Issue 2 - Hablamos Español

Please find the second issue of our Spanish class newsletter, Hablamos Español, here.  Enjoy!

¡Bienvenidos! Welcome

¡Hola, familias!  Hello, families!

We've had a great start to the school year in Spanish class!  I'm enjoying getting to know my new 8th grade students and I think it's going to be ¡un año fantástico! a fantastic year!  If you haven't done so yet, please take a moment to subscribe to our class blog.  Simply enter your email address in the box that says "Follow by Email" in the upper right corner of the page.  This is where I will share curriculum updates and photos from special events and activities that we do in class.  Any future editions of the newsletter will appear here, as well. 

This weekend you may here your Spanish student saying they need to call me on the phone to complete their homework.  I've asked students to leave me a message on my Google Voice account that includes a greeting, their name, how they spell their name, and a goodbye - all in Spanish of course!  This is a great way for me to check in with how students are progressing without putting them on the spot with a one-on-one speaking assessment (not yet anyway - we'll be doing one of those soon).

This weekend would also be a good time for students who are interested in using a digital device for flashcards to find and download an app.  Former students have had success with free apps such as Quizlet, but there are many to choose from.  Flashcards+ by Chegg is a new app that might be worth checking out, as it has a pronunciation feature that could be useful for students.

In addition, these are some other great (free) apps that students could use to increase their exposure to Spanish outside the classroom:

1. Duolingo
2. FluentU
3. CatSpanish

¡Espero que disfruten el fin de semana! I hope you enjoy the weekend!

These kids can move!

Wow!  We had a fantástico day of dancing in Spanish class yesterday!  Many thanks to our lovely guest instructor, Victoria, from Salsalina in Burlington for generously sharing her time with us, and to the CMS PTO for providing grant funding for this experience!  Students learned the basics of merengue and salsa and made me a very proud Spanish teacher with their manners and focus during the lessons!  It was also fun to see many students impress Victoria with their knowledge of Latin dances as a result of the research they're doing for their dance projects!  Here are some photos and videos from the day.

We survived the final - ¡a bailar!

Last week students completed their final exam for Spanish I!  Phew...

Today we began the unit that will wrap up the school year, Latin Dance and Music. 

Students are working in small groups on a research project on a typical Latin dance. Examples include salsa, merengue, bachata and cumbia.  They will present the history of the dance, a little about its country of origin, and teach us the basic steps.  The highlight of this unit will be a visit from E. Victoria Moore, the owner and founder of Salsalina dance studio in Burlington.  She will give students a professional salsa dance lesson! Photos to come!

Clothing and Colors

We have been having lots of fun learning how to talk about clothing and colors in Spanish class these last few weeks.  By the end of this unit students will able to identify and describe clothing and accessories paying special attention to gender and number agreement.  As a summative assessment students will present a fashion show with narration.  

To practice clothing and colors vocabulary we played a very entertaining game called Conjuntos Locos or Crazy Outfits.  Here's how the game works.  Two competing students are given a list of three items of clothing and they race each other to find and the clothes in a big pile on the floor and put them on. 

The first person in their conjunto loco wins!  At the end of each round both students read the descriptions of their outfits in Spanish.

¡Comida Latina!

The last day of National Foreign Language Week coincided with our Comida Latina or Latin Food presentations.  Students researched authentic recipes from Latin American countries and had the option to prepare the dish for the class to try.  

Thank you to all of the families who helped out with this part of the project!  

Here are some photos from the day:

Alfajores from Argentina

More Argentine alfajores 

Flan

Pastel de tres leches - a cake served all over Latin America

Another batch of alfajores later in the day!

Pan trenza

Nuegados de masa from El Salvador

Helado de mango - a frozen mango treat

Empanadas de manzana

Empanadas de carne from Argentina

Chancho en piedra from Chile

Flan

Frozen orange delight

One group of students even made a short video about their Latin American cooking adventure!

Guest Speakers during National Foreign Language Week!

This week we are celebrating National Foreign Language Week at CMS, and yesterday Spanish students had the very exciting opportunity to talk with native Spanish speakers in class!  This is the second time I've teamed up with the Office of International Education at UVM to bring native Spanish speakers who are living and studying in our area to CMS to talk with our Spanish students.  This year four UVM undergraduate and graduate students from Colombia and Spain visited our Spanish classes.  Students had the chance to ask questions in Spanish and we also had some more in depth conversations with our guests in English.  It was a great experience that I think was equally enjoyed by the CMS and UVM students!