First Grade Spanish
It has been such a pleasure working with the first graders this year. The students have learned so much, and they have truly enjoyed themselves in the process. We have been reviewing numbers from 1 to 50. Our units this quarter included clothing and food. We began by learning how to say different clothing items, such as pantalones, vestido, and zapatos. We reviewed the colors of clothing in this unit. Our students created mini-books by coloring and writing the names of clothing. We even played a game called “La Ronda del Lobo, in which students in a round ask a wolf what he is putting on as he is getting dressed.
Our next unit introduced the names of fruits and vegetables. The students learned how to express which foods they liked or disliked by saying, “Me gusta” or “No me gusta.” We watched a segment of our video series, Muzzy, that demonstrated and reinforced this sentence structure as well. Another mini-book allowed the students to practice reading and writing the names of the fruits. The students then had the opportunity to apply what they learned during a fruit tasting activity. Finally, we ended the quarter by introducing the Spanish alphabet along with some animals that correspond to their initial letters.
This quarter has also been filled with celebrations and “fiestas.” We learned about the Mexican holiday, “Cinco de mayo.” First graders learned that this holiday celebrates the Mexicans’ victory in a battle that took place against the French over 100 years ago. Our classes celebrated by learning the “Jarabe Tapatio” which is better known as the Mexican Hat Dance. Thanks to the generous contributions of the parents, we also celebrated on this day by having a “Taco Bar” in which the students enjoyed traditional tacos with all of the toppings. Our final “fiesta” of the year was a big hit as we broke into the “Piñatas” at our Piñata Party.
During the summer break, encourage your child to continue practicing Spanish with classmates (or with you) in person or on the phone. Check out books in Spanish from the public libraries and try to read them together. On television you can watch Discovery Kids en Español, which includes quality children’s programming in Spanish. Finally, have a great summer! We have all had a wonderful time learning about the Spanish language and culture.
Señorita Segovia and Señora Lemoine

Second Grade Spanish
It has been such a pleasure working with the second graders this year. The students have learned so much, and they have truly enjoyed themselves in the process. We began this quarter with a unit on parts of the body. We participated in many different activities to help us learn this new vocabulary, such as Bingo, a Dice game, Simon Says, and singing songs. We also had fun with a listening activity that required us to draw an alien by following directions given to us as to how many heads, arms, and legs to include. Our oral skills were put to use, as we had to present our portraits to the class.
Our next unit brought us to the days of the week, months of the year, and the four seasons. We identified clothing used during each season, and we also identified the months that correspond to each season. We accompanied this unit with songs and games, such as Domingo and Diciembre. We watched a segment of our video series, Muzzy, that demonstrated and reinforced the concept of seasons as well. Finally, we ended the quarter with a storytelling unit in which we read and role-played fairy tales, such as La Gallinita Roja and Los Tres Cerditos.
This quarter has also been filled with celebrations and “fiestas.” We learned about the Mexican holiday, “Cinco de mayo.” Second graders learned that this holiday celebrates the Mexicans’ victory in a battle that took place against the French over 100 years ago. Our classes celebrated by learning a traditional Mexican song called “El Rancho Grande.” Thanks to the generous contributions of the parents, we also celebrated on this day by having a “Taco Bar” in which the students enjoyed traditional tacos with all of the toppings. Our final “fiesta” of the year was a big hit as we broke into the “Piñatas” at our Piñata Party.
During the summer break, encourage your child to continue practicing Spanish with classmates (or with you) in person or on the phone. Check out books in Spanish from the public libraries and try to read them together. On television you can watch Discovery Kids en Español, which includes quality children’s programming in Spanish. Finally, have a great summer! We have all had a wonderful time learning about the Spanish language and culture.

Third Grade Spanish
It has been such a pleasure working with the third graders this year. The students have learned so much, and they have truly enjoyed themselves in the process. We began the quarter with a review on topics, such as transportation, sports, and family members. These topics were embedded in stories we read later in the quarter. We spent a great deal of time on our unit of telling time. The students learned to tell and write the time to the hour, quarter-hour, and half-hour. They also learned a more abstract way of telling time, which involves telling how many minutes until the next hour.
In our next unit we reviewed places in the city, and we learned to use direction words, such as izquierda, derecha, delante, and detras in order to give and follow directions on a map. We applied these concepts to describe locations and positions of each other and of objects in our classrooms, and also to larger maps of the United States and Mexico. We then adapted the directions we learned into norte, sur, este, and oeste for use with these maps.
This quarter has also been filled with celebrations and “fiestas.” We learned about the Mexican holiday, “Cinco de mayo.” Third graders learned that this holiday celebrates the Mexicans’ victory in a battle that took place against the French over 100 years ago. Our classes celebrated by learning a traditional Mexican song called “De Colores.” Thanks to the generous contributions of the parents, we also celebrated on this day by having a “Taco Bar” in which the students enjoyed traditional tacos with all of the toppings. Our final “fiesta” of the year was a big hit as we broke into the “Piñatas” at our Piñata Party.
During the summer break, encourage your child to continue practicing Spanish with classmates (or with you) in person or on the phone. Check out books in Spanish from the public libraries and try to read them together. On television you can watch Discovery Kids en Español, which includes quality children’s programming in Spanish. Finally, have a great summer! We have all had a wonderful time learning about the Spanish language and culture.

Fourth Grade Spanish
It has been such a pleasure working with the fourth graders this year. The students have learned so much, and they have truly enjoyed themselves in the process. We continued our study of Bolivia this past quarter by focusing on telling time, and we also learned a more abstract way of telling time, which involves telling how many minutes until the next hour. Our unit on Bolivia gave us the opportunity to review the vocabulary related to sports and also introduced us to several exciting sports that take place in Bolivia, such as boat racing.
The next country we studied was Chile. This unit incorporated our study of sports, and also extended our vocabulary to include favorite pastimes in Chile, such as kite flying. The children even created their own handmade kites, and some were able to fly them outside. We learned the ordinal numbers in Spanish, and we applied these terms to sequencing daily activities. The students learned to use diminutives in Spanish by applying certain grammatical rules. For example, in order to say something is smaller, the word taco becomes taquito. To culminate this unit, we prepared and tasted empanadas, a typical food from Chile!
This quarter has also been filled with celebrations and “fiestas.” We learned about the Mexican holiday, “Cinco de mayo.” Fourth graders learned that this holiday celebrates the Mexicans’ victory in a battle that took place against the French over 100 years ago. Our classes celebrated by learning a traditional Mexican song/game similar to “London Bridge” called, “La Vibora de la Mar.” Thanks to the generous contributions of the parents, we also celebrated on this day by having a “Taco Bar” in which the students enjoyed traditional tacos with all of the toppings. Our final “fiesta” of the year was a big hit as we broke into the “Piñatas” at our Piñata Party.
During the summer break, encourage your child to continue practicing Spanish with classmates (or with you) in person or on the phone. Check out books in Spanish from the public libraries and try to read them together. On television you can watch Discovery Kids en Español, which includes quality children’s programming in Spanish. Finally, have a great summer! We have all had a wonderful time learning about the Spanish language and culture.

Fifth Grade Spanish
This quarter, fifth grade Spanish students completed units on El Paso, Texas and Tucson, Arizona. We continued our study of professions and occupations in the community. By filling out a sample job application in Spanish, the students were able to apply all of the vocabulary they learned from this unit. As a culminating activity, we had the students research a prominent Hispanic professional and present to the class.
Our final unit of the year focused on Tucson, Arizona and vocabulary related to clothing and shopping. This gave us the opportunity to review vocabulary learned in the past years related to numbers, colors, sizes, likes and dislikes. The students reviewed the names for several clothing items and learned some new terminology as well, such as ofertas and rebajas, which mean sales and discounts. We also used this vocabulary to design our sales advertisement and our own ideal centro comercial or mall.
This quarter has also been filled with celebrations and “fiestas.” We learned about the Mexican holiday, “Cinco de mayo.” Fifth graders learned that this holiday celebrates the Mexicans’ victory in a battle that took place against the French over 100 years ago. Our classes celebrated by learning a Mexican song called, “La Bamba.” Thanks to the generous contributions of the parents, we also celebrated on this day by having a “Taco Bar” in which the students enjoyed traditional tacos with all of the toppings. Our final “fiesta” of the year was a big hit as we broke into the “Piñatas” at our Piñata Party.
During the summer break, encourage your child to continue practicing Spanish with classmates (or with you) in person or on the phone. Check out books in Spanish from the public libraries and try to read them together. On television you can watch Discovery Kids en Español, which includes quality children’s programming in Spanish. Finally, have a great summer! We have all had a wonderful time learning about the Spanish language and culture.