Ruin presentations Spanish II

Lines of Nazca

Spanish II is presenting projects this week on ancient ruins. Doing research, giving presentations and peer review are important skills but even more valuable for our class is how it helps students make memorable connections to Latin American countries. This is the beginning of the mind maps they will draw upon to create personal maps by heart in the spring.  

Calendarios in 2/3!

The 2/3 class is applying their Spanish vocabulary to create calendars for 2014. Along the way they learn to set up a calendar (in English and in Spanish), how dates are expressed differently and cultural differences in holidays and celebrations. Why do we start a calendar on Sunday? How do you know which day comes first on the next month? Why are there more days in some months than others? Why don't Spanish calendars have the 4th of July as a holiday? Why aren't days of the week capitalized in Spanish when we do that in English? So many answers to discover...

Ancient Ruins

Spanish II students are working with partners to prepare research projects on some of the ruins in Latin America. Presentations will include: Chichen-Itza, Teotihuacan, Lines of Nazca, Tiwanaku, Copan, Tikal, Machu Picchu and more. Students are becoming pros at finding quality resources, sifting through difficulty archaeological info, citing resources and learning more about the history of those countries where Spanish is primarily spoken today. Students will share the information they have learned using power point presentations in Spanish for real-life context.

Monarchs have arrived in Mexico!

Not just those from our class, but the actual live Monarchs. They were delayed this year, but the K/1 students have been following the journeynorth blog and we were able to view pictures of students in Mexico sharing their evidence of the arrival to the small villages there. We look forward to following the Monarchs more this spring!

4/5 class

4/5's are creating nature posters using vocabulary from recent unit. These posters will serve as the backdrop for puppet shows they will perform in Spanish.

Dia de los Muertos: Calavera Poems

Spanish III students researched famous figures in Latin America and then created odes to them for Day of the Dead by writing typical Calavera poems and crafting niches with skeletons and foil metal work. Students in Spanish I and II selected topics that bug them to personify and grades 4/5 create skeleton figures just for fun!

Jose Limon- Dance artist and choreographer

Julio Tello- Peruvian Father of Archaeology

Tito Puente - Musician

Evita Peron - 1st lady of Argentina

Pet dogs - they can be such loves and a pain all the same!

Dia de los Muertos

On the 2nd of November children throughout Latin America will be celebrating Day of the Dead with their families. The 2/3 class has been busy researching this tradition. From the Aztec rituals to the current influence of Halloween through TV shown in Mexico students are exploring how the celebration is changing and how it is alike/different from our rituals of remembering loved ones and . This week, all students will be taking part in a cultural study surrounding this important part of Latin American culture. Students in K/1 will look in on the Monarch butterfly's arrival to Mexico through Journey South, 2/3's and 4/5's will experiment with skull mask making, and the middle school will be writing Calaveras poems and creating funny skeleton figures that are popular representations of this unique celebration. Spanish III students have additionally been researching famous Latin American figures and will be working together to make create a typical Day of the Dead altar in class using their figures so that they can teach younger students more about the significance of this custom.