Moving Beyond for Multilingual Learners: The Blog

At the beginning of the school year, I always encourage folks to prep a ton of these in anticipation of newcomer students that will arrive throughout the school year. Please note that this is one example of a template. You can open the templates, go to FILE and MAKE A COPY so that you can customize these to better fit your needs! This sample template I have ready is for English/Spanish newcomers . I Need Cards - please note that this template has the same tool but presented a few different ways. These are a tool that I reference in my proficiency snapshot tool for classoom & content teachers (a scaffold I'd recommend for level 1 students). As students are beginning their language journeys in English, they may just feel comfortable raising their hand and pointing. As they grow in confidence and have had ample time to practice, they may say these sentences out loud. Here's a quick TikTok that walks through these. **I recently (9/10/23) used AI and digital translation resour...

At the beginning of the school year, we spend a ton of time co-constructing classroom norms, helping our students get to know the learning space, developing expectations with students, and practicing different routines. One routine that I almost ALWAYS forgot about each year was teaching about Indoor Recess routines and norms. Normally I'd get "caught" during the first rain day or extreme heat day, and then would feel like I was scrambling to say a few quick things right before lunch. This didn't set my students up for success, and it made things EXTREMELY challenging for colleagues who would be supervising students during this time.  Dedicate some class time to showing where indoor recess activities are stored. Practice taking out the materials and putting away the materials. You may even need to practice "stacking" indoor recess materials if you have storage issues like I always did!  You may even elect a student-run "Indoor Recess Committee" to ...

 Sometimes I struggle with navigating life's difficult moments, so I write.  Please love the hell out of your students this year. Laugh with them and make memories with them. Joke around and laugh and dance and be silly together. Let them be kids. Play with them. Take pictures. Support them like crazy. Lift them up as much as you can. Celebrate every little thing. Go overboard. Let their time in your classroom be joyful and fun and challenging. Tell them every minute you believe in them. Fight for them as much as you can. Advocate for them. Demand that people pronounce their names correctly. Call their family just to share all the great things they’re doing. Tell them you love them so much. Capture their brilliance when you can, in the form of a picture, a conversation, or writing a special note. Be joyful with them. Tell them (again and again) how much you love them.

 One of my favorite things I did that made a huge impact on me as an educator was to set up an in-school pen pal system between my students and other adults in the building. This served multiple purposes, but the impact was even bigger than expected.  My students and I were reading a book about a pair of friends that moved away from each other and sent each other snail mail. The conversation steered into a conversation about the post office, addressing an envelope, and more. Most students remarked that they had never received snail mail addressed to them before, so it sparked an idea.  I sent out a staff email ( template here ) and posted a "sign up sheet" ( template here, just swap the fake names & bios ) in the teachers lounge with a list of student names and a one-sentence bio about each student, so that educators could sign up with someone who potentially had a shared interest. Not shockingly (becuase of the amazing adults that I worked with who were all incredibl...

 Do you have a significant other, bestie, sister, or loved one in education? Is it August? Then this post is for YOU.  During back to school season, your loved one is feeling a huge range of emotions - from excitement to anxiety, from enthusiastic to overwhelmed, from joyful to depressed. Sometimes, all in the same week... or day. There's a LOT to do and little time to do it. How can you lend a hand and show them some love and support?  While everyone receives love, appreciation, and support in different ways (do you know their Love Language, for example?), here are a few ways you might show some them love!  1. During the first week of school, celebrate them. Take them out for a meal to celebrate their first week back! Listen to their stories, their worries, and their excitement. Pro tip: while making plans to do dinner out on a Friday night sounds good now, they may be toooooo exhausted at the end of that first week - even if it's a short week. A Saturday night dinn...

 You know what's awful? Mornings before work/school.  Even when I lay out my clothes the night before, I get a good night's sleep, and I meal prepped over the weekend... mornings still feel chaotic for some reason. So, when those moments pop up where one of my own children report that they're not feeling well, it sends my own anxiety into overdrive: Now I've got to arrange childcare. Do I have time to make sub plans right this second? Do I need to make a doctor's appointment for this? Where is the children's Tylenol? And finally - Wait- what number do I have to use to call in and report their absence at school? Let's simplify this moment of panic! As we start to prep back-to-school resources, here's one quick tip for you that can be a momentary life-saver for families we serve. Create a quick, customized "Report an Absence" card with the school's number/messaging service and indicate what time the phone call must be received by. Print, lam...