| SEMESTER 1 | |
| This semester, students reviewed some basic Spanish language trivia (e.g., how many languages are there in the world?), and had a more advanced linguistic discussion about endangered languages (do they ‘count’, in the tabulation?). Next, they jumped right into learning on how to Salsa dance. Why Salsa? Well, Salsa dancing is very important in Cuba, and the third grade curriculum starts with a history lesson in the target language that takes place in Cuba. Students learned about the 1715 Shipwreck of a Spanish fleet traveling from Cuba back to Spain, which was not only a nice way to review geography, but also eased them back into an immersive classroom environment with a lot of cognates, easily identifiable vocabulary, and words with Latin roots (la isla, la historia, el huracán, la tormenta, el tesoro, el territorio, el rey, el dinero, Cuba, España, por qué, porque, el control, el barco, el grupo, el problema, [el marinero/ mar]). Third graders had fun acting out the story–adding in a class song, Para bailar la bamba (“Soy capitán”)–but when a real hurricane canceled classes for a few days, we took a break from this and moved on to another unit for a while. Too close to home! Here, third graders were introduced to the Duolingo app. When some reached a lesson about “el” and “la” words (i.e., masculine/feminine nouns), we stopped and talked about it. In class, I frame the noun discussion as “boys GET this” (el helado/ ice cream) and “girls GET that” (la pizza). This makes it a fun “competition” and exciting for students to see “which team” a noun belongs to. It’s also fun for them to test me: can you find a word I don’t know in Spanish yet?! While I am fluent in Spanish and have taught for 16 years, I think it’s valuable for students to remember that teachers are always learning, too: we are human and don’t know everything. Students demonstrated a strong interest here, and so the grammar study continued with cognates (famoso, inteligente, impaciente, etc.). The 1715 Shipwreck was referenced once again, and we returned to the story, this time with a little more distance and perspective. Ultimately, the goal was to build a fiction story out of the non-fiction historical account of the shipwreck (Cubby the Cuban Cube), but this attempt fizzled, due to schedule interruptions and canceled classes. The semester ended with a classic third grade culture project about Easter Island (Chile), where students delved into a study about Rongorongo tablets and the mysterious Easter Island statues. One student made a connection with the Nazca Lines (Peru): don’t the shapes of the (small) characters on the Rongorongo tablets look similar to the (massive) geoglyphs? Well, yes, they do! Great observation! Last but not least, third graders played a “Guess the Language” game (ear training), and had a few center work days to break up the routine. | |
| SEMESTER 2 Week 1: Students have been building a “Spanish Soccer” unit in class this month. They are working as a team to pass through a series of warm-up levels (no English!!), in order to get to play real soccer games outside. This week, however, they took a break to help out with a Lower School project about the Panama Canal–building cardboard boats and loading them up with cargo, after discussing the iconic piece of maritime history and how our stuff (toys, food, etc.) finds its way onto store shelves. Week 2: Students resumed their “Spanish Soccer” unit (fútbol/ soccer). Class begins at the tables with a formal lesson (listening/ comprehension focus), and then continues with students lining up in two rows (facing each other). Here, one student is selected as “Coach” to lead soccer players in several warm-up exercises, where the team counts together in Spanish (either 1-10, or 1-100 by tens). Next, they have a controlled passing activity, where the most important rule is ¡No inglés! (no English!). Key vocabulary at this point includes the following: por acá (over here), pásala (pass it), la pelota (the ball), ¿cuántos? (how many [exercises]), próximo (next), and a chant: “Este partido, lo vamos a ganar” (we’re going to win this game!). They are working to pass certain levels (as a class) so that third graders can go outside and play real games. Class ends with a few minutes to complete a Duolingo lesson on the app. Week 3: Students continued with their “Spanish Soccer” unit (fútbol/ soccer). The description below is similar to last week, in case you didn’t read it yet. We keep building, building, building on this routine–and each day, there is more Spanish, less English, and greater awareness/ identification of cognados (words that sound similar to their English equivalents–e.g., famous/ famoso, art/ arte, etc.), which ultimately facilitates comprehension and understanding. Class begins at the tables with a formal lesson (listening/ comprehension focus), and then continues with students lining up in two rows (facing each other). Here, one student is selected as “Coach” to lead soccer players in several warm-up exercises, where the team counts together in Spanish (either 1-10, or 1-100 by tens). Next, they have a controlled passing activity, where the most important rule is ¡No puedes hablar inglés! (you can’t speak English!). Key vocabulary at this point includes the following: por acá (over here), pásala (pass it), la pelota (the ball), ¿cuántos? (how many [exercises]), próximo (next), and a chant: “Este partido, lo vamos a ganar” (we’re going to win this game!). They are working to pass certain levels (as a class) so that third graders can go outside and play real games. Class ends with a few minutes to complete a Duolingo lesson on the app. Week 4: Students continued with their “Spanish Soccer” unit (fútbol/ soccer). We keep building, building, building on this routine–and each day, there is more Spanish, less English, and greater awareness/ identification of cognados (words that sound similar to their English equivalents–e.g., famous/ famoso, art/ arte, etc.), which ultimately facilitates comprehension and understanding. The vocabulary list has been updated below. Third graders also reviewed the names of the Spanish-speaking countries on the second Floor Map on Thursday. Key vocabulary at this point includes the following: ¡No puedes hablar inglés! (you can’t speak English!), por acá (over here), pásala (pass it), la pelota (the ball), ¿cuántos? (how many [exercises]), próximo (next), la tengo (I got it!), apúrate (hurry up), and a chant: “Este partido, lo vamos a ganar” (we’re going to win this game!). Week 5: Students continued with their “Spanish Soccer” unit (fútbol/ soccer). They focused on eliminating English from their speech and instead replacing it with the following vocabulary: ¡No puedes hablar en inglés! (you can’t speak in English!), por acá (over here), pásala (pass it), la pelota (the ball), sugerencias (suggestions), ¿cuántos? (how many [exercises]), próximo (next), la tengo (I got it!), apúrate (hurry up), and a chant: “Este partido, lo vamos a ganar” (we’re going to win this game!). Both classes also leveled up to adding short sprints to get the ball–¡Corre! (Run!). Last but not least, they began hearing a legend from Cuba about fútbol. Week 6: Students have focused heavily this year on identifying cognates, or words that are similar in both Spanish and English (Latin roots); however, they learned from their Cuban legend this week that there are also some ‘trick words’. For example, ratón or ratoncito means mouse in Spanish, even though it sounds like rat (which is actually rata). They also continued with their “Spanish Soccer” unit (fútbol/ soccer). As part of the “next level”, third graders had the opportunity to paint tiny flags of any Spanish- speaking country on each others’ faces or hands. The goal here was to work on being considerate of others (Honor Code) and slowing down for a detail-oriented task. Week 7: Forgot to update. Students acted out and finished hearing the legend from Cuba about fútbol. The moral of the story was, it pays to learn another language. Week 8: Students reviewed some language trivia; worked on Duolingo, the Spanish Wordle, and naming countries on the Floor Map; and continued with their soccer unit. They are working on asking, “¿Qué vamos a hacer?” (What are we going to do?) and “¿Qué más?” (What else?), and saying a new chant, “Ganamos, perdimos, igual nos divertimos” (we won, we lost, either way we had fun). Soon, they will be heading outside to play real games! Week 9: Students only had one class due to conferences and the Easter break. On Monday, they reviewed their food passwords (la manzana/ apple, la piña/ pineapple, el pollo/ chicken, la zanahoria/ carrot, la naranja/ orange, el queso/ cheese, la cebolla/ onion, el durazno (el melocotón)/ peach, la fresa/ strawberry, la leche de chocolate/ chocolate milk, el plátano/ banana, las papas fritas/ French fries). This has been a warm-up game in class recently because students wanted to use my plastic food, but I said that they had to know the names of the food they were holding; so it became “a thing” (#Spanish #Trending #FoodPasswords #LOL). Later, third graders traveled outside to the courtyard to play their second official Spanish Soccer game (Argentina vs. Los Estados Unidos/ USA). They did an AMAZING job and spoke in only Spanish almost the whole time! (Anyone who speaks in English gets a penalty and has to sit out for 10 seconds.) ¿Qué vamos a hacer?” (What are we going to do?); ¡Vamos a jugar al fútbol! (We’re going to play soccer!!); ¡Soy portero(a)!/ I’m goalie! Week 10: Students reviewed their food passwords and found out who their “password twin” was in the other class; revisited a language-guessing game from the fall (ear training); and then traveled outside to the courtyard again to play another official Spanish Soccer game. ¿Qué vamos a hacer?” (What are we going to do?); ¡Vamos a jugar al fútbol! (We’re going to play soccer!!); ¡Soy portero(a)!/ I’m goalie!; casi (almost); ¡Buen partido! (Good game!) P.S. It is partido, not potato. Week 11: Students worked on either Duolingo or the Spanish Wordle; reviewed their food passwords (#hilarious); and learned about the difference between translation (written) and interpretation (spoken). Third graders acted out examples of both, and had great questions about the two professions. Later in the week, they took a look at some “translations gone wrong”–something was definitely lost in translation here! We took a break from soccer this week because of the solar eclipse viewing and storms. Click HERE for Semester Updates. Week 12: This week, students attended the Spanish Play (an annual event put on by fourth graders–and all about Pato). They had reviewed the plot in detail last week, so combined with their Spanish vocabulary base, they understood a great deal and thoroughly appreciated the show. When I asked them on Thursday about their favorite parts, they couldn’t wait to share (compartir/ to share)! Third graders also worked on inflection in the target language (¿Vamos a jugar al fútbol?/ Are we going to play soccer? vs. Vamos a jugar al fútbol/ We are going to play soccer), and watched an episode of THE PATO SHOW, just for fun! Third graders also requested that I send out links to a number of songs they have seen in class this year: HERE is their class page on my website–they should be able to navigate from there–and THIS is the Song Library (student favorites are at the top of the page). Week 13: This week, students learned a Spanish card game [isolating numbers out of sequence], and got so into it that they played for almost the entire class period! They did not have class on Thursday due to ERB’s. Week 14: This week, students continued working on asking questions with proper inflection and intonation in the target language (¿Podemos jugar al fútbol?/ Can we play soccer? and ¿Vamos a jugar al fútbol?/ Are we going to play soccer? vs. Vamos a jugar al fútbol/ We are going to play soccer). They earned a point for every Spanish-Soccer expression they could think of, and then finally got to go outside to play again! (It’s been a while, due to ERB’s, etc.) They shouted in Spanish (spontaneous output) and listened to new soccer songs (e.g., La Roja Baila). Their overall comprehension and ability to follow class conversations and answer questions in Spanish has improved tremendously this year. Kudos! Week 15: This week, students explored Spanish songs from the entire year on the Spanish Songs Playlist I created for them. This way, they can listen to their favorites all summer long! They also played Spanish soccer and the numbers card game again, and worked on asking more questions in the target language–not only with “jugar/to play”, but rather substituting that infinitive [jugar] with other center words. (Basically, they built more vocabulary into these types of sentences: ¿Podemos jugar al fútbol?/ Can we play soccer? and ¿Vamos a jugar al fútbol?/ Are we going to play soccer? vs. Vamos a jugar al fútbol/ We are going to play soccer). Week 16: Students continued working on stringing longer sentences together (e.g., Hola, me llamo _____. Tengo una pregunta. ¿Vamos a bailar y cantar y hablar y jugar al fútbol [hoy]?”/ Hello, my name is… I have a question. Are we going to dance and sing and talk and play soccer [today]?). They also enjoyed dancing and having a Spanish Party, using icing to decorate cookies, eating Spanish candies, and playing “pin the sombrero on the llama” with the Spanish Teacher of the Day on Wednesday. If students are bored over the summer, please direct them to the Spanish Songs Playlist! |
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