One of my favorite events is next week - the Scholastic Books Warehouse Sale!  The same company that runs the book fairs at local schools has a warehouse sale a couple of times a year for teachers.  I have been going twice a year for about the last 7 years or so and I have built up an extensive classroom library as a result.  They have a lot of titles in Spanish and since they usually are not as much in demand at their school book fairs (depending on where you live), they are pretty cheap.

I love using children's books in Spanish in my classroom.  Typically, I use them to do "grammar" scavenger hunts.  When I first introduce a grammar topic, before I expect my students to be able to apply their knowledge, I want them to be able to recognize other people (authors) using it.  So, I set them loose on the book shelf with the mission of finding examples of what they just learned.  My kids love getting a chance to look at the books, many of which they read as children in English.  They scan the book looking for the specific things I have asked them to look for and list examples to show what they were able to find.

Scavenger Hunt topics I have used (just to name a few):

cognates
definite & indefinite articles
forms of SER and ESTAR (since they show up so frequently)
Ser vs Estar
present tense endings
preterite tense endings
imperfect tense endings
Preterite vs Imperfect (find sentences and justify the usage)
Por vs Para

Once you have the books, the possibilities are really endless.  When they get to the point that they can read a bit, children's books are the best place to start.  The language is simple, there are pictures for reading support, and they feature characters that students are familiar with (Clifford, Froggy, Captain Underpants, Elmo, etc.).  It is also easy to differentiate lessons by grouping your books by difficulty.  I code my books A, B, C, D, or E according to the reading level.  I can assign "E" books (the highest level) to my native speakers and "A" books to my weak students.  This way the activity is interesting and challenging for all of them!

Here is a link to the Scholastic Books website where you can find out if there is a warehouse sale happening near you:

Scholastic Book Fairs Warehouse Sales

One of my favorite reference books that I use constantly when lesson planning is a frequency dictionary.  A frequency dictionary is exactly what it sounds like, a dictionary where words are listed in order of how often they appear in written and spoken language rather than in alphabetical order. 

One of the reasons that I originally wanted to stray from the textbook purchased by our district was because of their vocabulary selection.  I remember that in the Spanish I book, one of the terms to be learned in reference to describing people was "silla de ruedas" (which does not even make the cut in the frequency dictionary as it is not one of the 5000 most frequently used words in Spanish).  Any word is a good word, I get it, but when the goal is to build fluency, I just think the word for "wheelchair" can wait.  Or maybe, as in real life, we let that word come up when it is needed.  Sticking to words that are the most frequently used, especially in the lower levels, is crucial to getting students to the point where they can read and listen with comprehension.

Another nice thing about this dictionary is that it has thematic lists.  So, if you want to teach students some words for jobs or professions, this book will tell you that learning words like "autor", "médico", and "profesor" (the top 3 most referenced professions) will be more valuable to students comprehension than "marinero" (the 4,949th most commonly used word in Spanish).

Finally, seeing as over 20 different countries have declared Spanish as their official language, and even more as a secondary language, this tool can help you sort through the different words for "cake", for example.  Do you teach "torta"?  "pastel"? "bizcocho"?  This book will confirm that "torta" is in fact the most common word for "cake", with pastel coming in a close second, and "bizcocho" (a word mostly used by people from Puerto Rico) not even making the list. 

If you don't want to run right out and buy a frequency dictionary, I noticed that I was able to access the same frequency dictionary online (though if you are like me, there is something very loveable about a hard copy):

Spanish Frequency Dictionary

If you would like to ponder this topic more, here is a very interesting read on Lingholic's blog where he discusses the idea that you can understand a large percentage of written and spoken language with a relatively small active vocabulary - as long as that vocabulary consists of the most frequently used words!  So, it makes sense to me to approach teaching vocabulary in this way if our true goal is to have students that are able to understand and communicate with others through the language. 

As a child, I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books.  These were the interactive reading lessons of the 70's and 80's.  Today, almost everything our students encounter is interactive - smart phones, iPads, iPods.  As a teacher, it becomes more and more difficult each year to compete with these devices.  Expecting students to passively ingest knowledge, especially in a language classroom, is more outdated than the iPhone 4.

So, I decided to take what I loved so much about those Choose Your Own Adventure books 30 years ago and bring them into the 21st century.

Here are some of the interactive lessons I have developed for use in my classroom:

Interactive Reading:  Búsqueda del Tesoro
Interactive Culture:  What Would Benito Juarez Do? 

Many times I have found articles or informational websites that I want to use in my classroom, but then I start wondering...will my students be able to understand this?

That is when I stumbled upon this handy tool:

The Fernandez-Huerta Readability Index Calculator

With this "calculator" you are able to copy and paste any text that you find and it will tell you how difficult or easy it would be for a Spanish-speaking person to read and understand.  I have found this very useful when screening websites or articles for use within my classroom. 

While each group of students is unique, I would recommend the following as a starting point for middle/high school Spanish courses.

Spanish I                             Index 80-100
Spanish II                            Index 70-90
Spanish III                           Index 60-80
Spanish IV                          Index 50-70
Spanish V                           Index 40-60                
AP Spanish                        Index 30-50