¡Lo que pasa en las clases de español (What’s happening in Spanish classes)!

 

ALL CLASSES:  At the beginning of this week, we will be doing a review of the vocabulary that we have been working with this session.  At the end of this week and on into next week, I will be doing individual oral assessments.  This is not really something that I want the students to study for.  I want to find out how well they are learning the material from the activities that we have been doing in class.

 

Kindergarten – We will be reviewing greetings, colors, numbers to 20, emotions and parts of the face.

 

1/2s – We will be reviewing numbers to 40, emotions, colors, sizes, comparisons, and animals.

 

3/4s and 5/6s – We will be using the vocabulary we have been working with in the mini-stories in new skits that the students will be working with in groups.  Each group will be given a new mini-story to teach to the rest of the class.  The students will also be working with questions...

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We will be doing holiday related cultural activities this week.  The 5/6 classes will be making traditional Mexican style yarn paintings and  the 3/4 classes will be making traditional paper flowers.  The 1/2 classes will be making luminarias:  paper candle holders used to light walkways during holiday processions.  All of the classes will be listening to Spanish holiday music and discussing holiday traditions in the Spanish speaking world. 

Feliz Navidad a todos!

¡Lo que pasa en las clases de español (What’s happening in Spanish classes)!

 

Kindergarten – We are adding a few emotions to their vocabulary.  We are also learning a couple of songs about animals and we will be using the colors and numbers to start simple descriptions of the animals.

 

1/2s – We are continuing to work with the animal descriptions.  The students are describing animals to each other and the students are drawing pictures based on each other’s descriptions.  Fun!

 

3/4s and 5/6s – The students are retelling mini-story #1 in their own words, both orally and written.  We will be continuing on to mini-story #2.  Both mini-stories are posted under documents at the bottom of the specials page on the Stargate website.

 

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German Explo:  We started a mini-story last week about a baby named Jochen.  We will continue working with this story this week.  The students will be retelling the story in their own words, both orally and written.  They will also have the opportunity to expand the story.

SciFi Movies:  Today in class the students simulated a press conference with the first aliens to arrive on Earth from another planet.  Three students took the roles of the aliens and the others were reporters.  Most of the questions and answers were very creative, intelligent and well thought out, although I did find it hard to buy that the aliens arrived on a snowboard!  The "reporters" now need to write a newspaper article about the interviews.  I'm not sure I will be very pleased with the outcome, however, as very few students felt it was necessary to take notes during the interview.  They must have better memories than I do!  The "aliens" need to write a paper about questions that they thought should have been asked but weren't.  For most students, this assignment is due Wednesday.  For the few that actually did their homework assignment this past weekend (10 questions to be asked at the "press conference"), their due date is Friday.  If you have any questions on this, give me a call.

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¡Lo que pasa en las clases de español (What’s happening in Spanish classes)!

 

Kindergarten – We are currently working on colors, emotions and numbers 1-10.  All of the students can count to ten but they don’t know the individual numbers out of sequence.

 

1/2s – We are working on animal descriptions and will begin telling simple stories using the animals.

 

3/4s and 5/6s – We have been telling animal stories and working on descriptions (sizes, colors, etc.).  This week we are starting to work on “mini-story” #1 from the book “Cuéntame”.  You can find this story in the document section of the Specials Team page on the Stargate website.

 

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German Intro - We have been working with the basics of German pronounciation, numbers and colors.  They are picking the vocabulary up very quickly!  We are also starting to work with mini-stories.  We're all having trouble with mixing up German and Spanish!  We truly have a multi-lingual class!

SciFi Movies - We are continuing to watch the original version of "The Day the Earth Stood Still."  Later in the week we will be preparing for a surprise class activity for next week.  More about that next week!

The due dates for the class assignments were incorrect in last week's blog.  The correct due dates for the "choice" assignments are Dec. 16, Jan. 22 and Feb. 20.

 "¡Bienvenidos a la clase de español!"  Welcome to Spanish class!

We will be using a method this year called TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling).  Basically, instead of studying the traditional vocabulary theme units, we will be using short stories to help students acquire the language in a more natural way.  Classes are taught primarily in Spanish and it involves constant repetition of elements that the students already know through questions and answers, games and mini-stories. We will add 3-4 new vocabulary words or concepts every day, eventually working up to a larger story that the students will be able to read, discuss and expand.  We will also be doing some vocabulary theme units and cultural activities as enrichment material.

As a basis for the curriculum, I will be using "¡Hola Niños!" (K-2) and "¡Cuéntame!" (3-6) published by TPRS Publishing.  The material in this program covers all of the state language standards. You are welcome to come in (with an appointment,...

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 Science Fiction Movies (B-day):  The focus of this class is classic scifi movies dealing with space exploration and alien invasion.  We have started our first movie, “The Day the Earth Stood Still” from 1951.  I wanted the students to see the original before the 2008 remake is released in December. 

 

About a third of these students’ grades will be based on “focus” (staying on task, behaving appropriately) while watching the movies and participation (“part” in Power School) in class discussions.  Both of these grades will be on a 10 point scale with 10 being an A and 6 being a D-, the lowest passing grade.  They will also be asked occasionally to write a paragraph stating their opinion on a topic we were discussing in class.  These will also be graded on the 10 point scale.

 

Students will be responsible for turning in 3 “choice” assignments throughout the trimester.  The first one is due Dec. 15.  The others are due Jan. 23 and Feb. 19.  Students may choose between a variety of suggested...

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 "Willkomen!"  Welcome to German class!

We will be using a method called TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling).  Basically, instead of studying the traditional vocabulary theme units, we will be using short stories to help students acquire the language in a more natural way.  Classes are taught primarily in German and it involves constant repetition of elements that the students already know through questions and answers, games and mini-stories. We will add 3-4 new vocabulary words or concepts every day, eventually working up to a larger story that the students will be able to read, discuss and expand.  We will also be doing some vocabulary theme units and cultural activities as enrichment material.

As a basis for the curriculum, I will be using "Look, I Can Talk!" published by TPRS Publishing.  The material in this program covers all of the state language standards. You are welcome to come in (with an appointment, please!) and look over the materials to see what we will be doing.

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Lo que pasa en las clases de español: 

 

Kindergarten:  We are going to be concentrating on numbers this week.  While most of the students can count at least to 15 in Spanish, they are having a hard time with the individual numbers out of sequence.  We will be doing many different activities and games designed to help them with this.

 

1/2 grades:  If you haven’t already seen them, please ask your child to show you the “luminarias” that they made.  They are traditionally used during holiday celebrations to light walkways.  We are finishing up our maps of the 21 Spanish speaking countries and we will be playing some games with them.  We will also be expanding the animal descriptions and “stories” we have been doing to include descriptions of students in the class.  I will be out of school on this coming Friday and Monday, and the substitute will be showing a very good video about the Day of the Dead celebrations.

 

3/4 grades:  We had a lot of fun at the end of the week...

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