útiles" board. With more than 75 different high frequency phrases, this has become a must have resource for Spanish teachers.

Get your students talking right away! They will love using these catchy phrases in Spanish, and they will surprise you with how quickly they become familiar with them; ¡te lo prometo! :)

What is your favorite rejoinder? One that I always say, and I didn't realized how much until a student pointed it out last year, is ¡qué desastre! I was told by this student that I must say that an average of three times per period! Ja!

And of course a cognates word wall or bulletin board is also very helpful to have. Here you have more than 130 cognates, divided into nouns, verbs and adjectives.  Simply print the different slides in different color papers and it will be visually appealing to your students, as well as an enormous help with instant language!

  

I will post pictures of my Frases útiles and cognados bulletin boards... I know, I know... I still don't have my classroom ready... ¡qué desastre! But in my defense, I am just trying to enjoy the last few days that I have left with my nine and almost seven years old big kids, and my almost seven month old baby... :)

Have a happy Back to School, and may this school year be the best one yet!!