Science in Spanish Makes Lessons Fun!

Estefania Garcia teaches third grade at Madison Heights Elementary. This is her fth year teaching and her rst year at Madison Heights. Garcia went into teaching because she knew that she could make an impact on kids and the community through her work in the classroom. Garcia was born in Mexico, but her family moved to Arizona when she was just a baby. She still likes to travel to Mexico to visit family, she says.

Garcia works with a cohort of third-grade teachers, She teaches science and does so in Spanish.

“Science is a fun (subject) to teach,” Garcia says, “and it’s nice to have the Spanish language aspect to it.” She says between the subject matter and the Spanish, it makes lessons engaging.

Her students agree! Garcia was nominated by student Peter, who writes that his teacher “is so kind, and she’s good at teaching Spanish.”

Teaching animal life cycles has been one of the most memorable units this year, says Garcia. The students were excited to research their animals, and the classroom was populated with zebra sh and caterpil- lars, then cocoons. Later the students got to release the butter ies. The two classroom zebra sh go home with designated students on the weekends.

In her free time, Garcia likes to read. Reading was her favorite subject when she was a student, and she still enjoys favorites like children's book authors Shel Silverstein and Roald Dahl. These are two of the authors she likes to recommend to her students.

More recently, she started reading historical ction. She notes, “I’ve recently gotten into memoirs. I like learning about other people’s experiences and perspectives.”

Garcia encourages her students to give their best effort, even when a task is dif cult for them. “When they’re getting frustrated (they should) take a step back and try their hardest...that will give them the best outcome in the end,” she says.

Garcia is happy that she joined the teaching team at Madison Heights. It was the right move for her. “It was a nice transition. Everyone was really supportive and it has been nice,” says Garcia.

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