Parish WebsiteSt. John Fisher Staff Newsletter(SAM) Brian's Weather School Calendars Alumni & Giving Faculty Email Login |
 |
Alli Magee: This is my first year teaching Spanish (grades 5-8) here at The immersion concept is important to me because it
effectively teaches communication rather than vocabulary. We have
all had language classes in which we had to memorize loads of vocab words and
their English equivalents. This process a) allows us to forget the words quickly
for lack of meaningful connection, and b) forces us to think in English before
we can think in Spanish. How frustrating to have to translate in your head
before you can say what you mean! The immersion process, on the other hand,
allows us to make direct associations between concepts and their Spanish names,
exactly how we learned our first language. And I assure you that although the
classes will be conducted in Spanish, you will not be constantly confused. I
employ a number of strategies in my classes to enhance comprehension and
learning when it seems it would be easy to get lost. Total Physical Response,
the Rassias Method, Multiple Intelligences, Storytelling, problem-solving and
the five phases of language acquisition
(exposure/recognition/trail/practice/mastery) are among the strategies that I
try to incorporate into every class experience. Students are constantly
surprised by just how much they understand, even after the first day. I look forward to a year full of excitement and learning. And
I always encourage questions and feedback, so please don’t hesitate to contact
me at any time. ¡Hasta pronto! Click here for the 7th and 8th Spanish study guide for the test on Wednesday April 14th. 4/7/10 Hola: We are moving right along in Spanish class. **Please remember to be practicing the Hail Mary (Ave María) prayer. The official testing date for this prayer is now Wednesday, April 28, 2010, because the Jogathon is on the 30th. The words are in the previous web update as well as an mp3 recording to help with pronunciation.** 5th grade: We have been reviewing calendar-related vocabulary. Ask your 5th grader to sing you the days of the week song! It’s a sticky one. In the next week we will be moving into weather-related vocabulary and clothing. 6th grade: We have begun a weather and clothing unit and have been discussing the seasons, different types of weather conditions and the necessary clothing for each kind of weather. We will soon have a brief home project wherein the students will track weather conditions in various countries for 5 days and draw conclusions about their findings. 7th and 8th grades: We are continuing to practice personal descriptions and have been working on describing ourselves with 2 very important verbs: Ser (to be) and Tener (to have). We’ve added to that “A mí me gusta.../A mí no me gusta...” (I like.../I don’t like...) and now “Mi _______ favorito es...” (My favorite ________ is...) We have a test next Weds., April 14, 2010 on these concepts and related vocabulary. I have handed out a study guide, please have your students look thoroughly over this before Friday and come ready with questions and things they want clarification on. Here is the study guide in case your child was absent or has misplaced his/her own copy.
¡Suerte!
3/17/10
¡Feliz día de San Patricio! (Happy St. Patrick’s Day!)
Many of the Spanish scrapbook projects have turned out very
well, and I love seeing the creative things the students have come up with. On that same note, due to my absence for two weeks in
February to recover from an emergency appendectomy, some of my expectations may
not have been as clear as I thought before I left, especially related to the
photo captions for 6th, 7th
and 8th graders. For this reason, any fixes or adjustments that I asked
individuals to complete may be turned in to me by
Fri. Mar. 19 for full credit.
(The projects were returned to students Fri. Mar. 12). They have a worksheet
with terms that I wanted them to practice that will make writing captions much
simpler. I sincerely apologize for any confusion my absence has
caused. I appreciate the work that the students put into these projects, and now
I would just like to make sure they are getting all of the valuable information
out of it that I had planned. Next up, for the month of May we will be reciting the Hail
Mary (Ave María) in Spanish at Hall Prayer! This gives the students well over a
month to prepare and we will once again be having oral tests in groups of about
5 at the end of April to be ready. This time we will spend a bit more time
breaking the prayer down into pieces and really learning what it means. This
will help the memorization process. Please make sure that your student is practicing 5-10mins a
day, reading it out loud and familiarizing themselves with it right away so that
they are not faced with trying to memorize it the day before the test. Following
are the words and a link to a sound clip that will help with pronunciation:
Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracia,
Click here to hear an MP3:
Update 2/24/10 ¡Hola! As many of you know, I had to have an emergency surgery (appendectomy) at the beginning of February and was out for about 2 weeks. Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers during my surgery and my recovery. Unfortunately, the event derailed me and many of the students who were in the middle of creating scrapbooks for a toy’s imaginary travels to Spanish-speaking countries. 5th and 6th grades are still working on the project, we will have in-class work time for most of the work, especially for those that need to use the school’s resources such as computers/internet, cameras and color printer. The project will be due Fri. Mar. 5th. 7th and 8th grades just finished presenting their completed projects to the class today and I have begun the task of grading them. This project was meant to: Introduce/discover in more detail Latin-American geography (5th-8th grades) Practice writing times and dates in a travel itinerary (5th-8th grades) Practice speaking Spanish in front of a group by presenting project (5th-8th grades) Introduce/practice using prepositions in writing captions of photos (6th-8th grades)
Coming up next: 7th and 8th grades We are now moving on to learning ways of describing ourselves and others using the verbs “to be” (Ser) and “to have” (Tener). This week we are focusing on describing people in 1st and 3rd person. 5th and 6th grades The scrapbook project will be due next Friday, March 5th. On that day each student will spend a minute or two describing a few highlights of their projects to their classmates in Spanish. They will know ahead of time what they will need to say in Spanish. All grades In March we will start learning Ave María (Hail Mary) in Spanish. We will take a slightly different approach to memorizing this time, so it should be easier. They’ll have the entire month of March to learn it and once again there will be a recording and other resources right here on the website. I expect that after a month, especially with the practice that we will be doing in class, there should be no problems with the group oral testing on April 2nd. Parents, please support your kids at home with this. ¡Gracias! Spanish Update 1/29/10 See below for current projects. We started 2010 learning days, months, how to say what time it is and what the date is. We have briefly talked about body parts and made our very own Mr. Potato Heads (el Señor Cabeza de Papa) with real potatoes and items found in nature. We have begun to learn about Latin American geography and various attractions you might find there. Remember: What time is it?
¿Qué hora es?
It is 3:00pm.
Son las tres de la tarde. It is 1:00am. Es la una de la mañana. (The verb “it is” changes for the 1:00 hour) It is 6:30pm. Son las seis y media de la noche. (“y media” means “and a half”) It is 5:15pm. Son las cinco y cuarto de la tarde. (“y cuarto” means “and a quarter”)
It is 2:45pm.
Son las tres menos cuarto de la tarde. (“menos cuarto” means “minus a
quarter”) It is midday. Es el mediodía. It is midnight. Es la medianoche. What time…?
¿A qué hora…?
What time do you get up?
¿A qué hora te levantas?
I get up at 6:30am.
Me levanto a las seis y media de la mañana. (“a” means
“at”)
I eat breakfast at 7:00am.
Como el desayuno a las siete de la mañana.
At 3:05pm I go home.
A las tres y cinco de la tarde voy a la casa. in the
morning: de la mañana
in
the afternoon: de la tarde
at night: de la noche What is the date today?
¿Cuál es la fecha de
hoy?
Today is January 29, 2010.
Hoy es el veintinueve (29) de enero de dos mil diez
(2010) **In Spanish, when we write the date in numbers, the day comes first: 29/1/2010** The days of the week: Los días de la semana (in Spanish we start on Monday) lunes,
martes, miércoles, jueves, viernes, sábado, domingo The months of the year: Los meses del año enero,
febrero, marzo, abril, mayo, junio, julio, agosto, septiembre, octubre,
noviembre, diciembre Body parts:
Las partes del cuerpo hands –
las manos
feet – los pies
arms – los
brazos
legs – las piernas head – la
cabeza
eyes – los ojos
nose – la nariz
mouth – la boca ears – las
orejas
hair – el cabello
shoulders – los hombros
knees – las rodillas fingers –
los dedos
toes – los dedos de pie
ankle – el tobillo
wrist - la muñeca
By now, you should have taken your Señor Cabeza de Papa home, if it hasn’t rotted already, it probably will soon! I have taken a photo of every single one of them, so you can have that as a keepsake if you would like. The potato itself, should probably go back to nature. Compost it if you can! CURRENTLY: We are currently working on a project that incorporates time, dates, and Latin American geography. Each student is responsible for making a scrapbook in which they document the Latin American travels of a small toy. Our class mascot, a vicuña named Roberto (he is a close cousin to the llama) traveled the world over winter break and came back with a scrapbook of his own as an example of what the students’ work can look like. The final product should be beautiful and creative. Each student has a copy of the project overview where I describe in more detail the elements of the project. In a nutshell, it entails choosing at least 5 different Spanish-speaking countries that their toy visited and creating at least 2 “photographs” that were taken of the toy in that country. They will put all of the photos together in whatever format they would like, complete with captions and titles and a flight itinerary with times and dates of travel between countries. For 6th- through 8th-graders the final scrapbook and presentation is due Friday, Feb. 12. For 5th-graders, the final scrapbook and presentation is due Friday, Feb. 19. ¡Buena suerte! Update #3 ¡Buenos días! Thank you for filling out the pretests for me, now we can really start making some progress. Here are a couple things that you need to know: 1) Many of you have been out of school with various illnesses, as have I. IF YOU WERE OUT SICK YOU NEED TO COME TO ME AND LET ME KNOW THAT YOU WERE GONE and I will fill you in on what we learned and give you whatever handouts were given out that day. I can’t keep track of everyone, so you need to be responsible for getting yourselves caught up. Here are the times you can come to my office: Wednesdays: before school, during lunch recess, after school Fridays: before school, during morning break, during lunch and recess Please don’t hesitate to come talk to me during those times, even if you just have questions about Spanish in general or if you want/need extra help. 2)
PADRE NUESTRO needs to be MEMORIZED by this FRIDAY OCTOBER 30TH. Here it is:
Padre
nuestro,
Danos hoy
nuestro pan de cada día. We are having oral tests in groups of 5 on Friday to make sure you know it. This is because starting next week and for all of November, we will be reciting Padre Nuestro at morning prayer. This is an opportunity for you to impress us all by rattling it off fluently. You have had it for a whole month now, and I’ve asked you every day that I’ve seen you to be working on it for at least 10 minutes a night. At this point, there is NO EXCUSE! If you truly have been working on it, I will be able to tell. Don’t worry about the grade, just practice, practice, practice between now and Friday and you will be fine. Tips for memorization: Read the first line out loud 3 times Say the first line 3 times without looking at the paper Read the second line out loud 3 times Say the second line 3 times without looking a the paper Read those two lines together out loud 3 times Say those two lines together 3 times without looking at the paper Read the third line out loud 3 times Say the third line 3 times without looking at the paper Read all three lines together out loud 3 times Say all three lines 3 times without looking at the paper Etc., etc., etc.... (if a line is too long to memorize all at once, break it up into smaller pieces)
Also, ask a family member or friend to quiz you. If you come to a sticky spot it’ll help you most if they only give you a tiny prompt or hint to jog your memory, and not the whole line. The harder your brain works to remember it, the better it will stick! Maybe you can even challenge that family member to a prayer off and see how quickly they can memorize it. Remember, you can also scroll down on this page to find the mp3 recording. ¡Suerte! (Good luck!) Homework assignments:
10/1/09 Saludos a los estudiantes y a sus familias: (See below for current assignments and due dates.) Here is what we’ve been working on in class:
Padre Nuestro – The Lord’s Prayer in Spanish *I would like all of the 5th-8th
graders to have this memorized by Oct. 30th
so that we can *Click on the link under “Assignments” below to hear a
recording to help you with pronunciation
Nombres y Adjectivos – Nouns and adjectives in
Spanish that help us describe how an object looks
Partes del cuerpo – Body parts, review of
things learned in the past and some new vocabulary
Pre-test – I have finally adapted the test and
made a copy for each student which they will receive in class on Friday, Oct. 2nd
(the 6th-graders will get theirs next week when they return from
outdoor school). I will allow some
time in class to work on this.
They are to do the rest at home and return it to me no
later than Friday, Oct. 16th.
Important information about the pre-test: *The only grade the students will get
for this is for whether or not they turned it in, and it will weigh heavily on
the final class grade. Late tests will be docked a full grade – it is important
that I have it by the due date to proceed with new material in class. In other
words, if you do it and turn it in on time, you will get an A. *Although the individual components of the test are not
graded, I ask that the students fill it out with integrity, i.e. do as much as
you possibly can even though it’s not graded. Doing this work now will allow us
to move past the things you already know and get on with new material. *The students are not to use any references or resources to
complete this test. *The students are not to guess or deduce the answers for any
question they are unsure of. If you do not know the answer, LEAVE IT
BLANK. I just need to know what you know. It would be very helpful if each student had a designated
folder, binder, or section in their binder just for Spanish. We have already had
issues with important handouts getting lost. It’s also a good place to compile
notes they’ve taken to make studying for tests easier.
Assignments:
·
Pre-test
– fill in everything you know, leave everything else blank – due Friday, Oct. 16th
·
Memorize Padre Nuestro
– work on it for 10 minutes a day – due Friday, Oct. 30th Click here to hear an MP3:
·
Get a folder,
binder, or designate a section of your binder for Spanish – due Weds., Oct. 7th
·
Get a Spanish/English dictionary
– see previous update for more info. – due ASAP
Hola, Since I’m just getting to know the students here for the first time, these first few weeks of school I’ve been working on getting an idea for what they know already and what they have yet to learn. The students are doing a great job of bearing with me. We will get into the groove soon and really focus on actually learning Spanish! In class: Happy Mexican Independence Day! This holiday passed us by on
September 15th, we did not have class that day, but it is still
important to recognize it! (Note that Cinco de Mayo is not Independence Day as
many might think, that was the day of the We are slowly but surely working on a pre-test that is not graded, but will help me see what areas we need to work on this year to be prepared for high school. Because many of the sections of the test need to be in color (and I could not afford 120 color copies for each student to do it individually), I have been having them do a few sections at a time with me in class. This is proving to be inefficient and in order to expedite this process, I’m going to post it on the internet to allow the students to work on it at home. I will let you know when that happens. In the meantime, we’ve also been reviewing different things that I suspected the students had already learned at one point: colors, numbers, body parts, shapes, sizes, etc. The game Twister has been a popular and fun way to practice colors, hands, feet, right and left. I’m looking forward to getting into some hands-on projects coming up. We will be getting our hands dirty with clay in the next couple weeks, as well as doing some outdoor activities to take advantage of the last warm Summer days. I will try to keep the students updated if they need to come prepared for anything (e.g. you can’t play Twister in a skirt and I failed to warn them last time!) Homework: 1) I have given all of the students copies of Padre Nuestro, the Lord’s Prayer in Spanish. I would like every student to have this memorized by October 30th. The 5th and 6th-graders know this already, but I have not had a chance to announce it to the other classes yet, so I don’t expect them to start working on it until Sept. 30th when I officially announce it as an assignment. Of course, they are welcome to start practicing early, but I will hopefully have a recording to help them with the pronunciation, so they might want to wait for that. 2) I would also like all students find a copy of a Spanish/English dictionary. Amazon.com sells many different kinds for under $10, Powell’s sells used ones, and I know that Borders has a good-sized selection of Spanish dictionaries and reference books. You can’t go wrong with Merriam-Webster. I don’t expect you to spend more than $10 on this, but it does need to be an actual Spanish-English dictionary rather than a pocket phrase book that may not have a wide selection of entries. Here’s one to look at:
http://www.amazon.com/Merriam-Websters-Spanish-English-Dictionary-Inc-Merriam-Webster/dp/0877799164/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253742062&sr=8-1 If, due to financial hardship, a student is not able provide his or her own dictionary, please contact me asap and we will work it out.
¡Muchas Gracias!
|