¿Lo sabía?

Did you know the following facts about José Feliciano?

-He was born blind.
-He was born in Puerto Rico, moving to NY City when he was five.
-He taught himself how to play the accordion and the guitar.
-He's won 6 Grammys.
-His Christmas song, 'Feliz Navidad' is sung around the world during the Christmas season.

Well, if you didn't know all of these facts about this súper-famous Hispanic, you can ask one of our Third or Fourth Graders!!

'Feliz Navidad'

This made me smile!

A Second Grade student said today, "Spanish Rocks!" (Yes, it does :) )

Venezuela

First Graders have just finished a cultural theme centered around Venezuela, learning about many aspects of this South American country. We have had the opportunity to explore virtually some of the natural wonders of the country, such as Salto Ángel (Angel Falls), some key symbols, such as the national bird (el turpial) and the national flower (orchid), and used play ‘bolivares’ (Venezuela’s money) to practice math skills and review our numbers in Spanish. We also learned that scientists believe that cacao trees are indigenous to Venezuela. And what do we make from cacao trees? Chocolate! Something we can't possibly live without :)
21st century skills include cultural literacy as part of what makes a graduate competitive in the job market, and we start early here at Camden Rockport Elementary, gaining knowledge of other countries and perspectives. A measure of success, when a student says, ‘Wow, I want to go THERE!’

For more kid friendly information about Venezuela, go t0:
http://www.atozkidsstuff.com/ven.html

Saludos!

Wow!

Fourth graders have been learning about the Mayan tradition of a 'nagual', a guardian animal spirit which can serve to protect you. As part of a larger project, students answered three questions about what we have learned in class. One student found she just didn't have enough room on the sheet, so she went home, wrote all she had learned and brought it back to me the next day. Wow!!

Smart thinking!

One of my fourth graders made an observation last Friday..... he came up to me and said, 'I noticed that some of the days of the week are like some of the planet names, like martes (Tuesday) is like Marte (Mars) and lunes (Monday) is like luna (moon).' Wow! What an example of a student thinking about the language and how words connect one to the other!! (We had done a theme on outer space in Third Grade, and the planets with their names are displayed in our classroom).... definitely smart thinking!

Los Maya y el Nagual

Fourth Graders have been learning adjectives to describe their personalities.... artístico, atlético, valiente, musical, etc, paying particular attention to matching the grammatical gender of the adjective to themselves (wow! great job!). In other words, if you are a girl, you would say 'generosA' not 'generosO'. We are now taking this vocabulary and incorporating it into a project in which they are also learning about a Mayan belief centered on one's nagual, or one's spirit creature. In the words of Rigoberta Menchú, Nobel Peace Prize recipient, "When we are born, a little creature is born with us. Sometimes that creature is wiser than we are. It's aware of the risks we take, and so it must protect us as it protects itself. You can have a tiger, a lion, a coyote or a bear as a nagual. Or a pig, or a mouse, or a fox. All creatures are beautiful. All animals play their role. All animals are good because they help the earth to exist. Without them, we would cease to exist." (The Girl from Chimel)
Students have chosen an animal they would like to be their nagual and are writing descriptions of themselves and their nagual using our adjectives. ¡Chévere!

Frutas deliciosas

First Graders have been learning two most important sentence starters "Me gustan....." (I like) and 'No me gustan" (I don't like), revisiting fruit vocabulary from Kindergarten to share which fruits they like. We've had fun discovering which fruits our classmates like and which ones they don't. Kids brought home a fun illustration of a fruit they like.... ask them to read the sentence at the bottom!