Mexican Culture Month

The Día de los Muertos festivities at the beginning of the month seem like a long time ago now that Thanksgiving is already behind us! Here are some highlights from November:

Kindergarten (KS): Now that the family holidays are here, the students learned vocabulary related to la familia.  They took some time to read ¿Eres tú mi Mamá? (Are You My Mother?) in Spanish and work on language arts activities related to the story.  They also had time to learn about classroom objects.  Take a look at the Spanish bulletin board where there is a display of a large classroom mochila (backpack) filled with the students' drawings of the objects they have learned.  

First Grade (1E):  Animales have been the focus of the month.  They began with a study of the "everyday" animals like perro (dog) and gato (cat).  Then they read a book about a mouse called Martí ye el Mango (Marti and the Mango) which combines animal and exotic fruit vocabulary.  Of course, they could not learn about mangos and cocos (coconuts) without actually tasting all the fruits! They finished the unit with a study of animals that could be found in a zoo, so that they could create their own zoológico / acuario (zoo/aquarium).  

Second Grade (2E): In preparation for their final presentation of the book Oso pardo, oso pardo, ¿qué ves ahí? (Brown bear, Brown bear, What do You See?), the students learned the animal and color vocabulary associated with the book.  Students had the chance to visit differentiated centers to work with the vocabulary.  The centers included working on the Quizlet computer site, using iPads to decode QR codes related to the vocabulary, reading books created by the older students about colors and animals, puzzling over crossword and word search activities and listening to Spanish stories at a listening center.  At the end of the month, the class was fortunate to have Abraham Watt's abuela (grandmother) visit with stories about life in the Dominican Republic! 

Third Grade: Students in third grade continued their study of Mexico by generating a list of 56 questions in response to “What do we want to learn about Mexico?” They then chose one question from the list (or two questions if they had time) to research and answer. The final result was a class book called Libro de México: Preguntas y Respuestas. As a final step, the students had to read their own class book to answer questions about the topics. This impressive book went home in the 12/4 Friday folders, so I hope you have had a chance to take a look at it!

Fourth Grade: Students in fourth grade are continuing their study of Mexico by learning about the different travel destinations in Mexico. They took an imaginary trip to Mexico City to visit many of the popular sites found in this huge city. They then tracked their itinerary on a map to visit sites from Baja California to the resorts and Mayan ruins of the Yucatan. The final project is a travel poster of a selected travel destination. Students are working in pairs to research their destination and write about five "Things to Do" while there.

Fifth Grade: Students in fifth grade continued their study of Mexico by studying its history. They learned about the impressive Aztec Empire that covered much of Central America and their unfortunate demise with the arrival of Cortez and the Spanish soldiers. The final project was a research project poster about one aspect of the Aztec civilization. Topics ranged from Aztec warriors and weapons to Aztec family life. Students then shared their posters to teach each other about they had learned about the Aztecs.

¡LS Spanish classes celebrate Día de los Muertos!

Lower School Spanish classes from EC to 5th grade spent the end of October learning about Mexico and their special holiday Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in preparation for our celebration of the holiday on Monday, November 2!

Each class prepared something to decorate our Lower School ofrenda (alter) which is the focal point of the holiday:

*  Kindergarteners in KS made paper flores (flowers) with the help of Miss York.

*  First graders in 1E made paper plate skeleton masks.

* Second graders in 2E made tin engraved calaveras (skulls).  They also hosted the 11th grade students in Spanish IV who came to visit our ofrenda with Sra. McEwan.

* Third grade Spanish student made tissue paper papel picados (paper with cut-out designs).  No fiesta is complete without strings of papel picados banners!

*  Fourth grade Spanish students made Catrina-style esqueletos (skeletons) dressed in a variety costumes.

*  Fifth grade Spanish students made beautifully designed calaveras azúcar (sugar skulls) with the help of Mrs. McCrimmon.

Take a look at more pictures in the Photo Gallery on my Spanish with Señora Swift website!  

A Busy October in the LS Spanish Room!

Looking back at the month of October, it is hard to believe how much the students have accomplished! Here are some of the highlights:

Kindergarten (KS):  They started the month learning about colors and numbers to 10.  During the week of October 12, they read the Global Read Aloud book Duck! Rabbit! in Spanish (¡Pato! ¡Conejo!) and learned new Spanish words related to the story.  At the end of the month, they learned about Mexico in preparation for our Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration.

First Grade (1E): They began the month with a unit about the body and the face and spent time writing cards in Spanish to their Upper School pen pals from the MVS Spanish Honors Club.  They also read the Global Read Aloud book Duck! Rabbit! in Spanish during the week of October 12 and participated in Spanish language arts activities.  

Second Grade (2E): This was a particularly exciting month for second grade because they went on their imaginary trip to Spain!  In preparation for their trip, they made their own pasaportes, billetes (tickets) and maletas (suitcases) filled with ropa (clothes).  On October 19, the Spanish room became an avión (airplane) and with their boarding passes in hand, they found their asientos (seats) in preparation for their flight to Madrid.  Over the next three classes, they explored Madrid and several sites in Spain and ended up at el Café Swift to sample tapas and a tortilla española while writing tarjetas postales (post cards).  They had to quickly return home to get ready for the LS Spanish celebration of Day of Dead. 

Third Grade:  The third graders began the month learning the Spanish alphabet and working on an alfabeto poster project.  Each student chose two letters to design for a class alphabet project.  They had to look through Spanish books and dictionaries to find a Spanish word beginning with their letter and then incorporate the letter in a drawing of the word.  After this short project, they focused on a study of Mexico in preparation for the upcoming Day of the Dead celebration.  The Mexico study was based around 6 centers where students had to choose three of the following six centers:

1) making a Mexican flag, 2) completing a map of Mexico, 3) using the ipad to access a Time for Kids website about Mexico, 4) reading a Mexican legend, 5) using non-fiction books to research "Fast Facts about Mexico" and 6) reading information about "Life in Mexico" and "Mexican Food". 

Fourth Grade: The fourth graders had their first graded Spanish test on numbers to 100 and facts about Mexico's Independence Day (celebrated in September). After their return from Glen Helen, they moved on to a study of colors and shapes, which provided them the opportunity to learn about masculine and feminine nouns and adjective agreement with nouns.  The final project was a mini-libro in which the students combined their understanding of numbers, shapes, colors and adjective agreement to write short sentences.

Fifth Grade: The fifth graders also had their first graded Spanish test on numbers to 1000 and facts about Mexico's Independence Day.  They then moved on to a study of animals and adjectives to describe the animals, which also provided them the opportunity to learn about masculine and feminine nouns and adjective agreement with nouns.  Their final project was a class book entitled, ¿Qué Animal es este? Each student made three pages for the book.  Each page asked the question, “What animal is this?” and then provided a 3-sentence description of an animal and a drawing of the animal under a flap. 

The students have worked hard this past month! And we haven’t even gotten to the Day of the Dead preparations!  I will save those details for the next blog entry.  Stay tuned!

Saludos,

Señora Swift

2nd grader with her maleta for the trip to Spain

Mrs. Evers as the "agente" at the "Control de Seguridad" for the 2nd grade trip to Spain

 

¡Chileans Visit Lower School Spanish Classes!

MVS families hosted 9 students from Chile along with their chaperone last week.  During their visit, the Chileans made some time to visit the lower school Spanish students.  They showed a short video that the students had made about their hometown, Concepción, and their beautiful country. They also answered many questions from our MVS students ranging from their school routines to their country's food. Afterwards, they broke into small groups to read Spanish picture books aloud to the students in Kindergarten through second grade and they played a board game to review Spanish numbers with students in third, fourth and fifth grades.  It was a real treat to have them in our Spanish classroom!

Take a look at a few photos below!  For lots more photos, visit my teacher website!

¡Mexico's Día de la Independencia Celebration!

On September 15th the Lower School Spanish classes celebrated Mexico's Independence Day! This special holiday begins at 11:00 pm in Mexico and continues through September 16th which is the day that Father Hidalgo made his famous "Grito de Dolores" to inspire the people to revolt.

* The first graders in 1E made Mexican flags and celebrated with chips & salsa

* The second graders in 2E read a short Reader's Theater play about the history of Mexico's Independence Day dating back to 1810.  They also celebrated with chips & salsa!

* The third grade Spanish students watched a video about the history of the holiday and how Mexicans celebrate the holiday.  They celebrated with chips and salsa too, however they made their own salsa and learned the names of the ingredients in Spanish!

* The fourth and fifth grade Spanish students read a more advanced Reader's Theater play about Mexico's War of Independence and its significant heroes.  The fourth graders also celebrated by making their own salsa to eat with chips! The fifth graders made their own guacamole to eat with their chips & salsa!

Throughout the day shouts of ¡Viva México! and the smell of garlic and cilantro were coming from the LS Spanish room! 

Check out my "Mrs. Swift" teacher website for many more photos from the day!

¡Bienvenidos! 2015-16 Spanish Classes

Welcome to another year of Lower School Spanish!  I am looking forward to working with students across the grades from EC to Grade 5.  We are off to a good start!

Students in grades K - 2 will begin the year learning/reviewing  basic phrases like ¿Cómo estás? (How are you?) and ¿Cómo te llamas?  (What is your name?) and classroom commands.  Students in grade 3 will take this a step further to create comics using the phrases.  Students in grades 4 and 5  will take it even further when they learn the difference between the formal "usted" and informal "tú" forms of "you" to create a short skit that will be recorded on video!

Of course, we will take a short break on September 15 to learn more about Mexico to celebrate Mexico's Independence Day.  The younger students will create their own Mexican flags to act the ¡Viva México! celebrations. The older students will get a chance to make their own guacamole and salsa to sample!  Stay tuned for Independence Day celebrations on my "Spanish with Señora Swift" blog!

First Day of Spanish Class for First Graders in 1E 

More photos on my blog! 

A World Language Switch to New Classes for the Spring Term!

Dear Lower School Spanish Families,

Now that it is January, we are officially halfway through the year and that means it is time to switch language classes.  This semester I am teaching Spanish to Mrs. George’s Kindergarten class, Mrs. Krochmal’s first grade class and Mrs. Dubé’s second grade class. 

Kindergarten:  They have all gotten off to a good start with a study of greetings. They have been introduced to the questions, ¿Cómo estás?  (How are you?) and ¿Cómo te llams? (What’s your name).  Then it is on to numbers and colors.

First graders:  They have also gotten off to a good start with greetings and polite words.  It’s always important to know how to say “please” and “thank you” in any language!  They have started creating the first few pages of their own diccionario español.  

Second graders:  Now that the study of greetings and polite words are a review for most of the second graders, they can have fun with the phrases.   They had a great time acting out a short conversation in different scenarios.  We have some budding actors who had fun portraying two movie stars, two babies, two cowboys, etc.  greeting each other!

Third & Fourth graders:  They have spent the last month diligently adding pages to their Un día con (girl’s name) y (boy’s name) books.  We are up to Capíitulo (Chapter) 5 where their Spanish characters are at school.  They have learned the vocabulary that goes with morning routines, eating breakfast, going to school and classroom commands and objects.

Fifth graders:  They have been working on vocabulary around things in a classroom – everything from una ventana (a window) to un lápiz (a pencil).  Once they learned a few prepositions and verbs, they were then able to take the next step to read and write sentences and paragraphs.  Each student created a short book entitled ¿Dónde está Señor Taco? . They did a wonderful job of drawing pictures to illustrate sentences like Señor Taco está bajo la silla.  (Mr. Taco is under the chair.)  Stop by the Spanish bulletin board to take a look at their books.

We are all fully engaged and having fun with Spanish in the Lower School!

Saludos,

Sra. Swift