¡La clase de español!

The eighth graders are off to a great start in Spanish.  Last week they reviewed the last two years by working in groups to each individually write a short essay.  The essay included topics such as; describing themselves, writing about their classes and school, talking about foods they like and don't like, and describing their family.  After completing the assignment, they practiced their oral communication by reading one of their paragraphs to the class.  It was a great activity that provided review, collaboration, and practice with writing, reading, speaking, and listening.

This week, we began our unit for 1st quarter, Vivimos aquí,  We live here. We opened the unit exploring the Spanish speaking country, Ecuador. We looked at its geography, learned about their passion for fútbol, and their traditional clothing; where we discussed how people in the United States express themselves through the clothing we wear.

The objectives for this unit are to learn how to describe a house and household items, indicate the order of things, and describe people and locations. We looked at several pictures of different houses and the class used their prior knowledge of physical descriptions to describe the exterior.  They also shared the furniture they have in their homes or bedrooms to personalize the topic.  Today, we did a great activity for visual learners. They drew their favorite room. Next class they will exchange drawings with a partner and their partner will hopefully be able to label the items they see.

Next week, we will discover different types of houses and compare and contrast houses in Quito, Ecuador with ones we see in Chicago. We will practice the difference among two very important Spanish verbs, ser and estar.  They are two verbs that both have the same meaning but are used in different circumstances.

At home and over the next few weeks, ask your child if they can describe their house or bedroom. The vocabulary is new; however as we continue to work through this unit they should be able to easily describe different rooms and items.