Crazy times, folks! I know many of you are figuring out what “loading up the Little Darlings with Comprehensible Input”  looks like, when you’re not face to face, when schools are closed, you’re stock piling toilet paper,  and you’ve got a computer between you and your kiddos. And I know many, many of you (myself included!) are thinking ahead. For us,  school hasn’t closed…yet, but the possibility is looking more likely as cases of Covid-19 pop up closer to home.

First let’s take a deep breath. Let’s not give into the panic and hysteria. If you’re looking for some encouragement and peace during these crazy times, I’ve written a devotional for teachers that you might find calms your soul. My source of peace is Jesus, and especially when the world is nutso outside, that’s where I find refuge.

And let’s be thankful. Providing CI through a computer isn’t ideal…I’d much rather be in my classroom, chatting with my Little Darlings, looking them in the eye …BUT, we have a lot of resources we can use, to give them CI AND connect with them. I am so blessed by this incredible community of CI teachers and companies who have so generously offered their tools to make your job a little bit less stressful during a stressful time!

Free Resources:

Fluency Matters is offering FREE online E-courses for a bunch of different novels if your school is closed! 

Señor Wooly is offering 2 weeks of FREE Señor Wooly Pro!

Martina Bex has 10 days of FREE Lesson Plans and resources for Spanish teachers!

Kristy Placido has FREE resources for intermediate learners: Noche boca arriba embedded readings, Una familia migrante news article, Chac Mool embedded reading, Las fiestas de San Isidro reading and a bunch more!

Lots of generous teachers are using the hashtag #COVID19WL to make their FREE resources easy to find on Teachers Pay Teachers

Interpretive Quick Quizzes…online!

I love using my Reading and Listening Quick Quizzes, with ANY text or video, as an easy way for me to gauge how much they’re understanding. (Here’s the original post, if you’d like to read more.)

In order to make them a bit easier for students and teachers working from home, here’s the same concept, but as a google form.

When you click on the link below, it will prompt you to “make a copy”…you should edit your copy with the name of the reading text or listening video, then you’ll be able to share your link with your Little Darlings, and be able to see their responses. Easy peasy! (If that is not Easy Peasy for you…there is a picture tutorial below!)

Thanks to Allysen Clancy’s comment, we figured out you can even drop a YouTube video right into the Google Form. How fancy is that?!

• Level 1 Listening Quick Quiz
• Level 1 Reading Quick Quiz
• Level 2 Listening Quick Quiz
• Level 2 Reading Quick Quiz
• Level 3 Listening Quick Quiz
• Level 3 Reading Quick Quiz
• Level 4 Listening Quick Quiz
• Level 4 Reading Quick Quiz

The beauty of these forms is that you can use them with ANYTHING, and they’re all ready to go! I love to use them with Pablo Roman’s Dreaming in Spanish Videos and El mundo en tus manos news articles. You can even use Google Meet to record you talking through a Power Point or Movie Talk! (So your Little Darlings who miss you, won’t miss listening to you 😉  For my upper level and my Heritage Little Darlings, I just discovered BrainPop En Español, and here is a list of all the FREE BrainPop Videos and readings. 

Not so techy?

Need a step by step guide for using the Quick Quiz Links Above? Here you go!

After you click on a quick, you’ll see this:

Then you’ll add the title of your reading or video:

You might also want to edit the Class Period options, if they don’t work for your school.

Embedding a YouTube video into Google Forms:

If you  don’t want to embed a YouTube video, skip the next 3 pictures! If you want to drop a YouTube video directly into the Google Form, click on the Class Period Section, then select the Video icon:

Then search for your YouTube video:

You’ll see your YouTube video in your form. Write instructions for your students, then click on the eyeball, copy the link and you’re all set!

Posting the Quick Quiz for your students:

Then post this link, along with a link to a reading or video on whatever platform you use. We love Google Classroom in my district!

 

Then, to see your little darlings’ responses, open the form in your google drive:

Then you’ll want to create a google sheets to display their responses:

Create a new one, and write the name of the reading or video:

Once you have your spreadsheet, there are a few tricks to make it easier for you to use. You can sort it by class, or by last name:

And you can make the text “wrap around” so you can see everything:

Then you’ll have all your students’ responses, in a nice, tidy format. You might want to add another column where you write in their score.

Stay Organized!

I just learned a nifty trick…you can take all your responses from all your quizzes and funnel them into ONE Google Sheets, so it’s easy to find them all! For a step-by-step tutorial and a few other sweet Google Classroom tricks, check out this post. 

And to make your life 1,000 times easier,you can set up your form to send you a notification when one of your Little Darlings turns in their homework late! This is a game changers, folks!!

A word about grading the Quick Quizzes

To make the math easy (and my friends, all the math in my life is easy math!), I always score these out of 10 points. So a kiddo who shows me he understood everything  will get a 100%, 10/10 in the grade book. A kid who shows you some understanding of specific details (but not all the details) could get anywhere from a 90% (9/10 in the book) to a 99% (9.9/10 in the book). For a kiddo who gets the main idea, but doesn’t have specific details (even if they’ve written things in the A section… but they’re just rephrasing main ideas), you score that anywhere between an 80%-89% (so 8.something in your gradebook.)  You’re the teacher, you get to decide how much they showed you they understood and assign a number accordingly. Don’t stress too much about it. Worry more about washing your hands and stockpiling the toilet paper.

And speaking of toilet paper…

I am not really one to panic and buy 1,000 rolls of TP at Costco. We’ve got the normal amount stored under the bathroom sink. I wouldn’t normally be worried about the Nationwide TP Shortage, but The Puppy has gone through 3 rolls in 3 days. Lord help us!

Stay safe, my friends, and protect your toilet paper!