K-8 Spanish Teacher, Toledo Public Schools

My name is Donna Sharper and I'm a Spanish teacher. I teach kindergarten through eighth grade. So a busy day at school, I typically teach seven classes a day. I typically start with middle schoolers and I'll have my sixth grade class for 30 minutes, eighth grade will be 45 minutes, and then I have a break. And I have about an hour break. And then I'll start with typically kindergarten, then first grade, then I'll have a lunch break, 30 minute lunch break, and then I'll have fifth grade, I'll do third grade, second grade, and fourth grade. I go by the, it's called the National Council of State Supervisors of Foreign Languages, and they have can-do statements. And I pretty much use those statements for all of my students, K-8, I will use that. Because the standard is for a novice, low learner, which is what pretty much they are right now, is to be able to talk about yourself, you know? What's the easiest thing, it's to talk about yourself, to talk about what your name is, how old you are, where you're from. So for example, with my kindergartens, with the lesson plan what I've been doing with them, is being able to say how you are. So we'll say (speaking Spanish). Well, kindergarten is probably my most fun class because typically we start off with a song and you know a lot of gestures. I do a lot of hand gestures, a lot of movement with my kindergartners, whereas with eighth graders I don't do that as much. Wow, it's a lot of organization. I have nine grade levels, I have 17 classes. So my seating charts are pivotal. That's how I learn the students names, I have almost 300 students. I write my lesson plans on the weekend, for the week. So that's like a six or seven hour process and that is very helpful to kinda chart my course. And so what I'll do outside of the classroom is I'll say, "Okay, did I do this, did I do that?" You know, yes or know? If not, then I need to move it to the next day.