Authentic Mexican Folk Art

In Mexico calaveras de azúcar, or sugar skulls, are a bright, colorful sign of fall.  They are closely tied to the holiday El Día de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, which occurs in early November when Mexicans celebrate the lives of loved ones who have passed away.  This holiday is lively and celebratory in nature and that is reflected in the vibrant colors and intricate designs of the sugar skulls.  Today, Mexican sugar skulls are much more than a holiday decoration; they have become an iconic symbol of Mexican culture and a beautiful form of folk art.

This month in Spanish class we tried our hand at creating and designing this authentic Mexican folk art.  A small group of volunteers stayed after school with me to create the blank sugar skull sculptures for students to decorate.  We made over 90 skulls in an hour and a half!  

The next day students and I mixed up several batches of royal icing to decorate the skulls.  The vibrant colors required a special food coloring that made beautiful icing, but stained our hands for the day.

Students worked diligently on their creations following the designs they had created the day before.

Students' work paid off and their designs look very authentic!

 

Skype in the Classroom!

This fall 8th grade Spanish classes had the opportunity to Skype with someone in Costa Rica.  One of our  8th graders has an older sister studying abroad in Heredia, Costa Rica, and she was kind enough to talk with each class and answer their questions about Costa Rica and studying abroad in general.  Students asked questions in both Spanish and English and had very interesting conversations with our guest speaker.

This was our first time using Skype in the classroom, and it went off without a hitch!   

We had a very busy first quarter of the school year in Spanish class.  After completing the Mi Vida multimedia project to review content from 7th Grade Spanish, we began our first new unit of the year, El Día Escolar, or The School Day.  In this unit students learned:

• vocabulary for classes in school
• adjectives to describe classes
• ordinal numbers for class periods
• additional vocabulary for objects around the classroom
• prepositional phrases to describe location
• how to tell time
• two new verbs, tener- to have, and estar- to be

It was a very large unit!  Students worked on a project in which they wrote a letter to another 8th grade Spanish student about their school schedules.  I exchanged the letters among students and they replied to their temporary pen pal.

For their unit assessment students verbally answered a series of questions that I asked them one on one.  There was a lot of information to master in order to understand all of the questions and answer them appropriately, and for the most part students did very well!

I believe one of the most memorable classes we've had recently was our visit with native Spanish speakers.  A few weeks ago five international undergraduate and graduate students from UVM came to CMS to talk with my classes.  Every student asked a question in Spanish to our guests.  It was very exciting to see beginning level students carry on a conversation with people from Spain and the Dominican Republic!  I was very proud of them!

Lots of exciting work!

¡Hola familias!

I am very pleased with how our students have started off the school year in Spanish class!  We're working on some very exciting projects and students' enthusiasm and quality of work has been impressive.

Last week I introduced students to Google Voice which will allow me to assess their speaking ability outside of the classroom.  Our first assignment was simple: call the Google Voice number and leave me a message in Spanish telling me about something they were doing over the weekend.  This is something that we will do occasionally through out the year with different prompts or questions for students to answer.

We also just completed a PhotoStory3 project in which students created a video about their lives narrated entirely in Spanish.  I asked students to share these with you, so if you haven't received an email with the link to your student's video, ask them again!  The videos are great and I really think you'll enjoy seeing it!

If you haven't yet, please take a moment to subscribe to this blog.  There is a link at the bottom of the page that says "subscribe by email."  It will be a great way for you to hear about what we're up to in Spanish class this year.

¡Gracias!

Señora Tiernan Fisher