Tortilla Day!

Students did a great job making fresh corn tortillas from scratch yesterday!

 With the help of an authentic tortilla press, it was pretty easy!

Once the tortillas were made, we folded them, added some cheese and made quesadillas!  These are the instructions we followed to make the tortillas.  If you want to make your own tortillas at home, you don't need a tortilla press.  A rolling pin works fine!  Masa harina - the ground corn that is used for corn tortillas - is available in most grocery stores.  Look for it near the prepared tortillas and taco shells.

I surprised students with an authentic Mexican beverage called agua de jamaica.  

This is a refreshing drink that is served cold and is made with hibiscus flowers.  The dried hibiscus flowers are steeped in a mixture of sugar and hot water and then chilled and served with fresh lime juice.  This is the recipe I used to prepare the drink for class today.  Dried hibiscus flowers are commonly used in herb tea blends including the Red Zinger blend by Celestial Seasonings.

I hope everyone has a nice break, and if you make tortillas at home be sure to share some photos with me!

The unit test is done! What's next?

Hola familias,

Students completed a unit on The School Day at the end of last week, and I was impressed with their ability to discuss their school schedules with me en español!  By the end of The School Day unit students were able to:

•  Recognize times when they heard them spoken,
•  Ask and state the time both in writing and verbally,
•  Describe what school supplies they need for their classes, and
• Discuss with their classmates (both in writing and verbally) when they have different classes using the correct conjugation of the verb “to have”, the vocabulary for the classes, and the time.

The theme of our next unit is Food & Restaurants.  This is always a very exciting unit because who doesn't love to talk about food?!  By the end of this unit students will be able to:

• Conjugate verbs that end in  –er and -ir,
• Describe what foods they like and dislike, 
• Create sentences (in writing and verbally) about what they eat and drink at different times of day,
• Identify and order food and drink items in a restaurant setting, and
• Compare and contrast typical Mexican, Spanish, and American food.

This is a pretty impressive list of skills for beginning language learners.  It also means that if you find yourself in a Spanish speaking country, your student will be able order food in restaurants entirely en español!

Students will also have the option to prepare an authentic recipe from a Latin American country as part of a research project during this unit.  It's not a requirement, but lots of students enjoy this aspect of the project. 

Lastly, I'm also very excited to share that we will be preparing homemade tortillas from scratch during this unit!  

Señora Tiernan Fisher