“Mrs. Spanish, Mrs. Spanish, what are we doing today?”
Mrs. Spanish is my alias. This is what some of my students call me when they can’t remember Señora Mitchell. My real name is Anne Marie Mitchell. I live in Rome, GA with my husband and our 3 boys. I teach at Berry College Elementary and Middle School in Rome, GA. BCEMS is a small Kindergarten through 8th grade laboratory school. I have taught all 9 grades since 2007. I started a blog to catalog the things I have learned in the time I have been here.
I started using TPRS early on because I was looking for a better way to teach my students to communicate. I love how the TPRS community has evolved to include all types of methods that support Comprehensible Input.
Mrs. Spanish 
Hi. I am trying to learn more about TPRS. I am teaching k-3rd Spanish twice a week. Another teacher I know that uses TPRS with older kids suggested I buy a TPRS curriculum so that I could begin to understand the method and get comfortable with the process. The 2 main curriculums I see for the younger kids (k-3rd) are the Conversa curriculum and the Hola Niños curriculum. I am trying to figure out which one to buy or if there is another I should be looking at. Do you have any suggestions? Why might one be a better curriculum than the other? I just found your blog and I love it!!! Thanks!
Both are great! If you send me an email, I can discuss it in more detail.
amitchell@berry.edu
I am hoping you might be able to attend and/or help spread the word about our first Cascadia CI Conference in Portland, OR June 29-30.
We have an amazing lineup so far:
Keynotes/Sessions by Dr. Beniko Mason and Dr. Stephen Krashen
Sessions by Mike Peto, Annabelle Allen, Ben Slavic, Tina Hargaden, and Jacqueline Miller-Perry and Jon Cowart on CI for Equity, and a couple more surprise folks in the works.
Model Language Classes by Wade Blevins (modeling in Cherokee), Adam Ziad (modeling in Arabic) Janet Kyong (modeling in Korean), Kristen Noelle Donoghue Wolf (modeling Elementary Spanish), and TBD modeling in Advanced French.
Evening coaching with Ben Slavic till 11 PM or later!
Optional pre-conference workshop with Ben Slavic and Tina Hargaden June 26-27
Visit https://comprehensiblecascadia.org/ for details.
Hi! I am so so thankful to have found you! I have been teaching middle/high school for the past 12 years, but have just accepted an elementary position. I start Monday (yikes!) and am so thankful to be able to use your first unit (just downloaded it from TpT)! The current curriculum is basically non-existent, so I’m ready to overhaul it! LOVING your Me Gusta unit so much and plan to start there. Any idea when you may have another unit available? Or, any suggestions on where I can look for additional resources? Thank you so much for all of the time and love you put into the first unit.
I am currently working on my next unit . You can see a preview of the unit in my blog post
It is a slow go but I do hope to have it ready in the next 3 weeks.
In the meantime, I would suggest “El mundo de Pepito” and “The Storyteller’s Corner”
I been teaching Toddlers to 6th grade for some years now. I love TPRS and I found your units really good and I am going to use them this coming year. I need, though,to present the school a scope and sequence of what I will be teaching and I wonder if you have it. I would gladly buy it ! Please, continue creating new units! Muchas gracias!
THANKS! I don’t really have a scope and sequence yet…but it is in the works. It will be a while though. I am planning to write up more units finishing out Year 1. Then I will start Year 2. 😉
Hello,
I am teaching in a school this year that does not have any books. k-8th grade. I would like to buy 1 or two curriculums for k-5 and 6-8th or so. Do you have any suggestions? Can you please guide me on this?
I feel your pain! I was in a very simular situation 10 years ago. Sent you an email!
Hi there! We are looking for 1st-8th TPRS style Spanish curriculum for our school. Classes meet 40 min/week (1st-4th) or 60 min/week (5th-8th) for the entire year. It sounds like the person who commented above had a similar need. I’d love to hear your response to them.
Love everything! Great work! When do you anticipate the curriculum units after unit 4 to be available?
HOLA Beth! Thanks so much! It is on my list to complete Year TWO of ¡No me digas! curriculum but it will be later in the academic year. I am currently working on getting French materials translated for Year ONE and releasing some Classroom library type stories in Spanish & French that correlate with the units already released.
I love your blog! I purchased your Units 1 -3 for my Kdg. -2nd grades. I’m switching to CI after 10 years of grammar based curriculum. I’m wondering do you teach “Units- like Animals, Body parts…” or do you target the sweet 16 verbs? I’m having trouble letting go of my units and target verbs. Any suggestions? I teach Kdg. – 8th grade so far I’m trying to keep my units and use Storyasking or Storytelling to highlight vocabulary.
Thanks,
Karim Reich
Thanks! I still have “thematic units” but the focus is on communicating with my students in a very purposeful way. For example, to talk about food or restaurants, I use a discussion “What is your favorite food? What is your favorite restaurant?” “Do you ever help cook at home? What do you cook?” “If I opened your refrigerator right now, what would I see?” I use thematic vocabulary and the sweet 16, but the goal is communicating through a more purposeful and authentic conversation. If you notice my units follow a main idea/question and that naturally has some words that are used. Unit 1 is all about your favorite and least favorite foods. Unit 2 – What do you like on your pizza? Unit 3 – How are you? Unit 4 – What do you eat for breakfast? etc.
Thank you! I’m glad to hear you use Thematic units too. Do you have any suggestions for 3-5 and 6-8 curriculum?
I will be posting those in the near future. 🙂
Hi! I taught your units 1-3 last year and just finished unit 4 with my first and second graders. Any idea of when unit 5 & 6 will be available? My kids have really enjoyed all of the units so far and I would love to use 5 & 6!
I am so glad your students enjoyed them!! I am hoping to get them out at the beginning of next year.
Hi! I teach Spanish at a small K-8 school which does not currently have a set curriculum. I plan to ask to buy one for next year and wondered which curriculum you would suggest? Thank you! I discovered your site yesterday and have already implemented a few of your suggestions.
Hi! I am in a similar position as Emily above. I teach K-6 Spanish and hands-on science. I have worked for a few years on developing a K-6 curriculum and am looking for some support as I am interested in getting into more storytelling. I like some of the units I created in different grades, but the consistency, scope, and elementary focused part is what I could really improve upon. I used to teach high school Spanish and it felt easier to build a proficiency based curriculum with high school Spanish 1-4. I have two 30 minute classes per week with each grade. Do you have an overall scope and sequence that you use or follow? I bought Unit 1 of No Me Digas and plan to experiment with that. Your blog is extremely helpful!
Hi Emily. I created ¡No Me Digas! to be for the first 3 years of elementary Spanish. Year one is available now. It is 4 units that I currently use with my kindergarten students. Years two and three will be added in the future. I do not have an official document with the scope and sequence. But I hope to post a more official document in the future. Thanks for your purchase and I am glad I can help in some way. We, elementary language teachers, have to stick together. 🙂
Hi, Mrs. Spanish. I really like your blog and your followers’ comments as well.
Where may I find ¡No me digas!
Muchas gracias
¡Hola, Emily! It is available on my Teachers Pay Teachers site. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/No-me-digas-Units-1-4-Early-Elementary-Spanish-Curriculum-4629464?aref=htrtmr03
Hola, Emily. Mi nombre es Lufe. I will be teaching FLEX Spanish from K-6th this soon-to-start-school year. This is going to be my first time teaching FLEX remotely, and I would really appreciate if you can give me advice and tips on how you do it.
Gracias
¡Hola! When you are teaching that many grades, the consistency, and scope plus all the preps can be overwhelming. I hope to publish some blogs on tips for this year and share my Year at a Glance soon. We went back with students on July 30th, so I have some dos and lots of don’ts. LOL, But of course this year, I feel a lot of similar feelings to my first few years of teaching.
I am reaching out because currently our District is reviewing potential resources to pilot and adopt and we are interested in learning more about your resource. One of our teachers shared the no me digas -CI K-2 curriculum” as a resource for us to review. If you would like to talk over the phone please feel free to reach out via email and we can schedule a time.
¡Hola Kenya! Email me and amitchell@mrsspanish.com so we can work out a time to talk. Thanks!
I have used your No Me Digas curriculum this year and love it. I used it with 1st – 3rd and they have learned so much. I would like to use the next level for 2nd and 3rd next year. Is there a way that I can purchase the next level? Thank You.
Anita Fagerberg
I am hoping to get the next units out this summer! 🤞
Hello, We are looking to start your curriculum in our small K-5th grade school. Like many above I’m looking for guidance on how to get started as well as suggestions for 3rd-5th grade. Thanks so much for your work!
HOLA Erica, I just posted a video on my Youtube channel (with a blog post coming soon) about how I lay out curriculum and planning for K-8. Check it out and then feel free to contact me (amitchell@mrsspanish.com) if you have more questions. https://youtu.be/e0XRY5ZCuec
Hi! I will be teaching Spanish to K-8 starting in September 2022. I have purchased No Me Digas as well as Unit 1 and 2 of Que Lindo. I love, Love, LOVE the CI method and am so excited to begin the year! I am a little unsure of how to use the curriculum in the most effective way in my situation. This will be the first exposure to Spanish for K-5 and I would like to make some adaptions to what we have for 6-8 but teach a similar cycle to all grades this year. Would you have any suggestions for me?
¡Hola Brooke! – I use ¡No me digas! for my K-2. I cycle them so that I am teaching the same lessons (with some differentiation) for all my K-2 classes. Then I group 3-5 together which I use the first 7 units of SOMOS (with adaptations and substitutions) as well as the first 4 units of ¡Cuéntame! from Fluency Matters. For my 6th-8th grades, I use Somos as well as Señor Wooly, novels and other resources. If you take a look at this video it breaks it down a little better. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0XRY5ZCuec&feature=emb_imp_woyt
Any chance you could give us a general idea of what the Cuentame episodes cover, so we can decide if we want to use them or make something else for that time in the calendar? I am a new Spanish teacher teaching k-8 and trying to figure life out while making new plans for next year to change things up!
¡Hola! Elizabeth, I am not seeing ¡Cuéntame! available for sale on the Wayside Publishing (company who bought out Fluency Matters) It looks like the only way to buy it is through Ebay or 2nd hand. Anyone else know where you could find it? ¡Cuentame! is broken down into “episodes” with 3 sets of vocabulary for each episode. It was written a while back so it follows the traditional TPRS style: introduce vocabulary, PQA, Story-telling, Reading. Then when all three sets are done you have a “main episode” with reading comprehension questions and activities that use all the vocabulary. Some examples of the vocabulary in the first units are: se llama, hay, gatita, va a, ve, come. I only have used the first 1-5 episodes although it goes up to 25 episodes I believe.
I am wanting to purchase your No me digas curriculum for my K-6 students. I can only find the first 6 units on Tpt. Are Units 7-12 available yet? I am also planning on purchasing the additional stories for the first 4 units through Tpt. Do the 2nd and 3rd years of curriculum come with separate Stories bundles too? Thank you!!