Episode 96: ALL things SUMMER

So happy you're here! In this episode I share summer learning opportunities as well as what I've been doing so far this June!! You'll hear what I'm reading, watching, and playing with my kids in Mommy Summer Camp!

Here are the links mentioned in the episode: 

Morning Routine Episode

Ode to Ben Tinsley Episode

Summer learning Opportunities:

• Ben Tinsley's Summer Institute: French Class for Spanish Teachers (COUPON: LOCA for 15% off weekly French classes + debrief for language teachers!)
• Viviana Tracy's Planning Your Year Course (three parts)
• Curriculum Labs with Express Fluency (COUPON: Annabelle for $30 off your registration TO ANY Lab)
• Summer Conference with La Familia Loca PLC included in a membership with La Familia Loca PLC!

We will have our FOURTH Annual LFL PLC Summer Conference this July 30th and 31st! Check it out here! This is included in a La Familia Loca PLC Membership!

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 TRANSCRIPT

Welcome!  

Hi, it's me. And before you listen to this episode of Teaching La Vida Loca, I wanted to tell you about an incredible summer learning opportunity with me and with many other members of La Familia Loca PLC. This summer we are hosting our fourth annual conference via Zoom, so it's a virtual conference, two days, July 30 and 31st. Viviana and I have finished the schedule, and we have curated something incredible for the summer. You can see the schedule and the presenters and read their bios on the link listed in the show notes, but what's most incredible about this conference is it's all the best parts of La Familia Loca PLC in one place during the summer when our souls are fed and we are most energized and our community comes together for this learning opportunity that is truly unique and one of a kind. The conference itself is included in a La Familia Loca PLC membership, so the probably the best part is the energy and inspiration that you feel during the two-day conference you get to carry on through the entire year as we learn it and grow together within our PLC. So, if you're interested, check out the link in the show notes. We would love to have you. I am simply so excited for this summer. I hope to see you there. Welcome back to Teaching La Vida Loca, the podcast you come to for short and sweet and sometimes spicy episodes full of enthusiasm, magic, and tips and tricks for your classroom. I'm Annabelle, your Maestra Loca, and I'm here to bring you inspiration, unapologetic authenticity, and ideas to spark more joy in your teaching journey. I'm turning up the excitement and elated to have you right here with me. I'm not just your host, I'm your cheerleader, and I'm thrilled you're tuning in. So, let's do this. Let's tackle teaching La Vida Loca together.

Starting Back  

My first step to see whether this even works anymore, because it has been so long since I've done this. There's also a horn blaring in the background, so I'm just gonna pause it to see if you can hear that real fast. You can. Oh, well, you know what? We don't know how to edit that out in La Casa de la Maestra Loca. And you know, since you've probably listened to this podcast before, we don't do edits here because I don't have time. So, if the honking really bothers you, then darn it. I guess you'll have to skip this one. Sorry about that. Um, welcome to this episode.

Summer

I almost started recording this two weeks ago, but there was way too many people who support me and listen who were still in the classroom, and now most of you are out. Now, there are still a handful that have until the end of summer, if you are teaching in the United States, end of summer, end of June, which feels like the end of summer. Just kidding, but since I used to have to go back here in New Orleans mid-July, end of June kind of felt like the end of summer. Anyways, some of you are wrapping up at the end of this month, and so I know you might be listening to this before the end of school, which is crazy to me. However, I couldn't wait to record this any longer, so I'm really excited to be here with you today, and to tell you a little bit about what I am doing this summer, and also tell you a little bit about summer learning opportunities, because I am not doing very much this summer in the way of professional development for the first time in maybe 10 plus years, because I'm choosing to have a more relaxed, true vacation-like summer with lots of downtime with my kids. 

Mommy Summer Camp  

We are on day 12 of Mommy summer camp. Every day, I pick a different theme, and we do all sorts of things related to that theme, like Animal Day. We did animal shadow drawings with chalk. We took like little animal figurines that they have in their room, like zoo figurines or whatever, and took them out to the sidewalk, and their shadows cast on the sidewalk, and then we traced those with chalk, and then we went to the zoo using my mother-in-law's membership, and we acted like animals at the park, so just low lift things for me, but making magic for them, and certainly lots of memories, and if you are a parent who is home with your kids, I strongly advise theme days, because it makes everything feel a little bit easier. I also have time built in the day, like when Sissy is sleeping, that's quiet time, so sometimes I take a nap. Today I took a nap, she's still asleep, so now I'm awake, and I'm recording a podcast, but Memphis will read during that time. He'll read and do a math page, and then do creative stuff, and he still is, and that time is like, I'm not planning anything, you go and have fun, and don't be bored, and I love seeing how they come up with ways to not be bored. Isla has an easy time with it, but Memphis is still learning, but he's getting better every day, so that's exciting. 

What I'm Reading  

What am I reading? What are you reading? Hold on, did Annabelle just say read? If you are part of my Familia Loca community, then you know that I am not a reader. The number of times y'all have had, like, book clubs during the summer, and I'm like, sure, y'all can have a book club. I'm not reading anything. However, I have been reading, which is wild. It's all thanks to my friend Andrea Eider, who turned me on to Tiny Habits, which I am currently reading, Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg. And then I just finished Atomic Habits by James Clear, and both of those book’s kind of have made it very easy to read, even if it's just a little bit a day, which has been nice, so I am reading also The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins. I'm reading that because this month in La Familia Loca PLC we are always focused in June on teacher mental and emotional health and our own well-being, and we have a book club this month based on the book The Let Them Theory, so I'm reading that, and I also recently, oh my god, I am I listing more books? It's crazy. I don't know if that's normal, because I've never really been a reader. I don't know if it's normal to have multiple books open, like I'm reading Tiny Habits every night, when I'm going to bed, I read the Let Them Theory for 10 to 30 minutes by myself some point during the day when the kids are playing a game together, and then in my other time, if I have extra time, I'm reading books by David Bach. Do you all know David Bach? I'm kind of obsessed right now, but I just discovered him. He wrote The Automatic Millionaire, which was recently updated. I am currently reading Debt Free for Life, because I'm so eager to get out of credit card debt. So, I'm excited to read this, and hopefully in combination with Tiny Habits and Atomic Habits, get rid of debt and not stressing so much about money all the time. Money is hard, but it won't be forever. That's what I'm telling myself. So that's what I'm reading. 

What I'm Watching  

As far as what I'm watching, okay? I don't even know where to begin with this, because Familia Loca, no, I'm not a reader, but they know I'm a watcher, and I could speak for hours and hours and hours about my favorite TV shows to binge, and I recently started Black Mirror on Netflix, which, oh my gosh, if you are into dark sci-fi, sort of, it's literally inspired by The Twilight Zone. Okay, so if you remember The Twilight Zone, you love The Twilight Zone. For me, it's very nostalgic, because my grandfather loves The Twilight Zone, so I watched it a lot with him growing up, but this is like next level dark, a lot of the episodes, but so freakin good, and I like that they're standalone episodes, much like Twilight Zone. It's like if you don't watch episode 14, you can skip along all the way to episode 27 and it doesn't make any difference. It's not like you missed anything. So, I've been watching that. Paul and I together have decided to start watching the Marvel movies from like in chronological order. So, we've watched Captain America and like the first one, and now we are watching Captain Marvel, and so we're going in chronological order. If you haven't ever done that, it's really, fun. If you have a Disney Plus account, it allows you to sort it by Marvel, and then if you scroll down, you can see it in chronological order, but if you scroll down further, it has chronological by movie, because the initial chronological also includes the TV shows like Wanda Vision and stuff, but we, we've watched Wanda Vision, so we just wanted to do the movies standalone. Highly recommend Wanda Vision too. Gosh, I should do an entire. Episode on TV shows. If you would like that, you let me know, because I could give you so many recommendations for TV shows. If you're a Spanish teacher and you are like, well, I would love to improve my Spanish this this summer, and you're not a native speaker, then I would highly recommend Casa de Papel, which is a money heist, and there are great captions in English. Paul didn't mind at all watching that with me in Spanish, because the storyline is so good and so intense. But yay, yay for watching things.

What I'm Eating  

What am I eating? Okay, so I've been doing so well with my morning routine. I've been eating breakfast every day, and that's not something that I normally do. I'll link an old episode that I recorded based on how to get started with a morning routine, but honestly, it's kind of outdated. I almost need to do a new one, because this month I presented to Familia Loca. I told you that the month is all focused on self-care and teacher wellness. Well, this month I talked about how I have shifted my morning routine so that I can't not do it. There is never a morning I can't not do a morning routine. I must do it every single day, and I've made it doable for myself, even on mornings when I have only five minutes, and I say, well, there's literally no reason or no time for me to do it. There's always time, and I presented to Familia about how every day my morning routine includes an A, B, and a C, something to get me active, something to keep my brain balanced, and calories, and I was inspired by to do this by a friend, Whitney Whetstone, who told me that she was going to create menus for herself because she needs the novelty, and she needs to be able to like pick and choose what she wants to do every day for her morning routine, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is the missing piece for me. So, yeah, there are mornings where my morning routine is less than five minutes, but today I went for a run, followed by a calisthenics workout, followed by some gratitude journaling, and an affirmation card pull and lots of other things on my balanced checklist, and then I went outside and meditated for three minutes, and then I sat down and did my planner for the day, and ate an egg and all of that took me 50 minutes this morning, so I do a morning regime every morning, and it just looks a little different every single time. So, I'm eating every morning, which is lovely. I've been really loving overnight oats, because they're so cheap to make, and they're delicious. My favorite recipe is a one with apples and cinnamon and cloves, so I use ground up cloves and cinnamon and overnight oats and milk and Greek yogurt and a little bit of vanilla, and then I just shake it up and leave it in the fridge, and oh my goodness, it's so, so, so good. And then, for lunches, tomatoes are everywhere right now for us. We just had Creole Tomato Festival here in New Orleans. It was delicious, and so I've been really enjoying tomato and cheese sandwiches. If you think that's weird, I'm sorry, but it's not. You're missing out. I also really like to put Marmite on there, because my father's British, so I grew up on Marmite. If that offends you, sorry. Oh my gosh, it's making my mouth drool. All my Australian friends who are listening, I'm sorry. I ran out of Vegemite, so I'm switched back to good old Marmite, and what else? Oh, for dinners, crock pots all the way. I really thought I would switch. I was like, oh, I'll have more time in the summer to cook. No, I don't, with three kids home. Are you kidding me? There's no time to cook. So, I really like easy crock pot or instant pot recipes, where I can just throw it all in, and then it's done after four to six hours, you know, and it's delicious. Do you like crock pot recipes? I feel like you should send your favorites my way. That's your homework assignment. If you have a favorite crock pot recipe, send it my way. I would be willing to bet I'll give you an update on one of my future episodes. I'll write a sticky note right now, so I don't forget, but I'd be willing to bet I get less than two recipes. If you prove me wrong, I don't know what I'll do. Something great, but you'd be shocked at how few people actually email me back, or actually do the things that I say. So, email me your favorite crock pot recipes. I'm making a note for myself, and however many I receive, I'll keep a tally, and if it's more than two, I'll do something fun and exciting on the next episode, a giveaway or something. That's a good challenge, huh? Okay, so that's what I'm eating, that's what I'm watching, that's what I'm reading. I hope that you're doing all the awesome things.

Summer PD  

Now, I'll launch into some of the PD things I'm doing this summer to give you an idea of what's going on, what's out there, and see if there's anything of interest to you, and you can find all the links for all of the things that I'm going to talk about in the show notes as well. Okay, so the first thing I want to tell you about is not PD with me, but it is PD with one of my closest friends, which is wild that I get to say that now, but Ben Tinsley is running an eight-week course called French for Spanish teachers or language teachers. But it is an opportunity for you to acquire French and simultaneously feel what it's like to be a student again. So he's running these classes like I did my Spanish classes for adults, where he's going to run the class and then have a debrief, so that you can put your teacher hat back on and say, oh, this is something I noticed as a student that I definitely am going to apply in my own classroom, because it was so effective for me, comprehensive wise, or I noticed this when you were speaking in French and you did this action, or you did this, that it really helped me reengage, or whatever it is. It's really, really fascinating to have that other piece of when you have a teacher who is focused on acquisition-driven instruction, who is skilled and a masterful like Ben. You're going to walk away with countless ideas for your classroom, but the beauty of this of course is that he has the debrief built in, so it's eight weeks on Wednesdays, 7pm I think it's Eastern, but I'll have all the details in the, in the show notes for you, but eight weeks, and every single day at the end of that class, it's 60 to 75 minutes of class, we get to debrief and actually talk about what was supportive, really build empathy for our own students, and then walk away with strategies that we're going to be able to implement this fall, right away. I'm also going to link an episode for you, where I think I called it an ode to Ben Tinsley, and it was an episode I recorded after taking a French class with him on Zoom, and just marveled at his ability to do so little prep work, but be so engaging, and he just makes it look doable. He makes it feel so doable, so if you're a teacher that feels like you are constantly like reinventing the wheel or creating or searching for things, and you'd like to see somebody masterfully do so much with so little, I highly recommend you take this. Also, if you want to learn French, and you know that's this is the perfect way to do it. I can't say anything more about him or this course, so that's the first thing I'm going to, I'm going to link for you. It's called his summer institute French class for Spanish teachers and world language teachers.

Planning the Year  

The next thing I want to talk to you about is my friend Viviana is doing a planning the year course, I'm doing her first round, which starts this week, but she's running at least one other session, and she's opened it up to people beyond La Familia Loca PLC. Last year, she just did it for members within our community who wanted to opt into it, but it was so wildly successful, and the materials that she created in the workbook that she guided us through was so thorough. She's the total opposite of me. Like, I, as you can tell, I am a person who I'm not very organized, I'm not very type A, I'm incredibly type Z, if that is a type. She is Type A to the maximum. Everything's in these beautiful spreadsheets, everything's planned out. I am not a person who has ever had my year planned out, but she does it in such a way that it makes it feel so possible. So, I'm doing her session one again to really think through how I'm going to use novels this year. Where am I going to plug and play the various mini clip chat units that I've developed for Familia Loca? Where in there am I going to run my assessments? What fits best when what clubs? Cultural celebrations, am I celebrating when, and so the way that she maps it out and guides us through it is really incredible, and she does it over three different, what's it called, three different sessions, and so the first round is at 6pm her second round is at 3pm on three different dates in July, early July, and she said if there's enough interest that she'd open up a third session, so that's well worth thinking about planning the year, and if you are a Familia Loca member, then you know Viviana Tracy very well. If you are not, then you can just know from me that she is literally my right-hand lady. I couldn't do anything that I do within my PLC community without her, and I trust her and my children with my life, and she's an incredible master teacher and a wonderful person to learn with and from. So strongly recommend you checking out her planning the year course and reaching out to her at Help at La Maestra loca.com Help at La Maestra loca.com if you'd like to see if she's running any later sessions on that.

Express Fluency  

The next thing I want to tell you about is something I'm doing with Elissa of Express Fluency. We normally do conference in the cloud, but this year we decided to make it biannual. I'll be talking to her about it on Instagram this week, so if by the time you're listening to this, you want to know whether we've gone live or not, you can just go to my Instagram page and either wait for it or watch the recording. But that shift is going to be incredible. We are doing some curriculum labs instead, so I will be doing a one-day full day workshop with only 20 people. It's limited to 20 people per cohort. I know Ben Tinsley is doing one, I believe Chio Jacoby is doing one, Rocio Jacobi, Claudia Elliot, and each of us will be running a full day workshop where that is very specific to the people that it's tailored for. So, for my people, it's anybody who's new to acquisition driven instructor instruction. The lab itself is called Getting Started with Acquisition Driven Instruction, and what I'm going to be doing is spending a very focused, tailored day to help people really understand the core principles on foundational skills that are needed to facilitate language acquisition. I'll be using videos for my classes. We will be doing debriefs, and we will be really, really working through the skills needed to start the year strong with acquisition-driven instruction. If you are a person who has always dabbled but not got very far, this would be a great one-day course for you. If you're a person who is wanting to start dabbling, maybe you're tied to a curriculum or you're tied to a textbook, but you want to start dabbling. This would be a great day. I know that Claudia's course is also really, good for that, because it's exactly how to work with acquisition-driven instruction when you're tied to a textbook. So, I strongly encourage you to check these out. If you use the coupon code Annabelle, you'll get $30 off. Oh my god, I didn't even tell you. For Ben's, you get, if you use the coupon code Loca L O C A, you will get a discount. Let me look up what that. what he made that discount. 15% 15% I don't know if I'm gonna be able to go back and edit that in there, but Loca L O C A for 15% off of Bens, and if you use the coupon code Annabelle, A N A B E L E, for the curriculum labs with Express Fluency, which are also linked in my show notes, you will get $30 off of the cost, which is awesome, and you'll get to spend the whole entire day with me. Does that sound fun, or what? I hope you think it sounds fun. The date of that is July 27.

Familia Loca PLC Summer Conference 2026 

I know it's going to be fantastic, and the last thing that I want to tell you about, you should have also heard an ad about it at the beginning of this podcast, is the Familia Loca PLC Summer Conference 2026 This is our fourth annual Familia Loca PLC conference, which is so freaking cool every single year I've been blown away by the talent, the thoughts, the activities, the ideas that come from the minds of the members within La Familia Loca PLC. What's so nice about our PLC is that we have such a range of professionals. Professionals within it, we have people who are just starting on their journey with acquisition driven instruction. We have people who have been dabbling in it for 10 years but are still very much tied to a curriculum. We have people who use things like Somos or who use Tina's curriculum or who use this and that, and novels, who you know, have been doing things for a while. We have people who have been teaching with acquisition-driven instruction for over 25 years, and who are masters in the field, and who present nationally and internationally. It's so cool to have such a wide range of expertise, and genius within the community. Every year I encourage members to apply to present for our conference, and we curate a dynamic summer conference that lasts two days on Zoom. I always present once, Viviana presents once, always, and then we have Lan Yap thrown in there, because it's La Familia Loca PLC, so there's always Lan Yap. Lan Yap means a little something extra. So, our Lan Yap this year is going to be a song bracket competition hosted by Shane Goodpasture, who's one of our members, who presents all over the country and is a very talented presenter. I'm so excited for that, I can't stop smiling, even just thinking about it. And then we're going to have our white unicorn gift exchange, which is where we bring something that we have handmade, and sometimes it's a bit of a disaster, and it's hysterical, and then other people are like master potters or master glass workers, and they bring these wild things that they've made, and we definitely fight items, but it's so fun, and that's always thrown in there. So, it's two full days on Zoom of learning together and growing together, and the best part, it's included in the Familia Loca PLC membership, so if you've been considering getting a membership, I strongly encourage you to join us before July. You'll get access to this two-day conference, which is July 30 and 31st on Zoom, and then you'll have year-round support after the fact. The conference itself is the best of us, it is us coming together during our summer, when we are all relaxed, we are all so fed, our souls are so happy, and then we get together, and we get to PD together, and learn together, and grow together, and support each other, and it's like all the best things that make up La Familia Loca PLC, in these two days it is spectacular, and I always walk away with so many ideas, and then I have to practice what I preach and really nail it down to just one thing that I'm going to implement before I come back for more, because I have to model that, because that's something we always do in Familia Loca, is hold ourselves accountable to doing one thing well and trying one thing before we move on to the next, so if you're interested in joining us, that's 36 days away from when I'm recording this. I would absolutely love to have you, and I would absolutely love to support you year round with professional development from me and from presenters from all around the world every single month, and resources and ways to connect with a global community of educators who want to prioritize more joy in their classrooms for them and their students, and really want to maximize the language that they're facilitating and that the kids are acquiring in their classroom, so I would love to have you.

Take Care!  

I hope that one of these, or more of these opportunities, are of interest to you, and I hope that you have a wonderful start to your summer. If you're just getting started, and if you're in it, continue to lavish it. I am thinking of you and sending you my love from hot and humid Louisiana. Until next time, I will be relaxing La Vida Loca during summer, and I hope you will be too. Take care. Bye bye.