DAC Beginning French

Salut tout le monde!

It's hard to believe four weeks have already passed since the TALK year began! Since then, we have covered quite a bit of ground. We've already learned simple commands, colors, and shapes, and for the past two weeks, we have been discussing parts of the body, numbers, days of the week, and the months of the year in French!

We played games like freeze dance, Jaques a dit (Simon says), pictionary, dress up, and pin the body part on Pierre (a fun twist on pin the tail on the donkey), hot potato, memory, and even had a number scavenger hunt to solidify our understanding of the material we learned.

Next week, we will pick back up with numbers, (kids have the most trouble with numbers I find), and learn directions such as up, down, backwards, forwards, and revisit material we have already learned.

Attached here is a vocabulary list that you can use to review what we have gone over in class and here is a great site that has all of the cardinal numbers and their correct pronunciation!

Have a fantastic weekend, and see you all on Monday! If you have any questions, do not hesitate to send me an e-mail!

Bon week-end, et à lundi!

Kristine.

Primera semana de Octubre!

For next week, we'll continue to work on parts of the body. That's a crucial lesson when speaking a different language not only because of the visual reference to other lessons but also because it can become very practical when traveling. To my surprise not many children were aware of this topic, so I realized we needed one more week to learn well the names of different body parts.

Also, beginning next week, I'll be giving points for positive behavior in the classroom, and every Friday, I'll be hosting a mini-ceremony to hand out the awards in order to reward and reinforce those positive behaviors.

Here are the seven  recognitions ( yes, seven! so everyone can get one!) I'll be awarding:

And the award goes to...

1. who ever arrived early to class everyday. EL MAS MADRUGADOR AWARD
2.  who responded to Buenos Dias, Como estas? everyday BUENOS DIAS AWARD
3. who respected the teacher & students, was quiet & listen for instructions everyday. EL MAS RESPETUOSO AWARD
4. who was the most helpful during class. EL AYUDANTE AWARD
5. who participated the most. EL PARTICIPANTE AWARD
6. who help others & was friendly with classmates. EL AMIGABLE AWARD
7. who can tell most new vocabulary at the end of the week. YO SI APRENDI MUCHO AWARD

Y que hicimos?

Hola a todos los papas & mamas!

Here's a brief update from the last two weeks.
As you know, we have been working in two groups separately. This was a positive change not only because of the difference in each level but also because of the age group difference. For the past two weeks we worked in a variety of topics: shapes, colors, numbers, routines, parts of the house, and parts of the body. We had lots of fun, learned new vocabulary, played twister, talked about our houses and routines; in addition, the members of this group are getting to know each other better.

We are also reading one short book per week as well as learning new songs and games in Spanish. Theses books come from the public library, so if you're interested to know what we are reading, don't hesitate to email me, and I'll be glad to send you the titles and authors, so you can check them out at the library too.

Here are some pictures of some activities from this week about our discussion about parts of the house & samples of the mini-book the kids created showing their daily routines in order 1st (primero), 2nd (segundo), 3rd (tercero), and Last (ultimo).:

Front cover

First: wake up

Second: get dress

Ultimo: eating breakfast

One of the kids included in his routine our Spanish classes. I was glad to see he drew smiles on the faces of the students. It counts as an indicator that they are enjoying the classes!

We discussed how many rooms and other elements are in each child's house.

¿Que aprenderemos esta semana?

Buenos Dias!

From now on, every Sunday I'll be writing a brief note on what topics we'll be working on each week. Remember if you want to know the curriculum more in detail, you could check out the print out I post every Monday at the classroom's door, or you might request an electronic copy at my email: diazolgalu@gmail.com.

Well, for this week we'll have LOTS of fun! Being the child of a teacher, I grew up learning lots of vocabulary, writing & reading fun games during my childhood. So, I decided to incorporate some of those games for this week:
- Veo Veo (I spy)
- De la Habana viene un barco cargado de ... (vocabulary game)
- STOP game (writing activity)
- Juguemos en el bosque ( ronda- acting out game)

(Here's a link to the ronda we'll play on Friday for reviewing routines:)

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqulflE6nj8


Ask your children to teach you the game after we play it at the classroom, and they can also play it with their siblings at home. That would be a great review of Spanish vocabulary while having fun at home!
This week we'll focus on numbers and daily routines, which includes: body parts & parts of the house. Since all these topics are related to each other, we'll have one holistic curriculum.

The book we'll read this week is Muchas Palabras Sobre Mi Casa by Richard Brown, and the song we'll work with this week will be in a  different  format. Instead of learning typical songs like "head-shoulders-knees & toes", we'll do a musical activity more age appropriate for them. We'll listen at this song from the Brazilian group Barbatuques, who is a well-known group for children, who make music with their bodies. I know Brazilians speak Portuguese, but the quality of this group is beyond comparison; in addittion, in our group we have a child with Brazilian heritage, so I'm sure he'll appreciate it. He could also help us with the translation even though I also found the lyrics in English. The objective of this activity is to identify body sounds and name what body part makes what sound in Spanish.

Here's the link to the video, just in case you want to gather more information about this group:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tz7KROhuAw




Nos vemos esta semana!

Bienvenidos a las clases de Español!

Hola a todos!!!

     Mi nombre es Lucia Diaz, and if we did our job right last week, the children should be able to introduce themselves as well as say their age and gender in Spanish. As you all know, after two weeks of review and introductions we splitted into two groups: Beginning & Intermediate/Advanced Spanish. I'll be teaching Intermediate /Advanced Spanish. Feel free to send me an email with your questions or suggestions at diazolgalu@gmail.com.

    My Spanish comes from Colombia, which is more similar to Castellano from Spain than to  the Spanish spoken in Mexico, so don't be surprised if we learn new or different vocabulary. Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions about the content of the classes. I'll be willing to email you a copy of the weekly lesson plan if you're interested on knowing what we learn every week. Just email me your request, and I'll be glad to send you a copy of the lesson plan. Also, you can take a look at the lesson plan at the beginning of each week since I'll be posting a printed copy at the door on Mondays.

    I'll be updating this blog every two weeks, so you can follow our curriculum as well as view work samples from class, or tips on how to reinforce at home what they've learned so far.

    As far for the first two weeks, we went over a wide review with both groups focusing  on: Introductions: (Me llamo___. Tengo __ años. Soy un(a) niño(a).), Greetings: (Hola, Adios, Como estas? Muy bien, Buenos Dias/Tardes/Noches), Vowels' and letters' sounds: (including the new Spanish letters: ll, rr, ch, ñ), Days of the week: (Lunes, Martes, Miercoles, Jueves, Viernes, Sabado, Domingo), Me gusta/No me gusta: ( I like/dislike), and manners: Por favor (please), and Gracias (thank you).

At the end of this blog, you'll see some pictures from the activity Me gusta/No me gusta, where students drew something they like/don't like. We got very creative responses!

    One of the objectives of this level will be to incorporate more reading and speaking activities as well as active listening since I'll be giving instructions in Spanish gradually depending on the group response. One of my goals is also to introduce parts of Latino American culture by reading one Spanish book per week and by learning new songs and typical Spanish games every week. We've been trying the games: Telefono roto and 1,2,3 Estatua!, which have been a hit among the students!

     This week, the Intermediate /Advanced group will go over formas & colores (shapes & colors). In our new room, Studio F aka Ballet Room, we'll be able to do lots of fun & kinesthetic activities. At the end of this week, we'll celebrate our week of learning by playing: twister with colors and shapes.
One activity we'll be trying a lot, and you can also try it at home, is describing what color or shape are their clothes, shoes, back packs, or any other object around them. That's a great activity when you're bored standing in line, waiting for something, or taking a long trip on the car. Feel free to try it, and let me know how it goes!


In addition, here's a link to the song of the vowels we learned last week, which includes rhymes in Spanish. It has a catchy tune, and besides singing it with the lyrics, the kids also had to act out the song last week, so go ahead and play it at home, and see how much of it they'll remember!

Ronda de las vocales: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9r0b1kDAlo

Gracias por su tiempo & seguimos en contacto!

DAC Beginning French

Bonjour!

My name is Kristine, the beginning French instructor at DAC. About every two weeks, I will write    a post to keep you up to date with what we are learning in class! If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions related to class and the curriculum, please do not hesitate to send me an e-mail at kmdonahue [at] ucdavis (dot) edu or to talk to me before class.

So far, we have learned simple commands such as sit down, stand up, make a circle, hold hands, and have also learned how to introduce ourselves. We played a bit of Simon Says (Jaques a dit, en français) to practice commands and one of the older students gave a biographical presentation.

We have also been learning about shapes and colors. Red light green light, and bingo, and shape and color hunts have been a few of the games we've played to reinforce what we learned.

Next week, we will be finishing up shapes and colors, and will be moving on to parts of the body. Head, shoulders, knees and toes (tête, épaules, genoux, pieds) will definitely be a song we sing next week!

Here is a list of the vocabulary we have learned in case you want to go over it with your child at home:

Introductions:
bonjour, bonne journée- hello, have a nice day
au revoir-good bye
bon soir, bonne soirée- good evening, have a nice evening
je m'appelle-my name is
je viens de...-I'm from (Davis)

Colors:
rouge-red
orange-orange
jaune-yellow
vert-green
bleu-blue
violet-purple
rose-pink
noir-black
blanc-white
marron-brown

Shapes:

un carré- a square
un cercle-a circle
un triangle-a triangle
une étoile- a star
un coeur- a heart
un rectangle- a rectangle

(Sometimes using a ridiculous heavy fake french accent helps to pronounce everything correctly! It's more fun that way too.)

Have a lovely weekend, and see you on Monday!

Bon weekend, et à lundi!