Sunday, November 6, 2016

¡October Activities in LS Spanish!



Looking back at the month of October, it is hard to believe how much the students have accomplished in a month that was shortened by the mini immersion week! Here are some of the highlights:

Early Childhood:
In preparation for the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos I brought my “special” travel suitcase filled with “artifacts” related to the holiday.  I also read Eric Carle’s classic La oruga muy hambrienta in Spanish to reinforce the number and color words they were introduced to them earlier in the year.   

Kindergarten (KG):
They started the month learning about la familia, which was a wonderful connection to the beloved P.D. Eastman book ¿Eres tú mi mama?  They learned new Spanish words related to the story and completed language arts activities just as they would have done in an “English” class. At the end of the month, they learned about Mexico and prepared flores (flowers) in preparation for our Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration.

First Grade (1H):
They began the month learning animales and frutas vocabulary to read the book Martí y el mango. They even had the chance to sample the different frutas including coco (coconut), guayaba (guava) and, of course, mangos. They also learned about Mexico and started their skull mascaras (masks) in in preparation for our Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration.

Second Grade (2D):
This was a particularly exciting month for second grade because now that they had flown to España they had the chance to travel throughout the country!  They explored Madrid by autobús and several sites in Spain by tren 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 one or two letters to design for a class alphabet project.  They had 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.  They generated a list of 84 creative, thought-provoking and specific questions that they want to explore during our November study of Mexico.  

Fourth Grade:
The fourth graders had their first graded Spanish test on numbers to 100 or 1000 and facts about Mexico's Independence Day (celebrated in September).  Afterwards, they moved on to a study of colores and formas  (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 animales and adjetivos 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 two 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 projects!  I will save those details for a separate blog entry.  Stay tuned!

Saludos,
Señora Swift




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