Get Ready for March Music Madness ’25: Participate in the Bracket Tournament!

Posted on January 7, 2025 by SpanishPlans

With a toddler and newborn, I haven’t posted as much as I would like the past year. But if there’s one thing that gets me foregoing sleep so I can work on creating… it’s the annual March Music Madness. We are happy to announce that our playlist has been shared and we are gearing up for our 12th bracket tournament.

At the moment, we are having a final vote for the 16th and final song of the bracket. You can vote for your favorite now through January 16 (You can also share this link with your students and have them vote as well). [Edit: Himalaya won with 35% of the vote, narrowly beating Vamo’Echando with 33%)

Vote in this Google Form

So, it’s time to get started…. Here’s a quick list to get your started:

  • Start playing the songs in class while your students work or as they walk in the room. The idea is to let them hear the song a few times so that by March, they say “Hey, I’ve heard this song before…”
  • Purchase the Unit on TpT, which is now 50% off until February, and will be updated continuously.
  • Purchase is not required to participate in our bracket or our polls. This year to track downloads, you can download the free “preview” document on the TpT page, which will give you what you need to get started.
  • Get the word out! Comment on our Facebook posts and in the FB Group and Instagram posts. Increasing engagement ensures that the content gets seem by more teachers. Also, talk to other teachers or comment online about why you love the original SpanishPlans bracket.
  • Bookmark the 2025 Homepage for all your MMM needs.
  • Get ready to collaborate. We would love your help in creating any materials. Drop them in the shared Google Drive or reach out if you have any resources that you would be willing to make.
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Bracket Predictions

Posted on February 26, 2024 by SpanishPlans

We are less than a week away from March Music Madness 2024. Plenty of time to get in on what will sure to be the highlight of the year for your students. We recently sat down with Claudio Elliot on her podcast Growing with Proficiency to discuss the Music Tournament. One of the key talking points is how we can use music as a way to discuss in the target language, without having to study the lyrics.

Our resource drive is growing and the one thing you won’t want to miss is the Round 1 Matchup Slideshow which has all the links you need and is the perfect thing to project if you listen and discuss in class.

A recently updated document that you’ll want to look at before next Monday is the Teacher Digital Bracket Prediction Document and Google Form, where you can enter to win prizes award to teachers who have the best score. We also offer a version that teachers can copy and send out to their classes, or new this year is a national google form for students to submit their predictions.


Don’t forget to take pictures of your classroom bracket display (Here’s a folder of materials you can use) and post them in the social media thread of our Facebook Group. A randomly selected post will win a prize. You can also help spread the word about this bracket by posting pictures on social media and tagging us, @SpanishPlans.


Still not quite sure how you can use MMM in your classroom? Read the different ways teachers implement it in into their own classes and adapt it to make it fit their schedule and needs.

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SpanishPlansMMM March Music Madness 24

Posted on February 10, 2024 by SpanishPlans
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The 11th annual March Music Madness tournament is approaching and teachers are gearing up. Our MMM24 homepage has what you need. Don’t miss what students consistently call their favorite part of the year. Our 2024 bracket features 16 current songs (all from the past year) from 25 different artists, hits songs that are currently played on the radio, with over 3 BILLION streams. 

SpanishPlansMMM24 Display

New to the craze and looking for more information? Check out our new FAQ page. Any questions

Here’s all the links you need to get started: Continue reading →

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Mad Libs en español

Posted on December 14, 2023 by SpanishPlans

Next week I’ll be using the Spanish Lottery video of Justino with materials from the Comprehensible Classroom. In order to preview the story I used a Mad Libs activity, generated by ChatGPT which I  fined-tuned. Students worked with a partner: they first wrote the words on a list. Then they asked their partner for their words to fill in the text. They then read the completed text to their partner.

Here’s a free copy of the activity.

You can also do it together as a class by taking suggestions from the class, writing in their answers, and reading the story together.

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Independent Spanish Reading

Posted on October 6, 2023 by SpanishPlans

After different variations over the years, [FVR (Free Voluntary Reading], Lectura Libre, SSR (Silent Spanish Reading), among others] I’ve again renamed our reading time in class to ISR: Independent Spanish Reading.
To kick things off this year, we read for several days in a row giving students a chance to finish a book. We had already read 1 book together as a class to start the year (Capibara con Botas) so I started ISR with the easiest book that I had in my collection.  When students finished reading, they submitted their name with the book they read, and I created posters to hang in the hall with the book cover and the names of the students who read them:

Independent Spanish Reading blog post

This visual showcases how much our students are reading, and students take pride in finding their name on the posters. As we continue, I will add additional books that are part of our library.

You can download the ISR poster here.ISR poster Continue reading →

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Movie Talk Notes Activity

Posted on September 29, 2023 by SpanishPlans
After presenting a MovieTalk/Clip chat, what’s your next step? If you use screenshots to present a video (which is usually my preferred way), then you are already halfway there. Organize the important screenshots on a slide and leave room for students to write underneath the picture. I’ve done this before to have students work with partners to re-tell the story, but another option is to have them write the description of the scene or the phrase as part of a note-taking activity. This allows the students to physically write out the main phrases and vocabulary you are targeting.MovieTalk Notes You can type the list in a quizlet set or in an excel spreadsheet and pass them out as the “answer key” for students to find the correct phrase to write underneath. For this example, I’ve use the video “Decaf” about a cat who gets addicted to coffee. Here is the set of terms students had to write. I made a class copy and folded it in half so students were just looking at the Spanish side at first. Here is my El gato con cafe for notetaking worksheet for students to write on.
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Hispanic Heritage Month

Posted on September 14, 2023 by SpanishPlans

Happy Hispanic Heritage Month! Some ideas to keep in mind this month:

  • We recently combined several of our products into a Hispanic Heritage Bundle… including ourHispanic Heritage Month Bundle popular 10 Misconceptions about the Spanish Speaking World.
  • Technology: Hispanic Country Powerpoint/Slides Backgrounds.
  • Have fun by using our free Passport Page and have students look up a fact about each country. Or purchase our Hispanic Country Stamp Clipart or if you want the real stamps, you can purchase them as a set or individually.
  • We’ve recently updated our list of Hispanic novels for young adults to 180. You can check out the list on this Google Doc. Have students expand their perspective as they check out these books from their school or public library.
  • Take a look back at some of our older posts on HHM.
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Back to School 2023

Posted on August 13, 2023 by SpanishPlans

It’s that time of year again…. summer break is coming to an end for me and I’ll be back in the classroom for year 17 soon. Here are a few things we’ve been up to over the summer to help make YOUR transition back to the classroom an easier one.

World Language Timed Writing PromptsWith more and more teachers needed new ways to show student growth to administration, these two projects are just what every teacher needs. Our first product is our Timed Writing Prompts for any language with a timed-writing sheet to count words and FOUR original storyboards. Featuring six panels of a sequenced story, students write as much as they can in 5 minutes. The best part is using the Excel Spreadsheet or Google Sheet that inserting student data, which  will then calculate the amount of growth. Check the video preview on the product page for more info! This will definitely save you tons of time and impress your administration.

Spanish Vocabulary Data

Our next student growth assessment features vocabulary where students write the translation for 100 common words. After ten minutes, the teacher reads the answers, and students count up the number of words they’ve identified correctly. Teachers input the data and watch the scores go up each time. Need to test specific words? No worries, the testing sheet also comes in an editable format.

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Our next bundle is a LIMITED TIME offer and you won’t find it during sale time… it’s already a huge saving of 25% off our most popular beginning-of-the-year materials and lessons.Spanish back to school lessons

And lastly, this project we did at the end of last school year. Each semester my students read a Hispanic-Book Report Templaterelated novel from the library. I typically don’t have them do anything other than read, but with this easy to use digital template, I think it’s a great way for students to recommend books to their classmates and their peers to see what books are about. The template is 100% editable and be can shared digitally with students to complete for a professional printout when completed.

And if you have a FVR library, stay tuned; we have an upcoming product that you may be interested in. Make sure you are subscribed to our store to be notified when it’s posted.

Spanish Calendar Talk TemplatesAnd finally, our Google Slides Calendar Talk templates provide 9 different slides to choose from, allowing you to discuss the date and highlight interesting events that occur on that date, such as celebrity birthdays and “On this day in history…”. Wonderful way to use the target language to discuss something interesting.

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MMM23 Final 8 songs

Posted on March 15, 2023 by SpanishPlans

If 16 songs and 3 weeks were too much, then maybe the Final 8 songs and a week and a half tournament is just for you. And if the timing is right, it might be a perfect way to cruise into Spring Break.

Final 8 CalendarYou can use this calendar as a guide to coordinate your vote with the rest of the participating classes. Have your students head to the voting page or share the direct link to poll. Note: If you participated in round 1 and your class winners were different, we encourage you to share the links with your students so they can cast their vote to help determine the national winner. You don’t need to follow our schedule as the polls remain open until April 3rd.

Final 8 song bracket 
Download our Final 8 Bracket Labels and get the slides to use in class for free here. 

Listen to a clip of all 8 songs in 2 minutes:



And checkout the youtube playlist of the final 8 songs.

 

clip of the 8 songs

And checkout the youtube playlist of the final 8 songs.
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MMM Links and Raffle

Posted on February 17, 2023 by SpanishPlans

How close is March 6?  SOON! And so for our 10th year, we are hosting our biggest raffle yet! 

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Before we get to the prizes and how to enter, here are some necessary links:

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