M&M Bilingual: brain breaks

Friday, July 1, 2016

Cuando era pequeña - Bilingual Album

Today I am excited to bring you a review for a fantastic artist, Nathalia. She just released her third bilingual album and I am thrilled to tell you all about CUANDO ERA PEQUEÑA (WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE).

Nathalia was born and raised in Colombia. She moved to the United States to attend the Berklee College of Music and has a Clinical Psychology Masters from Antioch University. She began her career as a music therapist and elementary music teacher in Los Angeles. These experiences all helped her to develop her music as a tool to teach her children about Spanish and their Colombian heritage.

Nathalia's lyrics are full of relatable scenarios and captivating experiences. Listening to her music brought me back to my childhood as a 4 year old when I used to sit with my "abuelita" to drink coffee. You see, if I drank coffee I would also get cookies. Double win! Children can easily relate to It's My Birthday and Pesadillas because they are all experiences they have gone through. Personally, I've been replaying Señor Opuesto over and over and thinking of ideas on how to incorporate this in an antonym lesson with my kiddos!!!

Her newest bilingual album features rock tunes and even cumbia music. The upbeat songs written bilingually talk about everything from dinosaurs to hopes and dreams of what kids want to be when they grow up. There are a total of 10 tracks on her CD that will have you dancing and humming all day long.

1 Dinosaur Dance
2 Señor Opuesto
3 It's My Birthday
4 Pesadillas
5 Qué llueva
6 When I Grow Up
7 La Iguana Pepa
8 Oh Math
9 ¿Qué me dices tu?
10 Otra vez

All of the tracks are amazing just listen to her samples HERE and you'll be hooked on the style and beat!

Nathalia has kindly offered a FREE album to one lucky M&M Bilingual reader. Enter on the rafflecopter below for a chance to win this amazing album. It would be perfect for summer time with the kiddos or even back to school season. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Monday, May 4, 2015

What Works: Successful Teachers Share Secrets from their Classrooms

Thank you for joining me as I partner up with Lisa from PAWSitively Teaching and Marissa from Inspired Owl's Corner as we celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week with a fantastic G.I.V.E.A.W.A.Y and L.I.N.K.Y! Make sure to subscribe to my email newsletter HERE. You will receive a FREE SPANISH prefixes unit just for signing up and joining my email club!

I will be sharing 3 secrets from my classroom that I hope you can benefit from! Read, enjoy, and scroll on down to discover more secrets and . . . . . an AMAZING giveaway!!!

Currently, I am team teaching which means I see my class for Reading/Language Arts half a day, then teach do it all over with my partner's class for the other half of the day. A secret I have for avoiding messy desk is using these plastic milk crates found here. This eliminates the cramped desks and saves space. I wish I could do the Pinterest idea where there's drawers in the middle, but the crates work just as fine for basal books, binders, and school boxes. Another tiny thing that makes a HUGE difference is the duct tape down the middle of the desk. At the beginning of the year, I color coded the class books by AM-blue/PM-orange. Students keep their practice books and journals on their respective side. Easy Peasy :)

I was always struggling to keep a list of brain breaks in the classroom without being repetitive. Then, along came GoNoodle. Do you use GoNoodle in the classroom? I GoNoodle, my kids GoNoodle, and we will never go back! Our favorite right now is of course Pop See Ko 2.0. I find it so cute when they ask, "If we behave, can we play a brain break?" Check it out and I am sure you will love it!

Last but not least, I created these little gems (Interactive Reading Flaps in Spanish) to keep my kiddos engaged when responding to books in the classroom. They love cutting, pasting, answering, sharing, and the retention of skills is higher after the activities are presented in a meaningful way. I have recently bundled the four seasons to make it easier for teachers to save $$$ on the resource for the entire year. Feel free to share my page with any bilingual teacher that might benefit from these!

So now ..... time for the giveaway and the fabulous prizes you could win! Make sure to enter BOTH Rafflecopters and complete as many entries as you can, so that you can have MORE opportunities to win these A.M.A.Z.I.N.G bundles!!!!