Our first week!

Hola padres! I am so sorry for the late post! Yesterday totally got away from me and I realized late last night that I had forgotten to let you know how this week has gone! Please forgive me as it has been a week of schedule adjustments and getting to know each other and how the school day will run. Let me tell you what we have been up to.

There have been a few specific ways I have integrated Spanish into our PE class. First off, I have green and red polyspots that indicate where each class should line up at the beginning (green) and end (red) of class. Mr. Hume so kindly wrote "hola" (green) and "adiós" (red) on each respective polyspot. It is so nice to have a specific place where the scholars know to line up while adding a bit of Spanish in!

The most important change for us has been my attention getter. I struggled last year with a way to indicate to the scholars that I needed their attention when they got a little loud. There is a very fun rhyme in Spanish that they have caught on to very quickly and that is a great indicator to them that I need their attention. It goes like this: I say " ¿qué pasa calabaza?" and they respond with "nada, nada limonada". Directly translated this means, "what's up pumpkin?" and their response is, "not much, lemonade!" Of course this makes no sense in English, but rhymes beautifully in Spanish. The scholars really enjoy it and know that when I say it, I need for them to look at me and be ready for new directions.

Also in PE, I have discovered that a great way to have the scholars follow directions is to say "when I say go...." but last year I struggled with a good way to say this in Spanish, as there is no good translation for "go". I finally decided that "vamanos" is probably the best translation. So now when giving them instructions, I say "when I say 'vamanos....' " and they know what to do when. I'm so glad to have found these new ways to instruct them.

In Spanish we have been working on greetings and why Spanish is important to learn. We have read "I love Saturdays and domingos" by Alma Flor Ada which talks about a bilingual family and also "Margaret and Margarita" by Lynn Reiser which talks about two little girls one who speaks Spanish and the other who speaks English who meet at a park and become friends. Both are sweet stories that show the power of languages and the worlds that can open up if you know more than one.

This week we also started our study of Spanish speaking countries. Last year we started with Cuba and Mexico and continued south through Central America ending at the very north of South America with Colombia. I decided to continue on through South America this year in the hopes that if the scholar is here at Trivium for both Kinder and first grade, that they will have covered most of the Spanish speaking countries through North, Central and South America by the end of first grade. We'll see where we end up this year, but for now, we began with Venezuela. We talked about where it is on the map, what their flag looks like and some special characteristics it has. These lessons are given on Wednesdays. Please ask your scholars what they learned about this beautiful country. This week, Mrs. Baird's class and Mrs. Mason's class received this lesson. I am excited to hear what they tell you about it!

All for now, thank you so much for your patience this week as we are all trying our best to get a handle on things and give your scholars the very best instruction we can while making necessary adjustments as everything is still so new. I hope you all have a restful week and I look forward to continuing to get to know your scholars!

Sra. Hamilton