In 6th grade Spanish we have been busy with physical descriptions in Spanish. To practice, we played a game called "tengo un estudiante secreto en mi cabeza" in which, literally, the students have a secret student on their forehead... Fun was had by all, especially when the secret student was oneself, ha!
A student is trying to guess the name of the secret student on his baseball hat.
Spontaneous, creative conversations are a main focus of our work in class, being asking and answering creative questions part of our daily routines. Therefore, ¡Chichicastenango! is a game that allows us to hit that Intermediate Mid level target, asking and answering many spontaneous questions. It also helps us study for our Charlamos quiz next week. Chichicastenango is a very famous market in Guatemala.
How it works:
Profe has a magic wand that turns anyone she gently taps into a "Chichicastenango". Chichicastenango students can only respond with the word Chichicastenango.
The students gather in a circle with a chair, except for the Policía, who stands in the middle of the circle.
Students "sleep" with eyes closed, including the Policía in the middle, until Profe is done delivering an unknown number of magic taps, turning different students into Chichicastenangos.
The Policía needs to find the Chichicastenangos by asking questions in Spanish. Regular students will answer in Spanish, while Chichicastenangos will only respond with "Chichicastenago". It is how the magic works...
At the sound of ¡Chichicastenango! everyone must change seats, and the Policía needs to try to seat as well. The last student to find a seat is the next Policía.
Today I thought I would include all the families at home in our conversations that we have about proficiency in the classroom. The students are familiar with the different proficiency levels and the "tasks" that they can do with the language. By the time the students graduate from Devo, the target proficiency level is Intermediate Mid. Here is a visual of the proficiency path:
As you can see, the Intermediate learner, writes in strings of creatives sentences, using connectors, and asks original questions! ¡Bravo, estudiantes de español!
It has been such a long time, I wanted to quickly update you to thank the PTO for funding our ludoteca or game center, with Banangrams, Monopolio y Scrabble, that has helped enrich our classroom through the fun and love for words!
In class we also learned about the legend of Sant Jordi with the 7th graders that are studying Spain, which is celebrated in Barcelona with books and roses for all! Ask your student about it! In the meantime, enjoy some of the comics the students created:
What a busy month December was! As most of you know from the showcase at school, 7th graders have been working on their new unit la comida ¡mmm, riquísimo! I hope you has a chance to check out the acrostic poems that the students made with their favorite foods.
Earlier in the unit, as means to study our new vocabulary, the students are asked to make flashcards, one drawing on one side, the Spanish word on the other. We play games, quiz each other, and study with them throughout the unit. Below is the example of a very organized student that did a wonderful job with his flashcard assignment:
Beautiful drawings, and super organized flashcards!
The 8th graders have been working on the past tense: the pretérito. In order to learn the irregular verbs, the students put together a dance to the tune of La Cucaracha. They all did a spectacular job, and Oscars were handed to best performances. Ask your student of español about the Cucaracha, see if they can remember the song by heart...
In Spanish class the students of both 7th grade and 8th grade have finished their Alonso y Elena projects. It has been hard work, and they deserve a big round of applause for the job well done! Ask your student to see his or her performance, they should all have access to it through their psbma.org account. A sneak peek at some of the performances in action:
Students took a video on Photo Booth of their puppet show.
Students rehearsing their puppet show.
The protagonists of this soap opera: Hermano Antipático, Elena, Alonso y Teresa
On another note altogether, this week the students took their Charlamos spoken quiz, in which students ask each other questions and answers and they cannot neither repeat nor hesitate too much. Some students are quite the strategists when it comes to preparing for the test: flashcards, recordings, undoing sentences, focusing only on a few questions, you name it! Ask your student how they got ready for the quiz! As a rule of thumb, it is always a good idea to quiz them a couple of days before. Thank you to all the grown ups at home who did! As a reminder, the students can retake tests and quizzes if they make arrangements with me: my office hours are Mondays after school.
Proper posture is encourage during Charlamos, as you can see in this drawing on the autoevaluación.
We have been busy reviewing and launching into our new units in español. In class, the students are encouraged to use botones with their group tables in order to track how much español they use in class: all of the botones in the cup earns them Dojo points for the work well done speaking español! Be sure to ask your student about the botones, and whether their group earned points during class.
¡Bravo! ¡Felicidades! This group spoke bunches of español in class...
On another note, our cultural focus for 7th and 8th graders for the unit is Guatemala and the Latino Community in the US. Are you an expert on clothing fair trade or salsa dancing? We welcome you into our classroom! In the meantime, here is a little excerpt regarding two famous ladies, one from Guatemala and one from Cuba, that we will talk about in class: Rigoberta Menchú and Celia Cruz.
