Wow, it has been a long time since I have posted anything. Since I last posted, I have continued diving into the world of Comprehensible Input (CI). I have attended several professional development opportunities to help me become a better Spanish teacher. I will make a whole separate post on how classroom life is now that I have been using CI methods for a few years. Today’s post is going to be all about one of my favorite things to use in the classroom . . . MUSIC! I absolutely love Spanish music and particularly, I love music from Latin America. Music in Spanish is what really made me love the language when I was a teenager in the 90’s. I would buy CD’s and hope that the CD had the fancy insert with the lyrics available so I could learn every line to the songs. My students have no idea how easy they have it now. There is so much Spanish music and lyrics readily available with YouTube. Using music in class has helped spark a love for the language with my students as well. Many of them add the songs they hear in class to their Spotify or YouTube playlists. They will sing along when they hear one of their favorites playing during work time in class. Music is the one thing in class that my students love more than anything. Last year, I decided to jump on the March Music Madness bandwagon. I bought a few things from Teachers Pay Teachers and looked at a few teacher websites like Dustin Williamson to get an idea of how they were using March Music Madness in their classes. My students absolutely loved it. They discovered so many new songs that they love and will still request them frequently in class. This year, I decided I wanted to make my own bracket. I spent hours looking for new music that I know my students will love based on my knowledge of their taste in Latino music. Not only did I want to find up to date songs, but videos that I could use in class as well. I finally narrowed it down to the 16 songs I wanted to use. However, this year rather than just listening to the songs and watching the videos, I wanted to expand March Music Madness into a mini unit. I decided to come up with activities to do with each of the 16 songs. After hours of listening to music, watching videos, searching for ideas and typing up activities, I have finally finished my March Music Madness mini unit. For the first time, I am going to try to put my hard work on Teachers Pay Teachers. I have found so many useful activities on Teachers Pay Teachers in the past, so I thought I would give it a try myself. If you want to join in on March Music Madness with all the work already done for you, please visit my TpT store, https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/March-Music-Madness-by-Sra-McCowan-4409781.
Happy listening,
Sra. McCowan
sramccowan 