El Día de los muertos

Last week many Hispanic countries celebrated El Día de los Muertos, a day to honor the memories of deceased family and friends. Spanish 1 students learned that one of the principle decorations for this holiday is skulls, which to the indigenous population symbolize life, rather than death. To hlep us celebrate, we decorated paper skulls. Here are some of our creations (thanks to Alejandra, Mariana, and ???.)

El tiempo y las estaciones

Spanish 1 students have been very busy the past couple of weeks. We have been studying the weather and the seasons, as well as learning how to talk about the activities we like to do. We have done a couple of different projects for this unit. The first was an audition tape for a job as a meteorologist in an Hispanic country. I will hopefully post the video of the finalists next week. The other project was to make a children's book about the weather and the seasons. While many students with excellent drawing skills opted to do their book by hand, a few others opted to go the digital route and made narrated pop-up books using a website called Zooburst. Here is an example (by Nacho). Read. listen, and enjoy. (Also, the books are in 3-D; click on the little back tab in the bottom center of the page to rotate the book and look around at what might be on the other side of the page.)

¿Qué hay de nuevo?

It has been a few weeks since we last posted. However, that does not mean we have not been busy. In that time we have learned all the counties and capitals of the Hispanic world. (We can even sing them for you if you wish.) We have also learned how to describe our classroom and the names for most items found in a typical classroom. I believe it was Nacho who set a new record for the Hungry Bug vocabulary game for this chapter. I don't remember exactly what his point total was, but it was one that will definitely be hard to beat. We have also learned how to count in Spanish (0 - 1.000.000+) and most recently, to tell time in Spanish. Coming up soon: days, months, seasons, and the weather.