December 11 - 15

SPANISH NOVICE I -

We continued our work on "Backwards Verbs" and how they work in Spanish.  We used model sentences about famous peoples' likes and worked on our story about Jorge and what he likes / doesn't like about school.  We also played some games on Quizlet to help our understanding of the vocabulary and how they are used in sentences in Spanish.  This upcoming week, we will finish the story about Jorge and have a listening and reading assessment.

SPANISH NOVICE II -

The students worked on the story from the previous week about "Elle" and changed the classes, jobs and languages to make their own version of the story.  We had a competition where the students worked together to unscramble sentences into the correct order and translate them into English.  We also took a short listening quiz using our target verbs ,"hablar", "tomar", and "quiere ser" along with some pervious vocabulary.

LATIN -

This week we worked more on translating basic Latin sentences through a short story (2 paragraphs) about a dog causing some problems at home.  We read and watch a couple videos to learn about typical homes of the wealthy in ancient Rome.  Here are links to the videos.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCDtk7tWY7w
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETd7pszxhnc

We also learned two new Phrases of the Day;
"e pluribus unum" (From many, one) - It is on U.S. Currency
"veni, vidi, vici" (I came, I saw, I conquered) - Stated by Julius Caesar to the Roman Senate to describe a swift military victory

December 4 - 8

SPANISH NOVICE I

We worked on a Mini-Unit on colors, including a reading assessment this week and are now beginning a unit on "Backwards Verbs" (Verbs that use a reverse word order in sentences) such as "Gustar" (To like) and "Interesar" (To be interesting to), along with six other verbs and their object pronouns.  We will be working on a short story about Pedro and what he likes and does not like about school.


SPANISH NOVICE II

We began our new unit called "La universidad" focusing on the phrases, "habla" (he/she talks), "toma" (he/she takes), and "quiere ser" (he/she wants to be) along with the other forms of those verbs.  We worked on sample sentences with these phrases and the class is working on a story about Elle and what colleges she goes to based on the career she is trying to choose.


LATIN

We watched a short video on our first day about the value of Latin for students (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6eYkDhH61Y) and talked about the connections between Latin and English.  We worked on a set of 18 model sentences to learn two basic sentence structures in Latin.  We learned two "Phrases of the Day"; "Carpe Diem" - Sieze the Day (We watched a short clip from Robin Williams' "Dead Poets Society" where he highlights this phrase) and "Cave Canem" Beware of the Dog (Many Ancient Roman homes had this warning at the entry of their houses) Next week we will work on translating a short story about a cook and a dog trying to steal his food and also learn more about typical upper-class homes in Ancient Rome.

End of Trimester 1

NOVICE II -

Through the end of November, we finished out Unit on "Cierra la puerta" (Shut the door).  We played some review Kahoot games to continue our work on conjugating present tense verbs.  We also took two listening assessments using our key vocabulary and their different forms: cerrar - to close/shut, abrir - to open, time phrases and other review vocabulary: correr - to run, caminar - to walk.  In addition the students took two HOWL self-assessments, one on Responsibility and one on Perseverance.  We will be starting our new unit "La universidad" (The university) to begin December and Trimester 2.


NOVICE I  -

Over the last couple weeks, we finished our unit on "Camina y Corre" (Walks and Runs).  We took a listening and reading assessment using our key vocabulary and their different forms: Caminar - To walk, Correr - To run, la escuela - the school, un día - a day, as well as review vocabulary from our first unit and some additional cognates.  We read through a short story and played some review Kahoot games to prepare for the two tests.  The the students took two HOWL self-assessments, one on Responsibility and one on Perseverance.  We will be working on two mini-units: Los colores (Colors) and Le gusta (He/She Likes) during December to begin Trimester 2.