Chile, las frutas and what happened at our house for tres reyes.....

Hola padres! What fun to be back with the scholars. We have had a fun week getting back into the swing of things.

We started the week off with talking about what happened at our house for dia de los reyes, or the day of the three wise men.  I explained that I was here late with conferences on the 5th and by the time I got home and put my kids to bed, that it was late and we didn't put any food out for the camels or write our letters. Thankfully, the kings were gracious and visited our house nonetheless. However, in the morning, I found that the camels had oh so carefully taken our bin of outmeal out of the pantry, forced it open and helped themselves! Thankfully, the mess was limited to just the counter, so there wasn't too much of a mess to clean up. I took a picture of our kitchen counter covered in dried oatmeal and showed it in class. I think the scholars really enjoyed this.

This week we also started our study of the country of Chile. This is such an interesting country due to its geography and placement in South America! It is also called the country of poets and I bet your scholar would love to tell you why!

This week also marks our week of a new unit on fruit. We have talked about the market and how people in Spanish speaking countries shop and eat differently than we do. We will finish up with fruit this week and move on to other foods next week.

I hope your scholar is enjoying Spanish as I so enjoy teaching them! Have a great week!

Sra. Hamilton

back to school!

Hola padres! Welcome back! It was so nice to see some of you this past week at conferences! Thank you for taking the time to stop by and connect with me. I received some good feedback about the blog, so I was glad to learn that it has been working out well for you.

Wanted to let you know what we will be working on in the weeks to come. I did some review of prepositions with Ms. Uphoff's class this morning as well as started reading to them about a Mexican artist named Frida Kahlo. Frida Kahlo can be a bit controversial as her paintings are often grotesque due to the great physical pain that Ms. Kahlo suffered through most of her life, but her influence on modern art is pretty great and so I feel she is an important figure for the scholars to be aware of. Thankfully, I found the book "Who Was Frida Kahlo?" which is very child appropriate and so easy for the scholars to understand. I'm so excited to discuss this book with them.

In terms of vocabulary, Sra. Hernandez and I are going to be working together closely so that all grades will be working on the same topics and vocabulary just in varying degrees of difficulty. Next week we will begin our unit on fruit.

Please let me know if you have any questions. I look forward to the rest of the year!
Sra. Hamilton

conversations returned, Christmas traditions and a new restaurant opening

Hola padres! We have finally gotten back to our regular schedule after the wonderful concert on Tuesday. It is good to be back with the scholars in a scheduled manner, some of them I feel like I haven't seen in weeks! I think they enjoyed their trip to the zoo and I heard from those classes that saw the animals that are native to Colombia. It is fun to see them connect their classroom knowledge to the outside world!

Just today, I was able to start handing back the scholars' conversations with their grades. I'm sorry its taken so long....I've had them graded for a while, but again, with our schedule the way it was, it didn't work out for me to hand everyone's back in the same span of a couple of days, so I finally started doing so today. Tomorrow the last class will get theirs back. Thanks for your patience!

Today, we also started on learning about the Hispanic Christmas traditions with the Legend of the Poinsettia and also the study of Las Posadas. If there is time next week, I may give a short quiz on these two traditions but we may just stick to learning and reading about it.

On a side note, El Pollo Loco just opened down the road! I am so excited as I have never lived close enough to one to enjoy it on a regular basis, so this will be great! I took my girls on wednesday night and some highlights were the fresh salsa bar, the horchata and the free chocolate churro samples. Give it a try if you get a chance!

Thanks for all of your support this last quarter! I have really enjoyed the third grade and I look forward to the new semester with them!

Sra. Hamilton

concert practice, tamales and a modified schedule

Hola padres! It has been an interesting week as our schedule has been modified quite a bit with concert practice. Next week is much of the same with the field trip and last concert practice. So most of the week has been review with some added fun elements. Next week we start to delve into Hispanic Christmas traditions and the stories behind them. I look forward to sharing this with the scholars.

Last week, was an amazing week as the scholars presented their conversations. They did such an amazing job and I was so happy to have them tell me that they realized they could speak much more Spanish than they thought they could. They all seemed to enjoy the project and I did as well. I am so proud of them.

One last tidbit for you, tamales are an important part of the Christmas holiday for many Spanish speakers. This year for the first time, I have been able to order some tamales from the Avondale Senior Center where tamales are made every year as a fundraiser. If you would like to share in this tradition with your family, orders are due by tomorrow and can be done online. Pick up is the week of December 15th. For the past couple of years, I have always missed the ordering deadline for some reason, so I am so excited to have finally been able to place my order. In case you are interested, here is the link: https://online.activecommunities.com/AvondalePlay/Start/start.asp
I will hopefully be telling the scholars about this Christmas tradition in the next couple of weeks and would love for them all to be able to try some, but know that that is a pretty big undertaking. So if you can try some homemade ones at home, it would be a great way to supplement what they are learning in class. Have a wonderful rest of your week!

Sra. Hamilton 

conversations...

Hola padres! The third grade scholars have done a tremendous job this week!!! I am so proud of them! Last week when I gave them their conversation packets, I advised them that they needed to keep them as they would need them to write their conversations this week. And, they did it! They had had some trouble earlier in the year keep track of their papers, but have very much risen to the occasion and done a great job of knowing what they need for class. Its great to see.

Speaking of conversations, they have also done a wonderful job with those. Using their packets and working together, they are putting together a short four line (minimum) conversation that they will present in class next week. I am looking for proper punctuation (accent marks and question marks) on the written portion that they hand in and proper pronunciation in the portion they present next week. Today and tomorrow in class, I am reviewing the written portion before they practice saying it. They have gotten very excited about it and I am so happy to see that. I can't wait to hear their presentations next week! I think they are going to do very well.

In terms of after Thanksgiving, now that Sra. Hernandez has had a chance to get her feet under her and get a feel for everything, she and I will be working closely in keeping third grade in sync behind second grade and in front of fourth grade so that they will be ready for her next year. We will be covering the same units, just at different levels and I will be using the vocabulary she wants them to know. In doing this, I am hoping that they can seamlessly transition to her next year in fourth grade.

This is all for now. I am really enjoying third grade and hope they are enjoying Spanish as well. Have a wonderful and restful Thanksgiving break!

Sra. Hamilton

quiz and conversations

Hola padres! We have made good progress this week despite having our day off on Tuesday. On Monday, all classes took their quiz and they should all be back to them by tomorrow. For Ms. Iacuelli and Ms. Carlyon's classes, once they were done taking them on Monday, I had a word search for them that reinforced their vocabulary of the days of the week. They used the prepositions that we learned in order to tell me where they found the words in the word search. It was a neat way for them to put to use their vocabulary.

Today, I started two of the classes on their conversations. We went over several examples of different conversational phrases that covered greetings, inquiries, responses and parting words. We practiced their pronunciation and talked about the formal and informal way of speaking in Spanish. We will work on some translation of phrases and short conversations next week and I will also pair the scholars up and have them write their own short conversations. The week of Thanksgiving break, I will have them present their conversations to the class and that will be the equivalent of a quiz for them. They seem to be excited and I look forward to what they come up with in terms of conversations.

This month we are learning about Bolivia as our Spanish speaking country. Please ask them what they've learned! Each country is so unique in its culture, government, land make up and climate, that we have discussed so much and I am sure they would love to share with you. I hope they enjoy these country studies as much as I do.

Have a wonderful rest of the week!
Sra. Hamilton

quizzes, recreo, question words and conversations

Hola padres! I wanted to let you know that with 3rd grade, I am planning on there being a quiz about every other week or so. This is mainly so that the vocabulary for them doesn't pile up into a big long list and they end up having a huge quiz after three weeks of class. I feel that a quiz every other week with about 10 words, mainly matching, will help them stay on top of what we are learning. I will always provide a study guide and we will always have activities in class that help them get to know the words. I will also always provide a bonus question or two just to make sure that they are paying attention to other little tidbits I give them during class. Bonus question answers will never count against them, so please encourage them to at least try. They never know what extra points they can earn unless they try!

Speaking of quizzes, our next quiz will be Monday (11/10) for all three classes. Due to having Veteran's Day off next Tuesday, I don't see Ms. Uphoff's class until Friday, so she has graciously agree to give them their quiz on Monday for me. Study guides were handed out this past Monday (11/3). The quiz will cover 8 question words. On the study guide at the bottom of the list is a question: "What is it? = Que es esto?" I had the scholars cross that question out and write in "which=cual" I feel like this fits better into the list than the question sentence. I do expect the scholars to remember the accent mark, but not so much both the upside down and right side up question marks. Hopefully, this isn't too confusing, but if you have any questions, please feel free to email me: ahamilton@archwaytrivium.org

I think the honeymoon stage of me being their new teacher is now wearing off a bit, so I have begun a new way of hopefully reminding the scholars that I need them to always pay attention, follow directions and be respectful to everyone. I am calling it recreo which means recess in Spanish. If I have to continually redirect a scholar, I will write their name on the board under the word "recreo". This means they are to stay in with me at their morning recess and work on studying for their quiz. I have been having them copy down the quiz words with their meaning in the hopes that this will remind them that if they aren't using their class time wisely, that they will then have to make that time up during recess.

Next week, we will start working on short conversations that I will have each class practice in partners and then present to the class. I am hoping to have them realize how much vocabulary they actually do know and can actually use. I will let you know how it goes.

This past weekend, my daughters and I attended the Day of the Dead celebration at the cemetary in Avondale near the corner of Indian School and Rancho Santa Fe. It was a nice event, with dancing, singing, face painting and a look into how the cemetary and graves are decorated for the holiday. Although I know that there are bigger celebrations around the valley, it is nice to be able to support one here locally on the West Side.

Have a wonderful weekend!
Sra. Hamilton