New+School+Year

Well, the school year has begun and everyone is really excited to be back in our beautiful new building. The sixth graders are eager to discover what the word communication means. We talked about hand signals,gestures,body language and charades as a way to communicate meaning. They even organized themeselves into a line based on the order of their birthdays WITHOUT using words. Que interesante y divertido.We learned that our class is filled with students from many different cultures.Many students have family members who speak many different languages. In our class we have students from India, China, and Pakistan. We have parents from Venezuela, Puerto Rico,Italy and Great Britain. We discussed the cultural celebrations of these countries and we decided that we should have a celebration/showcase to highlight our multicultural class.

The seventh grade is working on learning the Spanish alphabet. They practiced writing it and of course singing it while marching around the room. In fact we did a lot of singing today.We sang my personal favorite Paises Hispanicos, although now it will be stuck in my head for the rest of the day! All of the students seemed eager to learn the language. They practiced brief introductions: Hola! Buenos Dias,Buenas Tardes- so now no one has an excuse for not greeting Senora in the hallways!

The eighth graders are old hands at Spanish and know the drill.I am amazed at how much Spanish they have retained- no Summer Brain Drain for them! We are reviewing Chapters 1-4 in preparation for a test on 7th grade Spanish next week. We spent time doing a paired listening activity and writing answers to a Cara a Cara ( Face to Face ) activity.I am currently planning a field trip to the Peabody Museum of Archaeologyand Ethnology at Harvard University, they have a great exhibit on The Day of The Dead which we will be studying in October.

This wiki will be used as a way for me to document classroom activities at Cole and also a way to highlight and report to the students about my Costa Rica trip. I hope to be able to upload pictures and in order to make a real connection between my trip to Costa Rica and what the students are learning in class. I will make a good attempt to make at least 2 or 3 entries every week while in RI and every day while in Costa Rica.