Language Arts / artes del lenguaje
What a busy week! As we welcomed everyone back after their busy Spring break, we got to write, share and hear memorable Spring break stories. I am so happy that everybody had a wonderful time, either travelling far or staying locally enjoying the great weather. I was also very pleased to hear everybody get back to using their Spanish since day one.
Oral language development was a focus during the Spanish portion of the day this week. One of literacy activities was to use descriptive language in context. Students were assigned to think of one or two objects that represented their Spring brake. They were asked to use sensory rich language to describe these objects. We had a great time figuring out clues in order to identify the objects. We will continue with this game next week.
During our word work, we continued to review verbs (present tense), particularly the verbs we will be seeing during science this term. We discovered that most of these verbs are cognates. We also worked on strategies to identify words by looking at their roots. Some examples are: analizar, aplicar, clarificar, comparar, concluir, criticar, describir, distinguir, enumerar, formular, generalizar, inferir, organizar, transferir, predecir, secuenciar, etc. We concluded our language structure studies by reviewing different the types of sentences. Ask your child to explain and give you examples of: oraciones declarativas, interrogativas, exclamativas, imperativas, with appropriate punctuation.
For our literary studies, we continued to read the text La caza del bufalo, from our unit West Expansion. This week, our class broke up into two groups and were assigned to do a collative project. Each group was given an excerpt of this story. Their assignment was to get together as a group, read the excerpt, clarify for understanding, summarize the text by identifying main ideas and supporting details. Lastly, they were asked to communicate the message of their piece to the other group through a visual aide and an oral presentation.
Finally, students were presented with their new book club project, “Beisbol en abril”. During the duration of this literature circle, we will be exploring the characteristics and elements of short stories. Students will also be working on reading with fluency and expression, as well as intonation and enunciation. As homework, students were asked to sit down with a parent this weekend and explain the expectations of this project (rubric given on Friday). Please let me know if you have any questions.
Science / ciencia
We had the pleasure to see more science presentations. Once again, we are very impressed by the high level of the presentations and the professionalism shown by our students. We are hoping to be completely finished next Monday.
This week we had the privilege of having a guest speaker deliver a superb science presentation. I had a special connection to the speaker. I felt very proud to see Valentina, my daughter, interact so beautifully (in Spanish) with my students, when telling the stories of her study-abroad experience in Ecuador. Valentina spent three months conducting research in one of the most bio diverse places on earth. She had a chance to visit the cloud forests, the equatorian Amazon, the Galapagos Island, amongst many other incredible places. If you and your child would like to know more details about her amazing experience, visit her blog https://thejourneytosciencejournalism.wordpress.com
Families!!! We are very excited about our field trip next Friday, April 22nd form 9:30 to 1:30. Please be sure to be on site 10 minutes before the scheduled start time.
Columbia Springs is a non-profit 100 acre urban natural area and historic fish hatchery. The site has been preserved for wildlife and community environmental education.
Art
The 2nd and 3rd grade class, and the 4th and 5th grade class are working on a portrait project in art. We looked at a variety of famous portraits such as Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, Van Gogh’s self portrait, some Picasso portraits, and Matisse portraits, etc. The 2nd/3rd graders are using a collage technique to create a face, and the 4th/5th graders are using pipe cleaners to create a face. These are fun ways to get the students to think about facial features, proportions, and expression!
Music
We learned a South African song, Siyahamba (We are marching) in Zulu, English and Spanish. Sr. Kit also taught the class his Spanish translation of “Life is a Dance,” by Karl Anthony.