Feliz Navidad y Feliz Año Nuevo!!!!

We have been discovering many new things about each country we are studying this year.  There are many holiday celebrations celebrated around this time of year.

In Mexico we learned about "Las Posadas."  Posada means a place to stay.  In Mexico people go from house to house asking if there is any room for them.  They are not let in until the 4th house, where the party begins.  They do this each night for the 9 nights before Christmas.  We  also talked about the legend of la flor de nochebuena (Pointsettia).

In Puerto Rico, we were able to learn about the Parranda!  See the post below for a better explination and video of what a Parranda is!  Basically, it is Caroling, but people pick up the people from each house and then everyone goes to the next house!

In España, we celebrated the new year (El año nuevo).  All Spainards watch the Clocktower in the Puerta del Sol in Madrid.  When the clocktower hits midnight, they try to eat one grape with each ring of the clocktower.  Each of the grapes represent a month of prosperity in the new year! Check out the FLES YouTube Channel for a video explaning this tradition!

La Parranda Perfecta

Second Graders are learning about Puerto Rico this year.  As the holiday season is fast approaching, we are learning about an awesome tradition in Puerto Rico called a Parranda.  Here are some facts...

• Similar to Christmas Caroling
• Happens late at night
• A heads up is given to all the participants before the parranda is started
• Participants start at the first house and "wake them up" with the sound of instruments and singing.
• Then everyone, including the people at the first house go and do the same thing to the next house.  This continues until everyone ends up at the last house.
• At each stop along the way there is a small party
• When the final house is reached, a feast is prepared and everyone partakes! 

Here is a video of the CRCSD Spanish teachers having their own Parranda!  Enjoy!

Quality Learning

We have finally started to get into a routine this year.  There are so many fun things going on that I don't even have enough time to share them all!  I am so excited about a few new additions to the Spanish program this year.  One of them being an iPad mini that I purchased from a grant at the University of Iowa.  It is going to help me bring more authentic Spanish sources to the classroom along with being able to keep data all in one place!

Another addition this year is a reworking of our Student Learning Expectations.  While many of our activities and routines are the same, one of the core areas we have revamped our culture standards. This is giving us more cultural experiences and enriching our curriculum.  Just a reminder of what our cultural topics are:

Kindergarten: Introduction to what is culture
First Grade: Mexico
Second Grade: The Carribbean with a focus on Puerto Rico
Third/Fourth Grade: Spain

As conferences are quickly approaching, as always, please feel free to contact me with any concerns!


Some examples of the fun we are having!!!

Transportation Memory

Making our own Mochilas (Backpacks)

Starting the afternoon of with our Buenas Tardes song!

What have we been doing?!?!

Spanish classes are off and running!  We are two months into school and I am excited to see how focused classes have been.  There is a lot of Spanish learning happening.  Here is an update from each grade level!

Kindergarten:
           We have been focusing on answering the question:  Whats your name?  We have also been counting from 1-10 and just introduced the basic colors!  We made a book to practice our numbers.  I hope you all received it at home!  Here is one of our favorite videos to help us practice our names!

First Grade:
          We have been focusing on body parts lately!  We have been practicing by coloring our Monster!  Simon dice (Simon Says) is another way that we love to practice.  Mexico will be our cultural experience this year!  We are learning where it is located and what their flag looks like.

Second Grade:

          We have been practicing counting by 10s, new body parts, and learning lots about Puerto Rico!  One of our favorite friends is Senor Hodge! He has lots of videos to help us practice! We also love to dance to help us learn.  Here is one our our favorites to dance to! 

       

Third Grade

          We have been busy jumping over the ocean to Spain!  We have talked  about the flag and worked on making our own flags.

We have also been practicing the months of the year and graphed our birthdays!  Here are a few classes graphs!  

The links I promised!

One of the major goals of the FLES program is creating global citizens and building cultural competence.  Today, I introduced students to the beautiful country of Spain.  The best part of my day was listening to a student ask her mom if they could go to Spain as soon as her mom picked her up!  That is telling me that I'm doing my job.  I brought some souvenirs back with me including many post cards, flamenco dance essentials, maps, the shell from Santiago, some money and much more!  We have so many fun things to learn!  We ended the class with this video about Barcelona.  We noticed there were many people walking in the streets, but few cars. We even got to look at the Metro map to figure out how we would get around.  Here is the video we watched:

We have also been introducing the question: Can I go to the _____?   In Spanish we say ¿Puedo ir a ____?  We have been practicing with this fun video from Señor Wooly!  As promised, here it is:

If you would like to help your student practice Spanish...please visit the Cedar Rapids FLES YouTube channel.  You can search for us or just click here!  You can then search for videos according to different topics we are studying!  You can never practice too much!!!

A new year is upon us!

I love the start of the school year.  Students are excited to meet their new teacher, the school is glowing with fresh paint and wax, and teachers are ready to see how much students are going to achieve in the year to come.  Even in the chaos of learning a new schedule, I am loving my classes this year.  I spent a few weeks this summer on a team developing the curriculum for 3rd and 4th grade, and it is going to be an AWESOME year!

The thing I am most excited about this year is Spain.  I lived in Spain for 6 months during my Sophomore year of college and cannot wait to share those experiences!

Here is just a taste! 

Barcelona-On top of Casa Mila looking at La Sagrada Famila

Madrid

San Sebastian

Amost there!

Wow!  I cannot believe that the year is coming to an end.  As my first year is almost complete, I look back and see how much I have grown this year.  To my current students, Thank you.  I can only imagine all of the mistakes that I have made this year, and you have been so gracious and forgiving.  I appreciate your feedback and learning from all of you!  Believe it or not, you have probably taught me more this year than I have taught you!

As I'm assessing this week and next I am so happy to see the improvement this trimester.  Between the whirlwind of Trimester 1 and the cold and snow days of Trimester 2, we have finally gotten into a rhythm in Trimester 3 and I can only smile as I see how much growth each of my students has made.  I'm excited to have almost all of you again next year!  Keep up the good work, and stop back next week to see some of the fun activities I have planned for the last week of Spanish class this year!  It should be fun :)