Biliteracy

This past month in my district we have been vamping up our Dual Language instruction.  Our school has been doing a book study using, Biliteracy from the Start. It is a very useful tool in helping us to rewrite our units with focusing on helping our students become biliterate and bicultural.  

As a team, we sat today and rewrote our animal adaptions science unit.  Was it easy?  Did we use our time wisely?  Did we lose focus?  Did we miss our students?  Did we surf the net?  Did we have an amazing lunch?  

So we started working at 9 this morning.  When we began our rewriting, we had to pick the Key Use of Academic Language.  It took us an hour to figure out what verb from Blooms Taxonomy to use!  It was so hard to figure it out.  So we really panicked.  We thought if this is taking us an hour to figure out, what will the rest of the day be like.  Our team of three, had all 3 computers open with multiple open pages along with a projected page.  At this point, we started discussing lunch!!!  We needed a distraction.  But 10am was too early for lunch.  So….on we went.  It got a little easier with each step.  We put in Common Core standards, Spanish Language standards along with NextGeneration Science standards.  Then our minds drifted and we started looking at ordering supplies for next year.  Everything looked amazing!!!!  But back to work.  So then we went back to it.  Next we worked on Academic Language in word level, sentence level and discourse level.  By this point, we had enough and it was lunch time!  We couldn’t have been happier to leave that conference room and go eat lunch at Portillo's.   

At Portillo's we celebrated one of our team member’s birthday!  Chopped salad and some cheese fries, please.  We had a nice time talking about our lives.  This time unfortunately came to an end way too quickly.  

Back at school, we learned that some of us were able to order a few more supplies since we hadn’t spent all of our money for the school year.  Oriental trading got my money.  I just love them.  We had a hard time getting back into the swing of what we needed to work on.  We looked at essential oils and then a goose walked by the front of the school where the students are picked up and we couldn’t stop laughing!!  I am so proud of our team.  Our goal for the day was accomplished and we were able to turn in our lesson.  And yes, we missed our students!!!!