Dear Parents and Grandparents,
                       Here is a play by play of what we did in Spanish class yesterday.
It is more exciting than last Sunday's Superbowl! (for me, I am a Colorado fan).

K-4 We always review all songs. Songs are a fun way to learn target vocabulary.  We learned weather terms: rain-lluvia, snow-nieve, sunny day-Hace sol, windy day-hace viento. We also reviewed  farm animals. The new song was:  Asi, me lavo las manos. This song, sung to the tune of "Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush," reinforces the terms for parts of the body.

 K-5 We learned weather terms, the same as K-4.  We also did a great job with the song to reinforce parts of the body, "Asi me lavo las manos." 

1st-  We reviewed classroom vocabulary and the verb "to have- tener"  I distributed items (realia) to the students.  I then asked the question, "Quien tiene__________?"  Students who had the item needed to respond, " Yo tengo el /la__________.  This was so much fun!  We also reviewed animals by singing, "Uno, dos, tres, _________(name of animal). 

2nd-  We completed a worksheet designed to learn position of adjectives in Spanish.  It also was a review of rooms in a house and furniture from last year.  This lesson went extremely well.  I have several students who like to help by being "teachers."  They each took two students to help  while I worked with other students.  Thank you, Kane and Carter!  Way to go! Teaching others is a great way to reinforce what one knows. Students have flash cards to review vocabulary.  They may leave the cards at home.  Some of them did not bring them back, so I decided to have students leave cards at home to study.

Grades 3-6   These students took a test on basic questions in Spanish.  I glanced at the results as students handed in their work.  They look much better than last week's quiz.  The questions are very basic:  How old are you?  What is your name? What is your friend's favorite class?  I really want students to learn some basic written language skills in Spanish, although the main emphasis of their instruction is oral language proficiency.  Most  students did well on last week's test.  Some students scored a "C."  There were many A's and B's.  If a student does really well, I grade the paper, A plus, plus, plus.  These test do NOT affect the students' overall grade in the class unless a student consistently fails tests.  Students had two weeks to study and prepare for the five questions. I am aware of students who have difficulty reading and writing  English and know that that may be carried over into their written work in Spanish.  I am working with those students. 
I will return the tests to students on Wednesday.  Students who did not do well on either the first test or the second will have a chance to retake the test on Monday. 

6th Grade-  Students need to continue learning how to write the number words in Spanish from thirty nine to one hundred.  Here is what they need to study since they already know how to write the numbers from one to ten:  40 cuarenta, 50 cincuenta, 60 sesenta, 70 setenta, 80 ochenta, 90 noventa, 100 cien.  41 will be cuarenta y uno.  42, cuarenta y dos, etc. They will have a test on numbers from 40 - 100 on Monday.  I will say the number in English and they will be required to write the number in Spanish.