Bienvenidos a Español

Welcome back to Spanish!  I am so happy to begin a new school year.  As usual it has started off so fast that I can barely keep up.  There are many new faces and so many returning students.  I'm so excited every time the students tell me they practice at home or have learned new words.

As we do every year, the kindergarteners come twice a week sharing their resource time with Music.  This helps them immensely with learning the basics so quickly.  They are mastering our basic greetings, the colors and numbers to 5.  They are learning our routine songs quickly and are even saying some of the words of the calendar.

First graders are building on all they learned last year and are adding many new words for the school.  Right now we are talking about school supplies like crayons, pencils, glue, scissors and backpacks.  We will learn the places in school and review the people in school as well.

Second graders are beginning learning about the school and we are learning about how school is in Argentina.  We are also starting a year long chart of the temperatures in Buenos Aires, Argentina and here in Chesterfield County.  It should be interesting once we get into deep winter to see how the weather continues in Argentina.

Third graders are getting used to an entirely different Spanish class as we are now mostly working at the tables.  They have notebooks to keep up with and to keep all of their materials in.  We are doing our butterflies for symbolic migration now and will start with telling time soon.  After that we will learn about the Mayas, Incas and Aztecs.  That is always a fun unit with so many fun things to do in class.

Fourth graders are beginning to learn about the continents and oceans as part of their unit where will will talk about travel, immigration and colonization.  They are also learning how to answer basic questions like:  What is your name? and How old are you?

Fifth graders are learning about Great People.  We will talk about some great Hispanic Americans and they will learn to describe people.  We have started by filling out passports and are moving onto descriptions next.

I hope to be able to update more often this school year.  Please contact me if you have any questions.  michelle_melara@ccpsnet.net

Hasta luego...

A few more pictures from International Week

I just wanted to share a couple more shots I took during International week.  The visitors we have keep getting more and more interesting.

Tia's friend visited to tell us about Puerto Rico and shared with us all about the coqui frog and the Vejigante masks.

Olivia's and Cecilia's mom Mika taught us all about the Japanese art of origami, the three writing styles and how to use chopsticks.

Here are a couple of students practicing using the chopsticks by transferring Cheerios from one bowl to another.

And on Friday we had Sombrero Day and some students came with some fabulous sombreros.

I thank all of the parents, friends and family members who participated by visiting their children's Spanish class during the week.  Your support of International week supports the language programs throughout the county by encouraging students to think about what languages to study when they get to middle and high school.  It also shows them a world beyond their own neighborhood.

Gracias, danke, merci, obrigado, 谢谢, ありがとう, mulțumesc, σας ευχαριστώ, thank you!

International Week

International week has been a huge success so far.  On Monday we showcased all of the languages the fabulous Grange Hall teachers have learned.  On Wednesday many students wore t-shirts with another language on them and on Friday we will have Sombrero day.  All week long we've had very interesting visitors who shared about their home countries.  We've learned about Kenya, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, El Salvador and Mexico.  We are still waiting to hear from more visitors to other classes this week.

The above photo is of Mr. Dawson telling the class all about the fascinating and sometimes scary life in El Salvador.

One class in particular was very enthusiastic about having another language on their t-shirts.  Here are a few of the easiest to make out.  Notice how many languages they incorporated.

 Some fabulous school spirit!

 Cecilia didn't even need a translator for her t-shirt.  She knows how to write Best Friends in Japanese.

 Mrs McDonald's second grade class.

 And one student showed off a t-shirt from her parent's country:  Kenya.

Thank you so much to all of my visitors and students for supporting International Week!

Sunflowers and Apologies

I would first like to apologize for the extended break from this blog.  I admit that I have been very busy this school year and regular updates were probably the lowest item on my to-do list.  But the county made some changes over the summer and as a result I had to make changes to my google account and that affected my blog. No problems with that, but with the changes came new passwords and account e-mails, etc.  Unfortunately I forgot my password and even which e-mail account I linked the blog to.  Finally, last week, I was able to find the correct account and password and have now gotten that memorized.  I now hope to begin more regular updates to this blog and I do sincerely apologize for my extended absence here.

Last week, in partnership with the wonderful GHES PTA I had our 4th graders plant eleven different varieties of sunflowers which we will eventually transplant to a sunflower garden here at the school.  The students chose which flower they wanted to plant and many are already sprouting.  The PTA provided us with hundreds of seeds, all of the pots and soil and a beautiful shelving unit complete with grow lights installed.  This is all part of our plant unit for 4th grade.  I hope to get the students to plant the seedlings themselves in a few weeks once it is safe to plant them outside.

The students seemed to enjoy the planting of the seeds and are excited to see the growth.  They ask me each day in the hallway if their seeds have sprouted.

Los colores

One of my 1st grade classes did such a nice job with their color song today that I let them make a video of our song.  This is Mrs. Burns' class singing "Los Colores" and showing you the colors they know. 

Symbolic Migration 2012

Third graders created a large class butterfly to send to Mexico as part of our participation in Symbolic Migration, symbolizing the migration of the monarch butterfly to Mexico for the winter.  They also each created a small life size butterfly with a message and sent those along with the large butterfly to Mexico to be cared for by students there.  Below are the pictures of the finished class butterflies.  We will receive butterflies in return from Mexico in late April or early May.

Mrs. Sayegh's class butterfly:

 Mrs. Marshall's class butterfly:

 Mrs. Hobbs' class butterfly:

 Mrs. Sanders' class butterfly:

 Mrs. Wilson's class butterfly:

Back to School

The school year has begun and the students are off and running with their Spanish.  I hear more Spanish being spoken to me and to each other than ever when I walk through the halls of the Grange.  Here is a quick update of what is going on in Spanish class until I can get some pictures and documents loaded.

Kindergarten:  Students are coming to Spanish twice a week in a rotation shared with the Music teacher Miss Ericson.  They have learned the calendar song, the color song, and the Buenos Días song.  Ask them to sing one to you.  They are working on numbers up to 25, but they all came in pretty much knowing their Spanish numbers to 10 thanks to Dora the Explorer!.  They can tell you how they are feeling and their name in Spanish when asked.  We have talked about the people in school, from the teachers to the nurse to the principal and custodians.  They are now learning the vocabulary for the different places in the school building.

1st grade:  Students have reviewed basic questions like "How are you?" and "What is your name?" and can reliably answer those questions when asked.  We have reviewed the color song and practiced several activities with colors.  Students should have brought home their color bears activity where they were given a cup of colored bears that they had to sort and count and color their sheet according to the Spanish words. They did all of this following directions given only in Spanish.  Students have reviewed the people in school and the places in school and are now working on learning the weather phrases, motions for each, and clothing to wear for each weather situation. 

2nd grade:  Students have reviewed basic questions just as in 1st grade and are very good at answering those questions.  They are continually reviewed throughout 2nd grade.  Students have learned the vocabulary for the people and places in school and we have done an activity where they created their resource schedule in Spanish.  It is very hard to say Physical Education in Spanish, ask your student if they are able to do that.  We have moved onto our daily schedules here at Grange Hall and what school is like for students in Argentina. 

3rd grade:  Students have learned a lot of new phrases for important things to know to get along in a Spanish classroom and have reviewed basic greetings and introductions.  From there we moved onto Symbolic Migration and have made our butterflies to send to Mexico.  They were sent off to Mexico late last week and we should be able to see where they end up for the winter in January or February.  We will receive butterflies in return in April or May of 2013.  Now we are working on telling time to the quarter hour and playing lots of games to reinforce that concept.  Soon we will move onto the Ancient cultures of the Mayans, the Aztecs and the Incans.  This is a fun unit and the students will learn a lot that will compliment their studies in their regular classrooms with the other ancient cultures they learn about.

4th grade:  Students have learned to write and answer a few questions about themselves.  They made a foldable and introduced themselves to the class.  They all had the opportunity to choose a Spanish name as part of this activity for use in Spanish class.  Can your child tell you their Spanish class name?  Now 4th graders are learning about People on the Move and why Spanish is spoken in so many parts of the world.  We have learned the names of the continents and oceans in Spanish and have labeled a map to keep in their notebooks. 

5th grade:  Students have reviewed the basic greetings and introductions and answered many questions about themselves.  They have created a passport to begin our unit on Great Places and are now working on a project about a Spanish speaking country.  They will be sharing their projects over the next couple of weeks.  To complete the project students went to the computer lab to use the on-line databases from the Grange Hall library and they also used reference books from the library.  They created a foldable about their country which shows many facts.  They will share these with the class while only speaking Spanish. 

As you can see, we have been very busy in Spanish class so far this school year.  I would have updated my blog sooner but there was a delay with the addition of Edmodo to our system as it conflicted with other google accounts.  Once I get my googledocs back up and running I will share the vocabulary lists and themes each quarter.  Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.