It's been wonderful to see all your students back from summer break and to jump right into practicing Spanish again. It's also been great to welcome our new Archway scholars. I hope they are all feeling a bit more adjusted to being back in school now that we're a few weeks in. I wanted to give you a brief up-date on what we've been working on in Spanish class and also to reassure you if you have wondered why you haven't seen any Spanish come home yet.
Each grade has learned a couple new "trabalenguas" the first day of classes. It's really fun to hear them do these and to hear how quickly they learn them and enjoy doing them with great pronunciation.
Tonguetwisters (trabalenguas)
3rd
RR: Erre
con erre, guitarra; erre con erre, barril:
rápido ruedan los carros, rápido el ferrocarril.
Ñ: Pepe Piña pica papa. Pica papa Pepe Piña.
4th
Amarillo es el patito, Amarillo
es el limón,
Amarillo es el patito, que sale del cascarón.
Si
Sansón no sazona su salsa con sal,
Sosa
le sale la salsa sin sazonar a Sansón.
5th
Pancha plancha con cuatro planchas.
¿Con cuántas planchas Pancha plancha?
Tres tristes tigres tragaban
trigo en un trigal en tres tristes trastos.
En tres tristes trastos tragaban trigo tres tristes tigres.
Pablito clavó un clavito en la calva de un calvito. En la calva de un calvito un clavito clavó Pablito.
We've also learned all the Latin American countries and capitals these first couple weeks using a Central American and South American map that they filled in. I taught them a chant to help them practice them in order, and with Spanish pronunciation. This also allowed us to jump right into how to pronounce the letters in the Spanish alphabet. Many already have a number of them memorized. I hope to work on this with them at the beginning of each school year so that they can know them by heart by the time in they are in 5th grade.
This week I'm starting to introduce weather vocabulary and a review of numbers and how to tell the date in Spanish -- think ¡CINCO DE MAYO! It's an easy way for them to remember to put the number first and then the month.
Most units we answer a "question for the unit" for example, when we learned the capitals and countries the question was "¿Dónde está Perú? (Where is Peru?) ¿en centroamerica o en suramerica? OR ¿Cuál es el capital de Perú? (What is the capital of Peru?) Lima es el capital de Perú. As we move into weather, the question will be ¿Qué tiempo hace? (What's the weather?)
I typically don't ask students to take their Spanish folder home because I need to be sure they have their materials for class. So, instead, I will be sending periodic up-dates with the vocabulary that we are practicing, in case you want them to practice at home. My hope is that each student is willing to participate in class and do the activities that we are working on together, even if they are new to Spanish or feel uncertain about their current level of understanding. I try to mix up the class so that there is a little speaking practice, writing practice and listening/ responding in Spanish practice. Some units we will work on a mini-project in class.
Students may also access QUIZLET to practice at home. This is a great way to keep the students familiar with the vocabulary a way that they typically consider fun, as it's on a device. Here's the link:
https://quizlet.com/ACCSpanish345/classes They can practice study sets 1-5 (numbers, days, months, weather, alphabet) for this month. In September they can start practicing anything from unit one -- 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4
¡Hasta la próxima! (Until next time!)
