Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Bagnall Blurb #3 Noviembre

Bagnall Blurb #3

Noviembre

Padres y Amigos,

It was wonderful to get a chance to meet some of you and chat over parent teacher conferences! I had wonderful things to share and it was encouraging to hear that students are using their Spanish at home. As we head into the month of December here are some updates on what has been happening in your child’s Spanish class and what is to come in these Christmas season weeks!

Quinto Grado (5th): We are still continuing in our second unit (En Clase). The students have been learning how to say the different classes that they have (arte, ciencias, educación física, etc) and adjectives to describe them (fácil, interesante, mi favorite, etc). In the next week we will be putting a small graphic organizer together of their class schedule all in Spanish. We will also be having a QUIZ on Dec 8 or Dec 9 (depending on your home room class. This quiz will be on all the vocabulary and grammar from unit II. 5th graders should take their Spanish binder home that week to study. I will also have a practice quiz on my quia site (www.quia.com/profiles/rbagnall15). And since it is Christmas time we are signing some Christmas songs in Spanish. You can practice these songs by clicking on the link on the upper right hand side of the blog that says “Spanish Class Songs”. You will be directed to a site with all videos of our songs, for the Christmas ones select NAVIDAD. Feliz Navidad everyone!

Sexto grado (6th): The 6th graders have just added a new verb to their vocabulary. The verb they have learned is “querer” which means to want. They are using it in more complex sentences to say what they want to do, such as “Quiero jugar videojuegos” (I want to play video games) or “Quiero domir porque estoy cansado” (I want to sleep because I am tired). They also completed their first “free write” in Spanish where they had fifteen minutes in class to write a story all in Spanish. The stories they came up with were great and it was amazing to see how they could put together what they know! The most exciting thing happening, however, is writing to our 1st grade buddies at Cesar Chavez Elementary School. The students there are learning English and we will be writing to them and visiting them before Christmas break. The 6th graders seem excited to start this relationship and practice their Spanish with native speakers!

Séptimo Grado (7th): We are wrapping up our unit on health in 7th grade Spanish. Everything that we have done thus far with vocabulary and grammar has led us to our Home Remedies Project. Each 7th grader will create a presentation all in Spanish on a home remedy that they use/learned about from their home and family members. It will be a great way to put together everything that we have learned about the body parts, giving advice, and medical solutions. We will also be taking a quiz on this unit on 14th/16th of December (depending on your home room). Students can practice for this quiz on quia, so check it out at www.quia.com/profiles/rbagnall15

Octavo Grado (8th): The 8th grade weather videos turned out great! Check out the blog where I posted a couple of example ones. They 8th graders also took a quiz in class last week on their computers. They were able to take the quiz up to 3 times in order to fix their mistakes and improve; most students took advantage of this and scored very high! We are moving on now in class with the verb ESTAR (to be) and its different uses. We are currently studying how it is used in the verb form of the present progressive (the “ING” verb). We will have a quiz on this information before Christmas break sometime, be sure to check net classroom for updates on assignments and assessments. Most excitingly, we received letters back from our pen pals in Honduras. We wrote them back and are now practicing Christmas carols in Spanish so that we can Skype Carol them before break!

Adiós y hasta luego,

Sra. Becky Bagnall

bbagnall@grcs.org

616 574 6343