12 December 2013
As we head into the winter break I will say that our Spanish classes have shown incredible growth over the last two months. We spent a week recently studying and learning about the history of El Salvador and the civil war that was fought through the 1980's We also watch an incredible movie, Voces Inocentes based on the events of the Masacre de El Mozote. The students admired the eleven year old Chava and his friends who had to hide from government soldiers in order to not be "recruited" to fight against the FLMN guerrillas.
This coming week we will be watching a video about La Navidad learning
new vocabulary about the winter and celebrations in Mexico and Latin
America.
Spanish 3-4
Students are diving in to the use of the preterite tense to talk about events that occurred recently in the past. They are also learning to distinguish between using the imperfect and the preterite when discussing past events.
Our first Benchmark will be pushed into 2014 when we return from break. This benchmark entails using verbs in the preterite tense while talking with a partner about a trip they took. Students will be asked to create and present a slide show of a trip and their partner will ask questions and comment on the visuals. Students will able to use photos from a trip that hopefully was taken recently so that they are able to easily recount details. If students head away to la casa de abuelita for the break, que tomen muchas fotos!
Students will also be asked when they return to create a found poem in which they use real text in Spanish that they have encountered in their everyday experience. This is a great time to gather such text due to the amount of text they encounter through giving and receiving gifts. Any text they encounter, instructions, packaging, tags, clothing, shopping centers, stores or anywhere else, should be gathered and stuffed into a bag or photographed in order to be used for this project. Students will be given a grade for the amount of text they bring to class to use for their found poem.
Spanish 1-2
Students in the first year class will be finishing their Benchmark #2, which involves describing another person and discussing their likes and dislikes with the class. Upon returning they will be praciticing and will begin presentations on January 10, 2014.
Students should be using Quia in order to practice conjugating and using verbs in the present tense. Our seventh period class discovered how effective the use of the Quia website can be. It is imperative that students get logged into their class and begin practicing with games and other activities on the site.
Spanish 1-2 students will also be asked to gather text for their own Found Poem project. See above in the Spanish 3-4 portion for details about the text to be found and used for the project.
