Hello, everyone.
I know I’m terrible at writing posts and sending newsletters. I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed this year with teaching full time, taking care of my family, creating bilingual resources, and everything that happens behind the scenes. Can you believe I made about 450 resources in 2024?
I’ll try to do better next year.
For now, I’ve been wanting to write about the things I did this year and why I did them. Perhaps, one day, I will expand more on the reasons I do what I do and how I use my resources in the classroom.
As you go through this list, you’ll be able to tell I’ve been busy. But I love what I do. I love creating and designing, and I love being able to help children read, write, and develop in every subject.
I hope you find it useful and that it inspires you to use some of these ideas in your classroom or at home with your kiddos.
Bilingual Biographies
I started the year with an idea. I wanted to write biographies. I wanted to write them because when I teach about historical figures, I rarely find a book that has the right information and the right non-fiction text features. So, I decided to write my own. I wrote them in two reading levels and I wrote them in Spanish, English, and Bilingual.
But guess what? It was a lot of work. I created a printable book about Martin Luther King, Jr. Then I continued with Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. By then, I was exhausted. I used all three books with my bilingual kindergarteners last school year. My class could read and they loved each book. It was amazing. Later, they took it home.
I was so proud of myself. So much that I wished I could publish the books, too— but that didn’t happen until November.
Later in the year, I wrote the Benjamin Franklin book.
I have nine more historical figure clip art that I bought when I started this project. I may write and create the books one day. Only time will tell.
More Decodable Books
Did you know teachers love my decodable books? The idea to write them didn’t come from me, it came from a dear teacher friend who requested I write content books for Science and Social Studies since her district was changing to a program where those were the content areas taught only in English.
That’s how the idea of creating the bilingual decodable books came to be.
I started writing only bilingual books until someone asked me if I had them in English only. And so I wrote them in English, too.
In 2024, I created three batches of new decodable books: the first in January, the second in April, and the third in July.
The first new batch came from a buyer on Teachers Pay Teachers. She needed more Earth Science books.
So, I began to look for clip art and consider what kind of content could be in an easy-to-read book like that.
I then created more vocabulary books.
Friendship Spanish Guided Reading Books
Back in 2023, I discovered clip art that told a story.
At the same time, I began to get requests for second-grade reading passages.
I got everything the artist had. Every story. Then, I made a promise that I would write 72 books.
The process of writing children’s books like this is a long one. First I plot, then I write, then I revise, then I edit, and then I edit again.
It takes a while.
I wrote the seven Friendship books in January, hoping they would be reading in February.
Together with the seven books, I also publish the comprehension passages, sequencing activities (that I use in my Kindergarten classroom), and writing activities.
You can find the Friendship Spanish Guided Reading books here.
You can find the Spanish Friendship Passages here.
You can find the Spanish Friendship sequencing activities here.
And you can find the Friendship Spanish writing activity here.
Spanish Interactive Books: Position Words
I had this idea about writing interactive books for our Social Studies position word unit after seeing something similar on Facebook. I didn’t like a few things about what I saw and I thought I could do something better and more useful. And so I created his product line. I don’t use all the books in my class, but I do use one every quarter and the children love them.
You can find my Spanish Interactive Books about Position Words here.
Big Flashcards with Pictures
In February I decided to change the way I taught English Language Development. I had pictures for the word families before. I wrote each word and we talked about the words all week. But after that, I discarded the anchor chart by putting it on a wall and forgot about it.
I wanted to change that. This is how I came to have the idea of creating big flashcards with pictures. They needed to be big because they needed to fit a picture everyone on the carpet could see.
The CVC flashcards came first and they became bestsellers pretty quickly. I use them in my class to this day. After creating those, I created a lot more. I also created a few in Spanish.
You can find my collection of Big Flashcards with Pictures here.
Spanish Decodable Books
Later in the year, I finally got asked why I didn’t have my collection of Decodable Books in Spanish.
That was a good question. I doubted people would be interested. And boy was I wrong. It took me a few weeks to transform my bilingual decodable books into Spanish only. I then published them on Teachers Pay Teachers one after the other.
By the time I created the second and third batches of Bilingual Decodable books, I had already updated all the Spanish Decodable Books.
Nature Spanish Guided Reading Books
It was soon time to write the April Spanish guided reading books. They were themed to Nature following Earth Day.
You can find my collection of Spanish Nature Guided Reading Books here.
You can find the Spanish Nature comprehension passages here.
You can find the Spanish Nature sequencing activities here.
And you can find the Spanish Nature writing activities here.
Spanish Consonant Blends Stations
In March, I met with a teacher friend for lunch. She teaches the upper grades, but we got to talking about my teacher store.
She then told me I was missing flashy stations. I told her I didn’t like to make flashy resources, I usually made practical and useful resources to help bilingual students.
She wasn’t convinced.
This is where the Spanish Consonant Blends Statiosn idea came from.
I don’t personally use them in my classroom, but I know someone in my school who loved them.
I realized that if some resources aren’t for me, it doesn’t mean they aren’t for someone else.
I’m glad I made them. They are also pretty cute!
Bilingual Measure the Room
I had been wanting to do something like this for a while.
I remember having done a Measure the Room activity when I taught First Grade in a different district and I loved it.
But then I tried looking for that resource on TpT years later and I couldn’t find it. And trust me, I looked for a long time.
That’s why I decided to do one for me. I decided to make a themed product line from it.
I used it last April with my class when with our measuring unit. I also included some sorting length and height activities because I knew the students needed practice for the MAP test.
I love this resource.
Passages and Sequencing Events in Spanish
Later, in March, I finally got to create a series of resources I’d been looking for.
I wanted students to practice sequencing events after reading a passage to practice for the end-of-the-year MAP test. I also wanted the passage to include all the transition words we find on that test to get students used to seeing them in real life.
This is why I created this resource. The bad news is that the artist only made four sets of clip art with the sequencing I needed.
I created three—the fourth one was for Valentine’s Day, which had just passed in March. That means I better create it soon to have it ready for 2025.
You can see the passages and sequencing resources I have here.
Spanish Missing Word Passages
This is another resource I created to get children used to seeing the type of questions they see on the MAP test.
I like it because it’s a good way of assessing comprehension. I have a product line I prepared, but editing this kind of activity takes me hours.
I wrote all the passages one day and left the editing for later.
In the Spring, I edited the ones I needed for my class. It’s so interesting to see how the students will choose the wrong answer even if it doesn’t make any sense because they aren’t understanding the text. It’s a good exercise that prompts them to think.
Slowly, I promise I will get them all out. There is now a growing bundle you can purchase with the eight resources I’ve published so far. The other five are coming in 2025.
Spanish Counting Decodable Books
I had this idea to have a decodable book in my class that the students could also use for counting and reading number names.
This is where the idea of these counting books came from. Trust me. They love the books.
I wrote them in two levels (A and C).
I used the school one in September with a level A, and later I used one in November (the Thanksgiving one), with a level C.
I highly recommend these.
Spanish Directed Drawing and Writing Stories
I began to create these to use in a station during the Spring of 2025.
After the year was over last summer (May), I had the idea to create a writing station where students could practice writing stories with a beginning, middle, and end.
I created two resources, but they didn’t sell. Not that it mattered, I needed them for my class. I am about to start using a new Winter Drawing and Writing Stories resource in January.
I will then move to the Farm one in February, just as I create a Spring one for March.
I plan to have resources in various themes to use in First Grade too. Maybe one day someone will find them useful.
You can find my Spanish Directed Drawing and Writing Stories here:
Spanish Phonics Interactive Games
I took a course during the summer where they taught me to create interactive games. I love how they ended up. They are made in Google Slides, but they are also available in PPT.
The games are made to practice beginning Spanish phonics with the class. There is one for every vowel (which words start with each vowel) and one where students read two-syllable words (like they see in the MAP test).
Since I haven’t sold any of them, I haven’t made more. I used the vowel initial sounds ones in the beginning of the year. Perhaps if I see them be more useful I’ll create more.
Phonics Crowns
I got this idea from a virtual Kindergarten conference I attended in July.
I wanted the students to create a crown with words that start with vowels to remember the vowel names.
The students LOVED these crowns.
I only made them for the five vowels, even when the resource includes every letter of the alphabet. I teach kindergarten, but I would have used all of them if I’d taught PreK.
Later in the year, I created crowns that highlight each of the consonant blends.
Fall Spanish Guided Reading Books
I barely finished the Fall Spanish Guided Reading Books on time!
These were the last of the 72 original books I’d been wanting to write for my Lee Conmigo Collection project.
You can find the Spanish Fall Guided Reading Books here.
You can find the Spanish Fall Comprehension Passages here.
You can find the Spanish Fall Sequencing Events Activities here.
Spanish Diphthong Books
These books came as another idea from my friend. This year, she moved to First Grade and she needed activities with the Spanish diphthongs. Although I’m sure she was looking for something a little different, I started with these Spanish diphthong books.
I’m still planning on creating a few sorting worksheets, crowns, and big flashcards with Spanish diphthongs, but it will not happen in 2024.
Fairy Tales: Spanish Sequencing and Activities
This is another resource I’d been wanting to make for a long time. We study three main fairy tales/Folktales in class. We read many, but for these three we go in-depth and eventually act them out.
They are: Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Little Red Hen, and The Three Little Pigs.
I wanted more resources in Spanish for these three stories.
Then, one day, one of my favorite artists published a bundle that included several fairy tales and their story elements.
I got it. Since then, I’ve been slowly producing these resources. They are great. I love everything that’s included in them and I’ve been enjoying retelling and summarizing the stories in a few words to get to a reading level E and G.
Students can sequence events in many different ways with these stories.
I have a plan to create all of the fairy tales that came in the original clip art bundle, but so far, I’ve one made:
I am working on “La gallinita roja” right now.
Spanish Subitizing Slideshows
I must confess I had no plans of creating these Subitizing Slideshows. Not only that, it was a learning opportunity to learn a bit about how to be efficient when importing images that shouldn’t move on Slides and PPT, as well as how to create videos that I could upload to YouTube. And then, how to add music to a YouTube video.
Yep, I learned a lot.
It all came to be because I purchased a subitizing clip art growing bundle that had A LOT of clip art.
I have only made a fraction of what’s available. I’ve made Fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Winter slideshows (4 slideshows for each theme), and I’m exhausted.
When the Christmas clip art was uploaded I decided to wait until next year to make more.
There will be a bunch of subitizing slideshows in the future.
Oh, and I’m uploading them to YouTube where you can watch them for free. I remember once I was looking for a video like the ones I made and I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted. Well, these are exactly what I wanted, I hope you can use them too.
Find my subitizing slideshows on YouTube on my CHANNEL.
Spanish Non-Fiction Decodable Books and Activities
This project is another one of those I’ve been planning for a while.
It came out of the need to have a variety of non-fiction books students can use for our research unit at the end of Kindergarten. The library only has so many books, and most aren’t in the right reading level (my class is an average of reading level G at the end of the year and, although it’s a good reading level to be at at the end of Kindergarten, it’s not in the range of most non-fiction books.
That’s why I wanted to create my own.
Originally, I wanted to write different texts. I may still do that, but for now, my resources includes a book, a reading passage, and several comprehension and fact/opinion activities.
I have clip art from my Non-Fiction Interactive Books I can use, as well as a few Deposit Photos I had (and some new ones), that I can use.
Oh, and did I mention they have a bunch of text features? Because they do.
So far, I have only made a book for:
But much more is to come.
Amazon Children's Books
I had a dream.
The dream was to get more books into Bilingual classroom libraries.
I planned to publish all 72 books from my Lee Conmigo Collection.
I bought the art license (not cheap), and the ISBNs, but I didn’t count on teachers not having enough money to spend, and districts haven’t found my books, or can’t buy them.
These are self-published books, but they are good quality.
So far, I’ve made a sale or two. But I won’t give up. I will continue to publish.
My summer, socio-emotional development, fall, and Christmas books are now live.
You can find the link to my collection on Amazon HERE. The ebooks are available for $1.99 and the paperbacks are $7.50.
Amazon Workbooks
Together with the children’s books in the Lee Conmigo collection, I also published a workbook.
I started with a Summer workbook with comprehension passages and activities.
And surprise! It became a best-seller.
I continued to create workbooks for the Fall edition and Socio-emotional edition.
Although they don’t sell as well as the summer workbook, they still sell.
I then began to create more workbooks.
I created a Bilingual Biography collection, a Reading and Writing collection, and a Counting to 10 collection. I am also planning to create a Math Problem Solving and Facts collection of workbooks.
The work is still in the works, but I have plans to begin using Amazon a bit more.
Barnes and Noble
After publishing a few books on Amazon, I began to publish them on Barnes and Noble too. But I didn’t get too far. The printing settings are a little different and their system is a little robust, so publishing takes longer per book.
I have published the Summer edition of the Lee Conmigo collection in paperback only, and the first book in the Socio-emotional Development collection. I have also published the Summer Comprehension workbook.
Although I will continue to publish, the paperbacks at least, I will take my time.
You can find what I have published on my Barnes and Noble Author PAGE.
*Please note that not all the books listed on the Barnes and Noble page are mine.
Kobo
And finally, Kobo. After I realized I could not enroll my Lee Conmigo collection (or any of my books, for that matter) on Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited, I decided to try Kobo. I like Kobo because it has its own version of Kindle Unlimited, except it doesn’t require exclusivity. I also like that they offer to the libraries. I’ve sold more than one of my books to libraries through Kobo.
I plan to upload my entire collection of ebooks. So far, you can see the first two biographies I published on Amazon: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
You can visit my page on Kobo HERE.
*Please note that not all the books listed on the Kobo page are mine.
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