¡La familia, el avión, y caliente!

I was recently reading an article on foreign language acquisition and read this: "Students who participated in a foreign language program prior to secondary school were more likely to continue their world language study." My hope is that your students continue to study Spanish into their high school years!

Here's what your students have been doing in Spanish class:

Kindergarten:

Kindergarten just finished learning or reviewing numbers 1-10. Some highlights from our min-unit were the number song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6ojH4UU_qk) and the sidewalk chalk jumping activity. In this activity, students wrote the numbers on the sidewalk. Then I said a number and they had to jump on that number. It was a beautiful day outside and a perfect practice activity!

The Kindergarteners are now starting a more thematic unit on La oruga muy hambrienta (The Very Hungry Caterpillar). We are learning the days of the week, via a chant (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAyHyF_mDG8) - though the Kindergarteners do it MUCH better than the girls in the video. :D We are also learning the names of the various foods that the hungry caterpillar eats, while continuing to practice colors and numbers!

First and Second Grades

These classes are now on Episode 2 of the Salsa videos. Here's episode 2 if you'd like to watch it: http://www.gpb.org/salsa/making-soup. In this episode, Goldilocks goes back to the three bears' house to apologize to bebé oso and ends up making the bear family a new batch of soup.  

Here's the target vocabulary (with the actions we are learning). See previous blog for more vocabulary we are reviewing.

• caliente - hot (fan your mouth)
• frío - cold (hug yourself and shiver)
• papá - dad (hands high over your head like a papa bear)
• mamá - mom (hands midway up by your ears like a mama bear)
• bebé - baby (hands by your shoulders like a baby bear)
• ¡Hasta luego! - start in a salute and fling your hand up and to the side of your body like your waving goodbye)
• cuatro - four (show on fingers)
• cinco - five (show on fingers)

We will be doing activities to help us solidify the vocabulary for the next week and then move to the next episode.

Third and Fourth Grades

This unit is called "Fiestas de Yucatán." The past week, they received fake plane tickets and took the plane to the Yucatán, and they started the trip by reviewing colors and describing some of the things they saw at the start of their trip. In the coming weeks, we will be learning or reviewing numbers 1-100, writing sentences to describe a graph, comparing and contrasting the weather in the Yucatán with the weather in Minnesota, and describe how houses look in the Yucatán.

Fifth and Sixth Grades
Their unit is called "Cuadros de familia" ("Portraits of the Family"). They began the unit by learning the names of family members:

• papá - dad
• mamá - mom
• hermano - brother
• hermana - sister
• abuelo - grandpa
• abuela - grandma
• bebé - baby
• perro - dog
• gato - cat

In the coming weeks, they will be learning and practicing prepositions (particularly a la dereche de, a la izquierda de, and detrás de - to the right of, to the left of, and behind). Here's the chant we are using to remember prepositions: https://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=eYeqUetm6fY. They will then use the new vocabulary to read a short paragraph describing a family portrait. They will use the information they read to label the family members in the picture. The 5th and 6th graders will have a quiz on the vocabulary the week of November 17th.

Fiesta, Familia, y Salsa

¡Hola!

The past few weeks, I've been busy as a bee creating the best Spanish program I can for your students! All grades (except Kindergarten) are just finishing up the unit on greetings and introductions. It's something they've likely learned every year, but so important for beginning a conversation!  Now, we are ready to move on to new topics.

Kindergarten:
Kindergarteners began the year by learning colors (they finished the unit today, though we will continue to incorporate colors in our daily learning). During the unit, they sang a song (which I hope they sang at home for you!), sequenced colors according to directions, became the "teacher" to quiz their partner, colored while saying the colors they were using, and many other activities. Today, we began learning about numbers.  Stay tuned for a future blog post of ideas to practice numbers with your child. For the time being, here's the song we are singing to remember the numbers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6ojH4UU_qk.

1st-2nd Grades:
The 1st and 2nd grade students will be following the many of the same learning targets for part of the year. The primary learning resource we will be using is the "Salsa" series, created by Georgia Public Broadcasting. You can find the link to the episodes here: http://beta.gpb.org/salsa/term/episode. The students really enjoyed the first episode, as well as the kinesthetic activities we've done to learn and practice the vocabulary. Each episode focuses on particular vocabulary and repeats them over and over again to stick them in the students' memories. In the first episode, students learned uno, dos, tres; grande (big), pequeño (small); oso (bear); hasta luego (see you later); cama (bed), silla (chair), and plato de sopa (bowl of soup). We will not solely be using this curriculum, but it will be the base of the 1st and 2nd grade program.  Something your child can do this week to practice is to show you the actions we've learned with each vocabulary word.

• grande - arms stretched overhead
• pequeño - make a small ball shape with your hands
• oso - make hands into claws and say rawr
• hasta luego - start like you were going to salute, move your hand into a wave over your head
• cama - make your right arm perpendicular to your left arm, with your hand at the elbow
• silla - tap the chair closest to you
• plato de sopa - make a circle with your hands (like a bowl), tip it to your lips and say SOPA!

3rd-4th Grades:
In the next units, the 3rd and 4th grade students will be learning about the same topic.  The unit is called "Fiestas de Yucatán." In the unit, they will embark on a imaginary trip to the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico. On their "trip," they will learn about various elements of Mexican culture.  The best part is that they will learn about all of this in Spanish, becoming masters at being language detectives (figuring out how to understand a language using context clues). Some learning targets for this unit are:

In Spanish, I can...

1. ...locate Yucatán on a map and name four different places in Yucatán. 
2. ...tell you and demonstrate the steps to making an authentic tortilla.
3. ...sing most of the Mexican song De colores.
4. ...name the colors of the rainbow.
5. ...show how the ancient numbers Chichén Itzá were written.
6. ...compare the weather of the Yucatán and Minnesota.

5th-6th Grades:
Over the next few months, 5th and 6th grade students will be doing a unit called Cuadros de familia. The unit is based off a book illustrated (with anecdotal stories) by Carmen Lomas Garza. You can read about the book and see example pictures here: http://www.amazon.com/Pictures-Anniversary-Edition-Cuadros-Quincea%C3%B1era/dp/089239207X.   In a nutshell, the book is a collection of paintings that illustrate the author's childhood. By using this book as a basis for our unit, we are able to learn a bit about a Mexican-American's experience growing up in Texas as well as learn important Spanish language skills. Some learning targets for this unit are:

In Spanish, I can...

1. ...talk about my family using tengo... (I have...).
2. ...explain the differences between our family structures versus those of Latino families.
3. ...count to 100.
4. ...describe my home.
5. ...say and demonstrate the steps of make tamales. 
6. ...listen to and understand an excerpt about the importance of the piñata.
7. ...know basic food vocabulary.

Thanks for being involved in your child's language education! Your support and interest at home definitely accelerate their learning!