Below are my Curriculum Night Letters, an Overview of What We're Doing
K-2
Queridos Padres,
First of all, I would like to thank you for choosing St. Gabriel School and to introduce myself as your child’s Spanish teacher. Me llamo Jonathan Harris and this is my thirteenth year at St. Gabriel. My classes are conversational in nature with no writing or reading assignments given to students at this level. Some reading and writing will be done in class so that immediate feedback will be given, but conversation will be the primary focus. Students are only responsible for knowing the vocabulary that we discuss in class. A variety of activities are used to reinforce vocabulary retention but I need your help. Periodically during the year I will send home the vocabulary that we are learning in class.
I have created a website, www.senorharris.weebly.com
On this website, I will have vocabulary, assignments, Powerpoint stories that we will read in class, and some news and vocabulary. I encourage you to check it periodically.
By the end of the kindergarten, students will know the Spanish equivalent of the following:
-Hello, good bye, stand up, sit down
-I’m hot and cold
-I’m hungry and thirsty
-colors
-numbers 1-10
-identify items in their pencil box
-parts of the body (including but not limited to eyes, nose arms and legs)
-emotions such as happy, sad, angry, and tired
-weather (rain, snow and sunny)
(1st grade: add days of the week, math problems in Spanish, parts of the room/such as door, windows etc.)
Second graders will have a review and expansion in each of these subject areas. As you can see, most of the vocabulary learned are nouns and adjectives. This is meant to mirror first language development whereas a toddler will first learn how to identify things and then develop sentence structure.
Thank you for your help and support of the Spanish program at St. Gabriel.
Cordialmente,
Señor Harris
3rd-5th
Queridos Padres,
First of all, I would like to thank you for choosing St. Gabriel School and to introduce myself as your child’s Spanish teacher. Me llamo Jonathan Harris and this is my thirteenth year at St. Gabriel. My classes are conversational in nature with no writing or reading assignments given to students at this level, except for the fifth grade project discussed later. Some reading and writing will be done in class with immediate discussion to aid in comprehension, but conversation is the primary focus. Students are only responsible for knowing the vocabulary that we discuss in class. A variety of activities are used to reinforce vocabulary retention but I need your help. All students are required to keep a notebook. They must bring it to every Spanish class. They should also take it home periodically and review the words as needed.
I have created a website, www.senorharris.weebly.com
On this website, I will have vocabulary, assignments, Powerpoint stories that we will read in class, and some news and vocabulary. I encourage you to check it periodically.
By the end of the last year students demonstrated knowledge of the Spanish equivalent of the following. Students new to St. Gabriel will be introduced to the following during periodic reviews:
-“Tengo” expressions (8 of them) hot, cold, hungry, thirsty, scared, correct, lucky, and I am ______ years old.)
-Numbers 1-1000 (30 by 3rd, 100 by 4th, 1000 by 5th)
-Parts of the room
-I like/dislike sentences
-We do times tables in Spanish to reinforce the math and the numbers (we start this in third grade when students start learning their times tables)
-How and why Cinco de Mayo is celebrated
-Letters of the Spanish alphabet and how to spell words in Spanish (this is specifically introduced in third grade and will be practiced throughout the year)
-How to introduce one another
-clothing items
And the following reviewed periodically since Kindergarten for reinforcement
-I’m hot and cold
-I’m hungry and thirsty
-colors
-identify items in their pencil box
-parts of the body (including but not limited to eyes, nose arms and legs)
-emotions such as happy, sad, angry, and tired
-weather (rain, snow and sunny)
Students should know months. They should also know how to say any day of the year in Spanish. This is practiced frequently so that it becomes automatic. They will also describe people and objects with basic adjectives.
Fifth grade will learn the following.
-telling time.
-students will also use nouns/adjective agreement and provide simple phrases like
“red shirt” and “blue pants”.
-students will also use the two different forms of the verb “to be” and provide
simple sentences.
Students at this level should be able to express basic needs and the items around them. They should be fairly proficient with the alphabet and be able to say their initials and spell short words. In fourth and fifth grades, the alphabet should be memorized and we use it frequently to help in pronunciation (for example: the letter “a” is always pronounced “ahh”).
We will read stories in class and “act out” vocabulary to aid in retention.
Also, fifth grade students will have a Spanish project this year. This project will focus on culture and will use Powerpoint on the computer. Students will share their projects will the class. These projects will be graded for their Social Studies class.
Cordialmente,
Señor Harris
6th-8th
Queridos Padres,
First of all, I would like to thank you for choosing St. Gabriel School and to introduce myself as your child’s Spanish teacher. Me llamo Jonathan Harris and this is my thirteenth year at St. Gabriel. My classes are conversational in nature with a few writing or reading assignments given to students at this level, except for the class projects discussed later. Students will do some reading and writing, but it will be done in class for immediate feedback, and conversation will be the primary focus. Students are only responsible for knowing the vocabulary that we discuss in class. A variety of activities are used to reinforce vocabulary retention but I need your help. All students are required to keep a notebook. They must bring it to every Spanish class. They should also take it home periodically and review the words as needed.
Seventh and Eighth graders are using a textbook this year. It is "¿De Dónde Vienes?" from QTalk publishing, levels one and two. The primary purpose of these books are to encourage sentence formation. These particular books use an approach similar to the popular and successful Rosetta Stone.
I have created a website, www.senorharris.weebly.com
On this website, I will have vocabulary, assignments, Powerpoint stories that we will read in class, and some news and vocabulary. I encourage you to check it periodically.
Seventh and eighth graders will create either a Powerpoint or Wiki Spanish Culture assignments. Fifth and sixth graders will make individual Powerpoint projects and show them to the class. Project criteria can be found at the above website.
Students will be conjugating verbs into the present and past tenses. A variety of activities will be done to reinforce this. The past tense will be new to everyone but our eighth graders. This will take up a lot of our time because of all of the irregulars and stem-changing verbs. This is beyond a beginning level of Spanish and it’s a great sign of our kids’ willingness to learn!
By the end of last year students knew the Spanish equivalent of the following, students new to St. Gabriel will be introduced to the following during periodic reviews:
-Numbers 1-1 million
-Parts of the room
-I like/dislike sentences, students will take “surveys” in Spanish and say what people liked.
-We do times tables in Spanish to reinforce the math and the numbers
-Letters of the Spanish alphabet and how to spell words in Spanish
-clothing items
-colors
-parts of the body (including but not limited to eyes, nose arms and legs)
-emotions such as happy, sad, angry, and tired
-weather (rain, snow and sunny)
-telling time.
-students will also use nouns/adjective agreement and provide simple phrases like
“red shirt” and “blue pants”.
-students will also use the two different forms of the verb “to be” and provide
simple sentences.
-Restaurant situation. Students will learn how to order food and use common
food and drink vocabulary.
This school year, the primary focus will be on sentence formation. We’ve done this last year, but it is a process and we will continue to practice. Students will know the following by the end of the school year.
Students will be able to identify and use all of the subject pronouns in Spanish. These are I, he, she, we, they and by eighth grade, they will know the four Spanish words for “you” and when to use them.
Students can identify five commands, and place the object pronoun in its appropriate place. Students did this last year with examples such as “Talk to me” and “Move it.”
Students will learn a variety of adjectives to properly describe themselves and others in sentence form.
Students will also be able to express how to “go” to places in their community-library, hospital, bathroom, etc. They will learn how to ask and say where they are and where to go.
Students will learn the question words: who, what, when, where, how and how many.
Students will learn prepositions of in, out, up, down, around, left and right.
Fourth and fifth graders are expected to memorize the alphabet. Students in grades 6-8 have the same expectation and we periodically review it.
We will read and create stories in class and write sentences about them. We will also “act out” certain words to help with retention.
Cordialmente,
Señor Harris
Queridos Padres,
First of all, I would like to thank you for choosing St. Gabriel School and to introduce myself as your child’s Spanish teacher. Me llamo Jonathan Harris and this is my thirteenth year at St. Gabriel. My classes are conversational in nature with no writing or reading assignments given to students at this level. Some reading and writing will be done in class so that immediate feedback will be given, but conversation will be the primary focus. Students are only responsible for knowing the vocabulary that we discuss in class. A variety of activities are used to reinforce vocabulary retention but I need your help. Periodically during the year I will send home the vocabulary that we are learning in class.
I have created a website, www.senorharris.weebly.com
On this website, I will have vocabulary, assignments, Powerpoint stories that we will read in class, and some news and vocabulary. I encourage you to check it periodically.
By the end of the kindergarten, students will know the Spanish equivalent of the following:
-Hello, good bye, stand up, sit down
-I’m hot and cold
-I’m hungry and thirsty
-colors
-numbers 1-10
-identify items in their pencil box
-parts of the body (including but not limited to eyes, nose arms and legs)
-emotions such as happy, sad, angry, and tired
-weather (rain, snow and sunny)
(1st grade: add days of the week, math problems in Spanish, parts of the room/such as door, windows etc.)
Second graders will have a review and expansion in each of these subject areas. As you can see, most of the vocabulary learned are nouns and adjectives. This is meant to mirror first language development whereas a toddler will first learn how to identify things and then develop sentence structure.
Thank you for your help and support of the Spanish program at St. Gabriel.
Cordialmente,
Señor Harris
3rd-5th
Queridos Padres,
First of all, I would like to thank you for choosing St. Gabriel School and to introduce myself as your child’s Spanish teacher. Me llamo Jonathan Harris and this is my thirteenth year at St. Gabriel. My classes are conversational in nature with no writing or reading assignments given to students at this level, except for the fifth grade project discussed later. Some reading and writing will be done in class with immediate discussion to aid in comprehension, but conversation is the primary focus. Students are only responsible for knowing the vocabulary that we discuss in class. A variety of activities are used to reinforce vocabulary retention but I need your help. All students are required to keep a notebook. They must bring it to every Spanish class. They should also take it home periodically and review the words as needed.
I have created a website, www.senorharris.weebly.com
On this website, I will have vocabulary, assignments, Powerpoint stories that we will read in class, and some news and vocabulary. I encourage you to check it periodically.
By the end of the last year students demonstrated knowledge of the Spanish equivalent of the following. Students new to St. Gabriel will be introduced to the following during periodic reviews:
-“Tengo” expressions (8 of them) hot, cold, hungry, thirsty, scared, correct, lucky, and I am ______ years old.)
-Numbers 1-1000 (30 by 3rd, 100 by 4th, 1000 by 5th)
-Parts of the room
-I like/dislike sentences
-We do times tables in Spanish to reinforce the math and the numbers (we start this in third grade when students start learning their times tables)
-How and why Cinco de Mayo is celebrated
-Letters of the Spanish alphabet and how to spell words in Spanish (this is specifically introduced in third grade and will be practiced throughout the year)
-How to introduce one another
-clothing items
And the following reviewed periodically since Kindergarten for reinforcement
-I’m hot and cold
-I’m hungry and thirsty
-colors
-identify items in their pencil box
-parts of the body (including but not limited to eyes, nose arms and legs)
-emotions such as happy, sad, angry, and tired
-weather (rain, snow and sunny)
Students should know months. They should also know how to say any day of the year in Spanish. This is practiced frequently so that it becomes automatic. They will also describe people and objects with basic adjectives.
Fifth grade will learn the following.
-telling time.
-students will also use nouns/adjective agreement and provide simple phrases like
“red shirt” and “blue pants”.
-students will also use the two different forms of the verb “to be” and provide
simple sentences.
Students at this level should be able to express basic needs and the items around them. They should be fairly proficient with the alphabet and be able to say their initials and spell short words. In fourth and fifth grades, the alphabet should be memorized and we use it frequently to help in pronunciation (for example: the letter “a” is always pronounced “ahh”).
We will read stories in class and “act out” vocabulary to aid in retention.
Also, fifth grade students will have a Spanish project this year. This project will focus on culture and will use Powerpoint on the computer. Students will share their projects will the class. These projects will be graded for their Social Studies class.
Cordialmente,
Señor Harris
6th-8th
Queridos Padres,
First of all, I would like to thank you for choosing St. Gabriel School and to introduce myself as your child’s Spanish teacher. Me llamo Jonathan Harris and this is my thirteenth year at St. Gabriel. My classes are conversational in nature with a few writing or reading assignments given to students at this level, except for the class projects discussed later. Students will do some reading and writing, but it will be done in class for immediate feedback, and conversation will be the primary focus. Students are only responsible for knowing the vocabulary that we discuss in class. A variety of activities are used to reinforce vocabulary retention but I need your help. All students are required to keep a notebook. They must bring it to every Spanish class. They should also take it home periodically and review the words as needed.
Seventh and Eighth graders are using a textbook this year. It is "¿De Dónde Vienes?" from QTalk publishing, levels one and two. The primary purpose of these books are to encourage sentence formation. These particular books use an approach similar to the popular and successful Rosetta Stone.
I have created a website, www.senorharris.weebly.com
On this website, I will have vocabulary, assignments, Powerpoint stories that we will read in class, and some news and vocabulary. I encourage you to check it periodically.
Seventh and eighth graders will create either a Powerpoint or Wiki Spanish Culture assignments. Fifth and sixth graders will make individual Powerpoint projects and show them to the class. Project criteria can be found at the above website.
Students will be conjugating verbs into the present and past tenses. A variety of activities will be done to reinforce this. The past tense will be new to everyone but our eighth graders. This will take up a lot of our time because of all of the irregulars and stem-changing verbs. This is beyond a beginning level of Spanish and it’s a great sign of our kids’ willingness to learn!
By the end of last year students knew the Spanish equivalent of the following, students new to St. Gabriel will be introduced to the following during periodic reviews:
-Numbers 1-1 million
-Parts of the room
-I like/dislike sentences, students will take “surveys” in Spanish and say what people liked.
-We do times tables in Spanish to reinforce the math and the numbers
-Letters of the Spanish alphabet and how to spell words in Spanish
-clothing items
-colors
-parts of the body (including but not limited to eyes, nose arms and legs)
-emotions such as happy, sad, angry, and tired
-weather (rain, snow and sunny)
-telling time.
-students will also use nouns/adjective agreement and provide simple phrases like
“red shirt” and “blue pants”.
-students will also use the two different forms of the verb “to be” and provide
simple sentences.
-Restaurant situation. Students will learn how to order food and use common
food and drink vocabulary.
This school year, the primary focus will be on sentence formation. We’ve done this last year, but it is a process and we will continue to practice. Students will know the following by the end of the school year.
Students will be able to identify and use all of the subject pronouns in Spanish. These are I, he, she, we, they and by eighth grade, they will know the four Spanish words for “you” and when to use them.
Students can identify five commands, and place the object pronoun in its appropriate place. Students did this last year with examples such as “Talk to me” and “Move it.”
Students will learn a variety of adjectives to properly describe themselves and others in sentence form.
Students will also be able to express how to “go” to places in their community-library, hospital, bathroom, etc. They will learn how to ask and say where they are and where to go.
Students will learn the question words: who, what, when, where, how and how many.
Students will learn prepositions of in, out, up, down, around, left and right.
Fourth and fifth graders are expected to memorize the alphabet. Students in grades 6-8 have the same expectation and we periodically review it.
We will read and create stories in class and write sentences about them. We will also “act out” certain words to help with retention.
Cordialmente,
Señor Harris