El calendario, las celebraciones y las estaciones

¡Hola chic@s! ¿Cómo están? Do you remember el calendario… or las celebraciones in Mexico?

During these months we learnt about the months (meses) and days (días). Some of the meses en español sound similar to English; Agosto-August, Septiembre-September, Octubre-October, Noviembre-November, Diciembre-December.  We asked about our birthdays saying ¿Cuándo es tu cumpleaños? Mi cumpleaños es en Octubre. We even sang “Feliz cumpleaños a ti, feliz cumpleaños a ti, feliz cumpleaños querid@________. Feliz cumpleaños a ti.”

We also discovered the different celebraciones in Mexico and we compared them to the ones in the US. Which one is your favorite? I´ll leave them all here so you can pick! Mi celebración favorita es Día de los muertos.

celebraciones L1

¿Cómo está el clima hoy? ¿Qué estación es? We talked about how the weather is like in the different Estaciones del año. Can you name the four of them? Primavera – Verano – Otoño – Invierno

 

Every class is amazing with you chicos and you always make it fun to learn and play. Excited to see you every Friday. See you soon. Adios

¡Hola chic@s!

Los números

These months we have been working so hard on Los números, besides learning “Mi burrito Sabanero” for the festival. Some of you are counting from 1(uno) to 20(veinte) and the rest from 1(uno) to 1000(mil). Here you have some images to keep working on los números.

Can you tell me ¿Qué numero es?

114

325

671

804

 

Dinero en México-Pesos

We also got to use dinero, not real of course, to practice los números. Remember what´s the name of the dinero from México? Correct! Pesos. Mexico´s currency is pesos, and we have billetes and monedas like in the US. We used monedas de 1 peso, 2 pesos, 5 pesos and 10 pesos. We also used billetes de 20 pesos, 50 pesos, 100 pesos and 200 pesos.

What billetes and monedas would you use for 647 pesos?

 

La ropa  La ropa

¿Cuánto cuesta la playera? ¿Cuánto cuesta el vestido? Can you use these questions and tell me how much is each of these items in Spanish? Don´t forget we still have to do our shopping at Plato Boutique where you will be able to “buy” some clothes using our pesos, we are not done yet with los números.

 

I am so excited to see you every Friday and learn while we still have fun.

¡Hola chic@s!

October was a great month. We practiced our abecedario and new vocabulario. Do you remember how many letters the abecedario en español has? Exacto! 27 letras. Ñ(en-yeh) is the letter that we don´t have in English. Can you say these words? niño, niña, piñata. We can continue to practice our abecedario when spelling a word.

Our younger kids are really good at identifying the vocales (vowels) now. Don´t forget to say them as loud as you can!!!

A – avión

E – elefante

I – iglú

O – oso

U – unicornio

 

¿Origami en Español?

How did you like doing origami? Should we do it again? Most of you were great at following instructions in Spanish and made beautiful hojas (leaves) like the ones in our árbol de otoño. Remeber to say “Hola, árbol de otoño” to our tree every time you come to class.

 

Día de los muertos

As you all know, Día de los muertos is celebrated on November 2 in Mexico. It´s a colorful tradition to remember our family, friends and even pets that passed away. It´s a time to be happy rather than sad because the souls of our loved ones come to visit us and we should have an ofrenda with lots of food, candy, flowers and candles to welcome them. Thank you for doing a great job making the flores, papel picado, pan de muerto, tamales, calaveritas de azúcar and putting everything together for our ofrenda. Thank you parents for sending pictures. The food and flowers in our ofrenda are not real but in an actual ofrenda, they have to be real.

 

Spanish Class Super Star

Congratulations to the first four groups to complete their Maquinas de Chicles. I am so happy and proud you did it! Special congratulations to Miss Lizzy´s Class who were Super Star four weeks in a row (clap-clap-clap)

Estoy hambriento – Miss Lizzy

Circular Mambas – Mr. Patrick

Bubblegum – Miss Demtra

Gummie – Miss Lisa

¡Hola chicos!

This past month we celebrated the Hispanic Heritage month and we learn about La Independencia de México. ¿Cuándo es? 16 de Septiembre ¿Quiénes lucharon? mexicanos contra españoles. You even pretended to be Mexican people against Spanish people and some of you got to wear improvised costumes… it was fun!

Little ones… what are the colores of the bandera de México? verde, blanco y rojo.

 

I am so proud that most of you can greet and introduce yourselves or a friend in Spanish. ¡Hola! Me llamo Zaid. Él se llama Bob y ella se llama Maria. ¿Cómo estás?

You can practice these questions at home too. ¿Cómo estás? ¿Cómo te llamas? ¿Cómo se llama él? ¿Cómo se llama ella? ¿Cuántos años tienes? ¿Cuántos años tiene él? ¿Cuántos años tiene ella?

Let´s not forget to say Buenos días or Buenas tardes when we see each other in the school hall. How about Adiós, nos vemos el viernes when it´s time to go home.

Thank you for being such great, fun and unique students. By the way, I almost know all your names! 😉

See you on Fridays chicos.

 

Songs of the month…

(978) ¡Hola! | Canciones Infantiles | Super Simple Español – YouTube

(978) Después De Un Rato, Cocodrilo | Canciones infantiles De Animales | Super Simple Español – YouTube

¡Hola amig@s! During our first two weeks we learnt how many countries in the world speak Spanish and we had so much fun playing Trivia to review. Do you remember ¿Cuántos países hablan Español? 21 (veintiuno) países hablan Español. Can you name 5?

Some of you got to identify where these países are located in the world using a mapa. For example, México está en Norteamérica, España está en Europa, Guinea Ecuatorial está en África, Argentina está en Sudamérica y Guatemala está en Centroamérica. ¿Qué países están en Mar Caribe? Can you name them?

 

We also got to see all the 21 banderas of these países. For example, la bandera de México, la bandera de España, la bandera de Colombia, la bandera de Puerto Rico which looks like la bandera de Cuba. Can you tell the difference between these banderas?

Spanish speaking countries | Rockalingua

Students got to paint the 21 banderas that decorate our classroom now. Gracias for doing such a great job!

The little ones got to do puzzles of some of these banderas, super cute!

See you on Fridays!!!

 

¡Hola amig@s! Me llamo Zaid Flores and I´m  so happy to be your new ¨maestra de español¨. You can call me Señora Zaid or Miss Zaid.

I want to introduce myself as a proud Mexican woman and native Spanish speaker. I was born in Mexico in the beautiful state of Puebla. I have a bachelors degree in Foreign Languages Teaching and my profession started as an elementary English teacher in my home town, Tehuacán.

I moved to the US in the summer of 2014. I fell in love with this country and you know what´s the best part…  its diversity; people from all over the world, their culture, their food, their language, everything in ONE country. That´s amazing!

 

Un poco sobre mí. I am married and I have a beautiful white Siberian husky named Dante. I love the outdoors and go on hikes, go to the beach or do a picnic at the park. I love to eat corn in a cup with mucho chile, very spicy! I enjoy watching movies for kids, romance, comedy and documentaries. I would love to hear some recommendations.

I´ll be thrilled to see you every Friday at Plato Academy. Get ready to have fun, sing, learn a lot and speak mucho Español.

Cuidense y hasta pronto.

Today we reviewed,

• the farm animals we learned last week
• we acted out each farm animal and their corresponding sound (‘oink’ – el cerdo, ‘moo’ – la vaca, ‘baa baa’ – la oveja, ‘woof’ – el perro, ‘meow’ – el gato)
• as a class, we helped one another match the picture of the animal to the correct word on the projector
• we read a book called “La Gallinita Roja” with some farm animals (la gallina, el perr0, el cerdo y la vaca)

 

I have provided links to songs we do in Spanish class!

 

 

Dia de los Muertos is a Mexican holiday where families gather to honor & remember deceased love ones. On November 1, the gates of heaven are opened so the spirits of children can rejoin their families and on November 2nd, the spirit of adults can rejoin their families. At Plato, we are making a ofrenda which are decorated with candles, bright marigolds, pictures of loved ones who passed away, and their favorite foods/drinks. Each grade contributed into the making of the alter. Preschool – 1st colored in drawings of skeletons, 1st – 3rd grade painted in skulls  and 4th – 8th had the chance to decorate sugar skulls with colored frosting and make papel picado. We are still decorating the alter, but I will post a picture once it’s completed.

*** Reminder: you are welcomed to bring pictures of deceased loved ones to be put on the alter. If you do so, write your child’s/children’s name of the back of the picture so it can be returned.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email me: jeidy.cruz@platoacademy.org

 

¡Bienvenidos!

Hola a todos! Mi nombre es Jeidy Cruz, pero en la clase soy Señorita Heidi! Estoy muy emocionada de ser tu maestra de español este año. We are going to learn Spanish through games, songs, skits, and arts & crafts.

¿Quién soy yo? /Who am I?

My name is Jeidy Cruz! I grew up in a household only speaking Spanish. Once I got to middle school that is when I started learning more about the grammar and applying my Spanish with conversations. I recently graduated Maine West High School, but during my time there I worked as a bilingual tutor. I also received a Seal of Biliteracy meaning I am proficient in two or more languages. I look forward to sharing my culture with my students this year!

Mis cosas favoritas! / My favorite things!

Color/Color: pink / rosa

Food / Comida: chicken / pollo

Animal / Animal: turtle / tortuga

Señorita Heidi

 

 

Happy New Year!!!

Good day Plato Family, hope your holidays were full of joy and you had a chance to relax. At Plato Academy we are full of energy and we are back on business after such a great winter break. We began our Spanish classes learning about more traditions from the Hispanic culture. For Hispanics, the holidays don’t end at Christmas, we still have two more holidays, “Three Kings day” and “Dia de la Candelaria”. The first one is dedicated to the three wise man go gave gifts to the newborn king. On January 6^th, we start the celebration by cutting the famous “Rosca de Reyes”, a delicious sugar bread in which you may find a little plastic toy in the shape of a baby representing baby Jesus. The lucky ones who find it in their piece of cake will have the honor to host a party for family and friends on February 2^nd, Dia de la Candelaria. On this day, the families gather together one more time to close the holidays savoring delicious tamales and champurrado, a very traditional meal in our culture.

Along with the excitement of this day, we learned that children from Hispanic countries leave a shoe by the window on this holiday so the wise men can leave their gifts for them. We talked about the differences between Christmas and Three Kings Day, and we learned that even though both holidays have many differences, they are also very similar and that the most important thing is that families get together.

We watched a short 2 minute video that explained a little about this holidays:

Little kids…..  https://youtu.be/OO3ZkCe-egM

Older kids….. https://youtu.be/NxeXIoJ8Dgk

We introduced a new song for the little ones so we can practice colors, animals and phrases,

https://youtu.be/7jBDsWOoWz0  the kids love it, you may want to play it for them. On that note, we will be using a lot of songs from Singalingo, some of them are accessible on you tube. We will continue using Rockalingua, Basho and Friends and Calico, all of them have great material you can use on line for free.

On the following weeks, we will be learning the following vocabulary:

Winter weather, Winter clothes, Animals, Shapes and colors

Hope you have a great holiday weekend. Hasta pronto! ( See you soon!)

Soraya Castro