Preparing for Winter Break

¡Hola familias!

With the break fast approaching, we wanted to take  a few minutes to update you on what we have been doing since Thanksgiving and also provide you with some tips to help your student keep his or her Spanish skills fresh over the long break.

To begin, since Thanksgiving, we have been busy reinforcing family vocabulary and learning about how winter holidays are celebrated in both Spain and Colombia. Students have had lots of practice speaking and describing their own family, as well as famous families. The students have also learned about Noche de las Velitas and other holidays that are celebrated in Colombia this time of year. Additionally, students have learned about traditions in Spain such as eating twelve grapes and midnight on New Year's Eve. The students have also recently completed an assignment in which they recorded a video of themselves describing one of their favorite holidays that they celebrate. Many students include a comparison to holidays in Spain or Colombia in their descriptions.

After the break, we will be working on the Winter Poems that have been a tradition among all languages in the World Languages Department. Students will also be learning how to describe what they and others are like physically. Many students enjoy learning how to say someone is tall and has brown hair and green eyes etc.  We will also begin to discuss recommendations for 9th grade.  These are based on your student's progress in class and on assessments over the past two years.

Over the break, many students will go almost two weeks without any exposure to Spanish! Repeated exposure is very important in language learning, so below are a few tips to help encourage their student to keep their skills sharp over the break:

1. Review previous unit vocabulary on the site Quizlet.com. There are great interactive games that students can play or flashcard sets they can study...playing games on Quizlet could be an easy and fun solution if your student ever says "I'm bored" over the break!
2. Play games or complete practice activities on the website Conjuguemos.com. This is a great way for students to keep grammar concepts fresh. To play games, they can click on the topic they want to study and click on the "new interactive games" link on the left hand side of the activity.
3. Practice with a friend or family member who speaks Spanish!
4. Watch t.v. or listen to music in Spanish. Any input in Spanish, even if they only understand a few words will help keep their listening skills sharp.

As always, please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns. We hope everyone has a happy, safe and restful winter break. See you next year!

Un saludo cordial,
Kathy Delima and Leigh Netcoh
8th grade Spanish Teachers

El Día de Acción de Gracias (Thanksgiving)

¡Hola familias!

¡Qué increíble que ya sean las vacaciones del Día de Acción de Gracias! We can't believe that it is already Thanksgiving Break! The intercambio is off to a great start. Our students have just finished their first letters to their pen pals and should be hearing back from their pen pals (in Spanish) in the next few days. We have also just finished up a hefty unit where our students have learned how to talk about sports they play, tell someone that a specific body part hurts, tell someone what they are going to do and invite someone to do something. They have also learned about what Spaniards like to do in their free time and all of the exciting things there are to do in Spain. The will surely be learning more about this from their pen pals!

In perfect timing with the spirit of the holidays, we have just begun our family unit. Students have begun to learn the Spanish names for the members in their family. They will also be learning how winter holidays are celebrated in Spain and Colombia and will be making comparisons between these celebrations and their own.

In order to bring a little bit of español to your Thanksgiving tables this year, we are offering students extra credit on their next quiz if they make place cards in Spanish for the people who are at the Thanksgiving table. For example, a card with the word "abuela" written on it to be placed where his/her grandmother will be sitting. A family friend can be referred to as "un amigo/una amiga de la familia". The students must take a picture of the labels on the table and show the picture to us, via email or printed out, on Monday December 1st.  Students may also receive extra credit for labeling at least five dishes in Spanish and showing us a picture of this as well. 

We look forward to the coming unit and to seeing a little bit of Spanish in the outside world of our students! We hope you all have a restful and wonderful break.

Un saludo cordial,
Kathy Delima and Leigh Netcoh
8th Grade Spanish Teachers

¡El intercambio va a empezar!

¡Hola familias!

We are very excited to announce that we are planning to begin a language exchange with a middle school in Madrid starting next week. Many of the students at this school are students that Leigh Netcoh worked with while living in Madrid, Spain from 2011-2012. We began the exchange last year and are looking forward to continuing the tradition this year with a new group of students.

The exchange will be taking place on the students' blogs. The students will be adding their pen pals, as well as the teacher from Spain, as author's of their blogs so they may have access to make comments on the blog. Our students will post first in Spanish and the remainder of the exchange will take place via the comment sections of the blog. As the exchange is taking place on the students' blogs, you will be able to carefully monitor the interactions as well. 

We are very excited to begin this exchange. We look forward to providing our students  the opportunity to use their Spanish for an authentic purpose as well as to learn about their peers in a Spanish speaking country, broadening their cultural perspectives. We ask that send an email to your child's Spanish teacher to give consent for your child to participate in this cultural experience (Leigh_Netcoh@wayland.k12.ma.us if your child has Profe Netcoh or Katherine_Delima@wayland.k12.ma.us if you child has Señora Delima). Please do not hesitate to let us know if you have any questions.

We look forward to receiving your consent via email. 

Un saludo cordial, 
Katherine Delima and Leigh Netcoh
8th grade Spanish Teachers 

¿Qué está pasando en la clase de español? Edición de otoño

¡Bienvenidas Familias! Welcome to our 8th grade blog!

The purpose of this blog is to keep you up to date on what is going on in your child's Spanish class. 

Currently, we are in our second unit of the year "¿Qué vas a hacer este fin de semana? (what are you doing this weekend?) So far, the students have learned to describe their favorite sports and leisure time activities. Soon they will learn to extend and decline invitations. This part of the unit is a lot of fun as we pair them up and have them send voicemail messages to each other and accept or decline their partner's invitations.

 This past week the students also worked on and presented their Day of the Dead altars. This is one of our favorite projects as the students are really able to connect with the Mexican culture as they recreate an authentic ofrenda. I've posted some of their ofrendas below. We were blown away at how amazing their ofrendas came out. ¡Excelente trabajo!

 The students have blogs that they post to regularly as well as many online activities where they have to record themselves speaking en español. Students will be posting to their blogs again next week. Please do not hesitate to ask them to share their new knowledge with you! Have them share their blog posts or voice recordings with you. We also have stamp sheets we use in class to assess what the students are learning throughout each unit. Students receive a stamp on this sheet when they demonstrate to us that they can meet a unit objective. This is a great way to quiz them on what they know at home too! You'll be quite impressed with all they can say and write!

 We have gotten the year off to a great start and are looking forward to continuing a great year with your students. Please stay tuned for another update.

 Un saludo cordial, Katherine DeLima and Leigh Netcoh
 8th grade Spanish teachers