Well, we're at the end of the trimester.  Friday is officially 2/3 of the way through the school year!

Please take a look at your grades and make sure there are no mistakes.  And don't forget that extra credit food is due Thursday and Friday.  There are no make-up days.  The complete instructions for the food project are at the bottom of my web page.   The school library has some great multi-cultural cookbooks if you're looking for ideas.

Did you know that 70% of our vocabulary we picked up through *reading*?  Neither did I until I attended the conference two weeks ago.  We are beginning silent reading time two times a week in class.  Students can select any of the books which I have in my library.  Books range from preschool picture books up through Harry Potter and chapter books written by native speakers.

We are also going to spend some time examinin ...

Hi everybody!

This week we are watching everybody's forecasts, and reviewing our maps.

I came back from the conference with a few ideas, so don't be surprised to see some changes in the coming weeks!  Some of the main things I learned about were how to teach and learn about other cultures in a more effective way, and how to build literacy in a second language.

Ack!  Nobody got the assignment sheet for the map project!  I am attaching the sheet to my webpage, and will have copies for all the students on Tuesday.

Unfortunately, I was out of school for most of last week.  The plans I had laid out had to be changed because of my absence. 

Monday and Tuesday of this week, therefore, we will be continuing to work on the weather reports students began last week.  Next week we will present the reports as well as the maps.

I will be out of the building on Thursday and Friday at a conference, learning how to use storytelling to develop fluency and literacy in foreign language instruction. 

There are a few important dates to keep in mind now.  There is no school next Monday, February 18.  It is President's Day.

The following week is the end of the trimester.  Extra Credit food projects are on Thursday, February 28 and Friday, February 29.  Start planning and preparing now!  (And remember to look at the requirements and guidelines again at the bottom o ...

Well, it had to happen sooner or later, we have a full five day week!

This week will continue using our community vocabulary while reviewing our grammar. 

At this time students have approximately 550 Spanish words in their active vocabulary.  They can talk about a variety of animals, activities, school and household supplies, adjectives, prepositions, places in a town, family members and food.  Students are adept at giving and receiving commands.  They are able to grammatically match adjectives to the nouns being modified.  Students are currently focusing on conjugating verbs in the present tense, and giving directions to a peer.

Hi everybody!

Just a quick reminder that this is a short week again.  There are no classes this Friday, February 1.

This week we are going to continue reviewing verb conjugations and points of grammar.  We are also going to keep recycling our previous vocabulary words while adding more food and community related words to the mix.

Now that we have a very good foundation in Spanish, we are going to begin looking at the building blocks of the language.  Specifically, we are going to begin looking at how verbs conjugate, or change to show who is doing the action.  We will also study family relationships.  Throughout this we will continue to practice all of our current vocabulary.

Please be aware that we will begin to have some homework from now on.  The homework will be focused primarily on practicing the grammatical points we have learned in class, so it will not be long or difficult.

We only have class for two days this week!  We will continue working with our new vocabulary words. 

The students have approximately 400 words in their active vocabulary at this poitn and can execute multiple commands correctly without pausing to translate the directions into English.  Their monster projects were, in general, astounding.  Students wrote a minimum of ten sentences to intricately describe a drawing they had made of a monster, and then were able to draw the monsters which other students had written and illustrated.  By far this year's monsters were the most detailed in their descriptions.

I wanted to send out a brief explanation of why there are no recent grades posted for Spanish classes.  The students have been working on a long-term project which just ended yesterday.  There were no classroom participation grades during the interim.  I am posting grades for the projects as I work.

Welcome back everybody!  Thank you for all the wonderful gifts!  Your thoughtfulness never ceases to amaze me.

This week we will be finishing our monster projects.  Some classes will be done by Monday while others will complete their projects on Tuesday.  So far these have been amazing.  After we complete the monsters, we are returning to the beginning with new vocabulary.  Please make sure that you have your dry erase markers with you, as well as all of your class supplies.  We will be having fun, but you need to be prepared.

Don't forget that next week is a half week due to conferences.