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