We’ve had a strong start to Spanish classes this year at FWM. 

From primary to middle school, all students have returned to Spanish classes eager to continue along their language acquisition journey. Using a comprehensible input approach, students hear and read in the language each class period. We are building vocabulary and practicing using words within target structures for each unit. Our storytelling and role playing offer a compelling experience within the classroom for students to remain engaged and feel the joy of learning. Students new to FWM or to Spanish are already immersing themselves in the experience as we work to acquire the language together. 

September 15th kicked off Hispanic Heritage Month, as multiple countries celebrated their independence days. We tie Hispanic culture into our lessons in Spanish regularly. If you’re looking for ways at home to connect with the LatinX community, check out Yale’s Fiesta-Latina, with virtual events in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month between now and 10/15 2020: https://peabody.yale.edu/events/fiesta-latina. 

Please remind your child to wear something BLUE on Monday, September 21 to recognize and celebrate the International Day of Peace.  Blue is the universal color of peace.

Students have been working hard in Spanish, applying what they know through a variety of methods. You may hear the lovely sound of your child singing one of their favorite tunes from our class, as all of them enjoy music in Spanish. In some cases we use music for brain breaks and in others, a song may be the core piece of our lesson. 

Primary students have been singing “Caminando por la selva” from Super Simple Español. They are learning about animals and have been using their prior knowledge to play charades and discuss what animals eat and where they live. 

Lower Elementary students have been creating their own games to practice colors and shapes in Spanish. They are practicing collaboration and developing leadership skills by working together to try each other’s games and cheering each other on in the process. 

Upper Elementary has taken on the task of learning as much about food in Spanish as possible before our upcoming field trip in March. They want to be ready to order their lunch in Spanish, and you can tell by the engagement and effort exerted during Spanish! This week, students began to generate books on Book Creator, expressing their likes and dislikes of certain foods and beverages. 

Middle School has been cultivating their comprehension skills as we read about important figures in Black History. We are specifically focusing on afrolatinx singers, politicians, actors, athletes, and authors who are a mixture of African and Latinx heritage. Additionally, 8th years are working on an amazing project which will be showcased shortly after the middle school play.

The Kindergarten, Lower Elementary, and Upper Elementary students participated in a gymnastics unit in which they experienced transfer of body weight through floor skills. Students experienced the following apparatus: gymnastic mats for an obstacle course, a balance beam, and vaulted springboard.  They also did pyramid building and single balances. Pyramid building is when a group of gymnasts make a human pyramid by standing or kneeling on top of one another with only one person on the top level. A human pyramid is a formation of three or more people in which two or more support a tier of higher people. For practical reasons, lighter people are often positioned higher while stronger/heavier people are located closer to the base.

Students in LE and UE practiced jumping off a vaulted springboard. Vaulting in gymnastics requires coordination of combining running, jumping, and squatting. Students practiced jumping and landing with two feet onto the mats. The jumps practiced were: straight, straddle, and tuck. Students learned that strength, flexibility, and balance they gained from gymnastics will transfer easily to every other sport they may want to pursue. The skills learned will help them achieve success in other areas.

Lower Elementary students enjoyed working with a catchy song, “Catch the Beat.” They learned the song using words like “lala, tutu, boomboom, etc.” accompanied by body percussion, such as clapping, stomping, and tapping. 

1st year students learned through moving the designated motions with different words like lala, tutu… Once they are familiar with the song using their body percussion only, then they are ready to transfer to actual musical instruments. 2nd year students are demonstrating this in the photos above.

Last week, Danielle Ulacco and I attended an extraordinary workshop at the University of Colorado at Boulder in which we received official training on their “Build a Better Book” Program. During this incredibly eye-opening experience, we were trained on the various ways to engage youth in the design and fabrication of inclusive media, including picture books, games, and tactile graphics. We used both low and high tech tools and materials to explore ways of designing, fabricating, testing and refining multi-modal books, games and graphics that incorporate tactile and audio features. The overall goal of this workshop was to share what we learned with our students so they can begin to design for learners with visual impairments as well as other physical and learning disabilities.

As soon as we returned to school on Monday, we dove right into these concepts and shared what we learned from this workshop with our middle school STEAM students. We began with an activity called Tactile Pictionary. As stated on the Build a Better Book program’s website, “This activity is an engaging way to introduce the Build a Better Book project. By playing a tactile version of the game Pictionary while blindfolded, students experience what it would be like to interpret a drawing in a different way, using their sense of touch instead of sight. Using their experience with the activity, participants generate a list of key features of effective tactile diagrams that they will then be able to use later in the project.”

To begin the game, we arranged the students in groups of two or three. One or two people in each group were the artist(s) and the other was blindfolded and tasked with guessing what the object was. The artist(s) received the name of an object to depict in a tactile picture, using Wikki Sticks on the board. Once the tactile picture was completed, the blindfolded student tried to guess what the object was, using only their sense of touch. After completing a few rounds of this game, students came to many realizations about what it means to design for and communicate information tactically for someone with a visual impairment. We heard comments like, “we need to emphasize the important parts only,” and “it doesn’t have to look like the object, it should feel like it.”

Overall, we were blown away by the level of compassion and interest our students expressed for this initiative in just one class period, and we were humbled to see our students becoming makers who design for equity through this simple activity. We are so excited to see how the Build a Better Book project unfolds in our classroom and beyond!