Elementary&
6th grade Spanish Newsletter
November 13,
2008
All of my Spanish classes have been practicing how to
use the resources that they have been shown in class. Dictionary duty is the part of 3rd-5th
grade classes where the students get to explore the Spanish/English
dictionaries that I have. They take
many notes and I think it’s important that the students get to use the notes
that they take for games. In lower
grades, they use the work sheets that they accumulate as their “notes” to play
games. This is how they learn the
benefit of completing their work in a timely manner. If the work isn’t finished, they won’t have
all the answers for the games that we play and they must try to finish their
work before they play. In 6th
grade, dictionary duty is called vocabulary work. The list of food in this letter could lead to
some Spanish practice when making a shopping list.
Kindergarten will be singing and dancing to all of the songs we have learned. I will get out the puppets and we will remember how to greet people and ask what their name is and how they are doing, as well as how to respond to each situation. . We will act out the Spanish version of Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar (La Oruga Muy Hambrienta) and they will bring home the paper oruga they made in class.
1st grade will take turns expressing me gusta (likes) and no me gusta (dislikes) of la comida (food) after they have been exposed to the vocabulary and manipulatives. Here is list of some food that my students are exposed to in Spanish class:
Queso =
cheese leche = milk papa = potato pan
= bread jugo = juice Pollo = chicken ensalada = salad fruta = fruit sopa = soup Verduras/vegetales = vegetables naranja = orange agua = water Manzana =
apple carne = meat pescado = fish plátano= = banana
2nd grade is beginning their review of the food, too. They will be doing work sheets and playing games to review and renew the words from above plus a few more. They will also get exposure to some new verbs that go with the new vocabulary: Comer, beber dormir, tocar, limpiar, mirar y dar (to eat, to drink, to sleep, to touch, to clean, to look at, and to give).
3rd grade will be taking a close at their notes. I am coaching them to take notes in sections of their notebook. We are categorizing the notes and playing games. We will be talking about the 2 ways to say “you” in Spanish: tú (informal) and usted (formal). They will have opportunities to apply them both.
4th grade will
be exposed to many adjectives to describe feeling and personality traits. They did some charades to help with recall
and recognition for later days. They have examined the verb estar (to be). Estoy (I
am), estás (you are), está (you are/he is/ she is) and the
verb ser(to be) soy (I am) eres (you are) es(you are/he is/ she is).
The more exposure to the words and the more we play with them the better
they should sink in to the memory.
5th graders are leaning how to ask and tell time. I discovered that many students confuse nombres y números = names and numbers. I took some time to review both categories with a fun game. Ask your student if they remember they Spanish name I gave them in class this week.
6th graders that I have now are reviewing from last rotation and we are trying to do all of the presentations. I regret to say that many students aren’t following the rubric so if your 6th grader is in the 3rd rotation, please look that over carefully. Over all, I was very pleased with the first rotation’s ability to review and learn new as presentations were happening. I hope on December 1st, when I finally get to see the last rotation, they have practiced enough that the Spanish part goes well. Please use your own words when giving us the culture report on the country. Make it interesting and informative for your
peers.
Keep up the
good work
Señora
Barrette