Jahida Lopez - Middle School - Spanish

¡Bienvenidos a la clase de español!

Welcome to the wonderful and vibrant world of speaking Spanish! Learning a new language will be an exciting and fun experience! This class is designed to cultivate a student-centered learning environment that promotes meaningful and authentic learning opportunities for continued growth and lifelong learning. Students will develop their listening, speaking, reading and writing skills to attain proficiency and ability to communicate in Spanish; with an emphasis on meaningful communication and cultural aspects.

Here are a list of books I recommend for middle school:

Dive into this reading list to prepare for a spectacular year ahead with Señora Lopez! Once the school year begins, we will sing, dance, read, write and cook a variety of recipes from different Spanish speaking countries around the world. This 2023-2024 school year will be the best one yet! ¡Nos vemos pronto!

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Did you know that National Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated in the United States from September 15th to October 15th? How do you celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month?

Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated in the United States from September 15th to October 15th honoring the cultural richness, contributions and achievements of Hispanics, who come from Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean.

In the classroom, we’ve kicked off Hispanic Heritage Month by reading and exploring the lives of notable Hispanic leaders like: Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Ellen Ochoa, the first Hispanic woman to go into space.

Throughout the month students will explore and create together to honor their diversity as they celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month by researching the lives of several Hispanic leaders.Students will use Sketches, Canva or Pages App to create a digital hero’s trading card. This collaborative digital project will give students the opportunity to critically analyze information, evaluate it, and then communicate their findings. Students will use their trading cards to share and seek- out connections with peers and in their own lives. In addition, students will increase their learning of different holidays, food, traditions and customs by digitally touring a Spanish speaking country of their choice.

Teaching students about culture, whether it is their own or exploring others, is an essential piece to their growth and development as a global citizen. Here are a few ways you can support your language learner at home:

Create a Spanish-language center in your home and fill it with engaging activities such as word-matching puzzle pieces and labeling activities.
Use Spanish words and phrases every day.
Listen to Latin music and explore artists online.
Take turns reading bilingual books and Hispanic poetry aloud.
Explore Spanish Kahoots and complete Señor Wooly Nuggets together

5th and 6th Grade Spanish

This week, fifth graders read a Christmas story about a Hispanic family called Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto. Students learned more about the culture and traditional foods and discovered that in Mexican American and other Hispanic families, people often eat tamales on holidays and special occasions like Christmas, Dia de los Muertos and birthdays. Each student made their own “tamale” from twists of paper with a recipe inserted on the inside of the “corn husk” to share with their family. Did you know that the word tamale comes from Nahuatl word tamalli meaning wrapped?

Using two mentor texts, 5th grade Spanish students authored their own stories to share with kindergarteners and enjoyed taste testing tamales!

Hispanic Heritage Month

5th graders read Alma, a story about a young girl with a very long name(Alma Sofia José Pura Candela). The author Juana Carlota Martinez Neal wrote the book after her own life story. Born in Lima, Peru, her parents gave her a very long Spanish name and she grew up disliking it. She then moved to the United States and she learned to appreciate and love her name because it reminded her of friends and family in Peru. Students connected with this story because not all of them knew the story/origin of their name. This book sparked conversations around the dinner table and allowed students to interview parents and family members to discover the meaning of their name. They also spent time reflecting on what they wanted to be remembered as and the story they wanted their name to tell.

I also had the opportunity to reach out to the author and illustrator of Alma, Juana Carlota Martinez Neal through Instagram and thanked her for illustrating and writing an incredible story. To my surprise, she replied directly to me among thousands of other comments from people around the world. Check out her shout out below!

Unit 1- Vocabulary- En la clase

Students had a blast as they reviewed their materiales escolares and objetos de la clase (school supplies and classroom objects) by playing a game of memory and matching with their peers.

Students enjoyed learning about Dolores Huerta during Hispanic Heritage Month.

Sixth graders reading their language learner novel: Patricia quiere ir a California.

Seventh graders creating podcasts/talk shows in Spanish.

Fifth graders using Pages and Sketches to create a poster to demonstrate how they can conjugate the verb (tener) and use it with a school related vocabulary term.