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
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| 2nd grader with her maleta for the trip to Spain |
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| Mrs. Evers as the "agente" at the "Control de Seguridad" for the 2nd grade trip to Spain |
