March at Birch Lane Beginning Spanish!

Hola!
The beginning Spanish class at Birch Lane has been having a great time asking class mates questions and having the opportunity to respond to more questions now that they have a wider vocabulary list! In the past few weeks they have had a great time using cootie catchers to practice their colors, spelling of the colors in Spanish and counting. They were able to work in partners and cut out their cootie catchers and folded it up before they were able to play with it. They got quite good at them.                    

                            

Another great activity that the kids really enjoyed was creating their own Spanish board games! The kids were divided in groups of 3 and they created their own board game with a unique design and they own rules. This encourages them to use vocabulary words that we have learned in the past few months such as directions like backward and forward (atras y adelante) and also other vocabulary like animals as their game pieces. These games will be played when we have some extra time in class or as a back up activity if something does not work out! The kids really enjoyed playing their games and they were very proud of what they created as a team. 

    

Thanks for reading! Keep checking in to see what more fun activities the kids are up to in the next couple months!

Adios!

Davis Art Center-Intermediate French Mardi Gras!

Bonjour!
Dani and I decided to combine the beginner and intermediate classes to do a cultural day to celebrate Mardi Gras!  Forgive me for blogging so late, I know Mardi Gras was at the beginning of the month, but it deserves a post nonetheless!

I love Mardi Gras, we always celebrated in my French classes and I really wanted to make it traditional for the kids but educational too. We explained where Mardi Gras is celebrated around the world (including Carnival in Brazil and of course New Orleans), and while the kids made masks we had jazz music playing.

We discussed what the colors signify:    
le violet (purple)=la justice (justice)
le vert (green)= la foi (faith)
l'or (gold)=la puissance (power)

And we went over some new vocabulary that they would need to know for the day:
le défilé- parade    

le char- float

les masques-masks

la Nouvelle-Orléans

la Louisianne- Louisiana

Laissez les bons temps rouler!-Let the good times roll! (A very popular phrase you would hear all around New Orleans on Mardi Gras)

les galettes des rois- King's cake



I also made a King Cake for the occasion. A traditional cake decorated with Green, Gold, and Purple, frosting covered in beads- a real treat!  What makes the cake special is the tradition of placing a plastic baby inside one of the pieces, then the youngest in the group gets to designate who gets what piece without knowing where the baby is hidden.  Whoever gets the plastic baby is King or Queen for the day!

It was a great time and everyone had a blast!

À la prochaine,

Rebecca and Dani

Korematsu Elementary Intermediate Spanish Class

Hola Korematsu Parents!

Take a little Insight into our Class these past few weeks before Spring Break😊:

     Students learned Spanish interrogative words by making signs, solving crossword puzzles, reading and asking questions about characters in a Spanish book. Students also reviewed the days of the week, months, and the year by picking a favorite month and making a calendar page for that month. To practice the interrogatives with the days of the week and months, students asked each other about their birthdays, favorite days of the week, and how old they were. Towards the end of the first week learning the interrogatives, students and I set up a routine to ask each other questions using the interrogatives. Students sometimes ask, "Como te sientes hoy?" (How do you feel today?) and "Donde esta este estudiante?" (Where is a certain student, if they were not in class at the time). 

     Students also used pretend dollar bills to review numbers and practice asking how much money they had in hand (e.g. "Cuanto dinero tienes?/How much money do you have?). Students also seemed to enjoy playing timed Match with the Spanish and English interrogative vocabulary. One student kept time while another student matched the Spanish words to the English words. We first started by giving each student 35 seconds to match the seven interrogatives and then lowered the time to 15 seconds, so this was a fun challenge for them. 

    Below I posted pictures of some of the signs I helped them make for the interrogatives as well as some of their work. The week after Spring Break students will continue reviewing the interrogatives by making cootie catchers and other fun games. Cootie catchers are a fun dynamic activity to incorporate many of the colloquial questions and vocabulary for review. I look forward to posting samples of their work by the end of next week, so stay posted! 

Feel free to contact me with any questions, comments, or suggestions. Thank you!! 

Sincerely 💙, 

Adriana

Birch Lane- Intermediate Week 23

Hello Birch parents!

Last week the kids focused on reviewing more questions and conversational phrases such as introductions. The kids had the opportunity to have conversations with their classmates and ask each other their names, school grade, how they were doing, and more! 

The kids also started working on their own comic books, using questions and conversational phrases reviewed in the classroom. Here are some pictures from last week:






Some of the questions you could ask your kid are:

• ¿Cómo te llamas? (what is your name?)

• ¿Cuántos años tienes? (how old are you?)

• ¿A qué escuela vas? (what school do you go to?

• ¿En qué grado estás? (what grade are you in?)

• ¿Cómo estás? (how are you?)

Announcement: I will be teaching all four days starting on April 3rd, 2017. Big thanks to maestra Irene for teaching Mondays/Wednesdays this past few months (January-March)! :) 

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions/comments/concerns  at teguerrero@ucdavis.edu 

-Un abrazo,

Maestra Teresa ☺

North Davis Intermediate Spanish

Hello, North Davis parents!
 This week the students learned how to write their own questions. They learned the following:

• Who? - ¿Quién?
• What? - ¿Qué?
• When? - ¿Cuándo?
• Which? - ¿Cuál?
• Why? - ¿Por qué?
• How? - ¿Cómo?
• Where?- ¿ Donde? 



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PIONEER-BEGINNING SPANISH

In these last weeks in beginning Spanish we have covered a couple of new topics such as el sistema solar, frutas y vegetales/verduras, productos lácteos, bebidas, and carnes. We also reviewed some old topics including formas de presentarse and el verbo “gustar.”

Gracias,

Maestra Miriam

Int ASL St James~Week 23

As can be seen in the above photos, the kids in Intermediate ASL at St. James are all ready to welcome the new season! Today, we learned Spring signs, including flower, umbrella, grow, puddle, bee, of course, and the sign for Spring itself. We then all made these bees out of paper plates, and the kids enjoyed the arts and crafts.

For the rest of the week, we'll be reviewing our vocabulary before we leave for Spring Break. We have a lot more arts and activities planned for the kids, including a fun activity of creating their own board game! They're going to have a lot of fun before their well-deserved break! 

Birch Lane- Intermediate Week 20 & 21

Hello Birch parents!

Last week the kids focused on reviewing vocabulary we have learned over the last 8 weeks such as animals, clothing, emotions/feelings, family members, school supplies, and more! The kids did activities that included making their favorite animals out of Play-Doh and then clothing to dress them up.

One of the kids made a worm and covered it with a warm jacket!

Two kids worked together to make a guinea pig and dress it with a fashionable hat and sweater!

This week the kids were introduced to questions and we worked on writing/developing questions to share with each other. The kids also did small presentations, where they got to write down questions on a whiteboard and had their peers answer said questions.

The kids came up with questions and presented to their peers!

The kids worked on writing questions and drawing their answers to those.

If you have any questions, comments, concerns, suggestions, etc. feel free to email me or Irene, our Monday/Wednesday teacher. My email is teguerrero@ucdavis.edu and Irene's is irenesanchez48@yahoo.com

Here is some useful questions vocabulary to go over with the kids at home:

• Who? - ¿Quién?
• What? - ¿Qué?
• When? - ¿Cuándo?
• Which? - ¿Cuál?
• Why? - ¿Por qué?
• How? - ¿Cómo? 

P.S. Here are even more pictures of previous activities the kids have worked on these past few weeks as well as the variety of topics we have covered in class :) 

Activity: Making a list of likes/dislikes
Topic: Fruits and vegetables, likes/dislikes

Activity: Building a person
Topic: Body parts

Activity: Scarecrow and Calaveras decorations
Topic: Holidays 

Activity: Bingo!
Topic: Alphabet and colors

Activity: Animal making
Topic: Animals

Activity: Sentence building
Topic: Introductions

Activity: Drawing houses
Topic: House appliances and rooms

Activity: Drawing and sentence building
Topic: Likes/dislikes, introductions and shapes

Int ASL St. James~Week 21

This week in Intermediate ASL at St. James, we are having a review week of the signs learned in the past few weeks. From feelings, to clothes, family signs, school signs, and even to sentence structures with the signs "I HAVE" and "PLEASE," "THANK YOU."
Learning how to properly sign sentences structured around the terms "I HAVE," "PLEASE," and "THANK YOU," is what really separates Beginning ASL from Intermediate.The students can now sign more conversationally rather than simply signing a string of signs.

 

We started off the week with a review of feelings and state of mind signs, which include words like happy, sad, confident, and optimistic! To review, we played with our class dry erase cube, on which the teacher wrote some terms. Then, the cube was tossed around and whoever caught it had to sign "I FEEL..." completing the sentence with the term the cube landed on. As can be seen in the pictures above, the kids had a lot of fun with this active game, competing in a friendly manner and laughing throughout! It was an enjoyable review day, and the rest of the week promises to be just as exciting!

Patwin- Beginning ASL

Hello everyone!

Over the past month, our class has been learning food signs. We've done a lot of fun activities related to fruits, vegetables, meat, eating times, and restaurants. Some of the activities have included scavenger hunts and a fake restaurant!

This first image is from our scavenger hunt. I signed the food word and the student would find it in the classroom. Then come up to the board and put it in the correct category.

These three images are from our fake restaurant! It was called the 'Patwin ASL Cafe'. It was of course Deaf friendly so the students signed their order to "the waitress" (me). After they ordered their food, they got to draw out each item they chose. This included utensils, entree, drinks, and desserts. The students did very well using the vocabulary. 

Currently, we are making cookie cookbooks. The cookbooks will be completed this upcoming week. The students are very excited to learn how to bake their favorite cookie! I have found actual recipes so the measurements are accurate. 

Thank you for reading! 

Beginning French - Davis Arts Center - Danielle Preston

This week our class got to open their cafés to the class and serve each other a meal. Students got to decorate menus and they chose what foods they would be serving.

They had to go shopping from the store I set up full of plastic foods. We worked together to add up how much each item would be and students had to prepare their fake money accordingly. It was challenging for them to ask for the items in French using numbers but they are always so supportive and helpful with each other so it was fun!

On our café day, students got to set up their café with plastic foods and serving utensils. Then we went around to everyone's café and everyone had about 5 minutes to tell us about what they had prepared. This is an example of what students said:

"Bienvenue!
C'est mon café rouge.
Il y a une salad, des fruits,
les croissants, le jus de pomme, etc."

Then everyone took turns ordering different items with the phrase:

"Je voudrais ____ s'il vous plaît".

This was such a fun activity for the students because they were challenged to lead the class for a couple minutes and they all got so in to their menus. They were all excited to set up their cafés and it was awesome to see how everyone had such unique ideas.

Here are some pictures!!:

            



Thank you for reading!
-Danielle