¡Bienvenidos! Welcome!

Welcome to my blog about Elementary Spanish at Baker! My goal is to use this space to share what we have been working on in Spanish class and to post links to websites and materials for enrichment at home. I'll include lots of links from Spanish vocabulary to Google translate, where you can see definitions of words as well as hear pronunciations, if you are not a Spanish speaker yourself.

In all grades, we start the year getting to know each other. This is standard September stuff--we just do it in Spanish. A few things that all students have been working on:

* Saying hello and goodbye

* Telling our names and ages

* Telling how we feel

* Telling the weather and the date

For grades 3, this is a quick review before we move on to other things; for the younger students we practice these things throughout September, gradually increasing vocabulary and students' level of conversation with each other as they move up through the grades. We also practice following rules and directions in Spanish, which is important for getting us off to a good start together for the year.

Our most important directions in Spanish are shown below, with a graphic as a reminder of the definition. Can your child tell you what each means, and why it is important?

mira

escucha

Kindergarten: ¡Hola, clase!

As I mentioned in a previous post, kindergarteners have been busy this September learning to greet each other and tell how they are feeling. They are such quick learners that now when I see them in the hallway, they are quick to wave and give me a nice, confident ¡Hola, profe! (Hi, teacher!). Many are also ready to tell me how they are feeling when I continue the conversation with ¿Cómo estás? (How are you?). This is exciting progress--in just one month, our kindergarten students are able to make small talk in Spanish! 

If you are interested in talking about feelings in Spanish at home, you can try greeting them after school with ¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás? (click the link to see the translation and/or hear how it is pronounced at Google Translate). They should be able to give you one of three different responses:

We often practice these by giving a thumbs up or down while saying the word to reinforce what they mean. Give it a try!