Hace buen tiempo

Our weather this week has been warm and beautiful, and the students have been taking the ITBS, which created the perfect storm for holding class outside this afternoon.  It was all fun and games, but very specific, Spanish-oriented ones.  As the kids played tetherball, each hit was accompanied by preterite verb conjugations: ¡Gané! (I won) ¡Ganaste! (You won!) ¡Ganó! ¡Perdiste! ¡Perdió! and many others.

They took turns talking about what they ate, what they learned, what they studied, and what they played, using the regular -ar/-er/-ir preterites.  Some did monkey bars with a verb conjugation for each bar, and each game included variations in Spanish.  It gave us the chance to get outside and show God our appreciation for the beautiful day, work off any wiggles from the testing earlier, and still stay focused on learning and speaking Spanish.  I call that a win in any language!

Time of Preparation

One of my favorite things about All Saints is that our faith permeates every part of our day.  All of our Spanish classes have been talking about the importance of ayuno (fasting), limosna (alms-giving) and oración (prayer) as we begin our observance of cuaresma (Lent). As part of our practice of oración, we prayed La Coronilla de la Divina Misericordia (Divine Mercy Chaplet) together this week.  We are preparing our hearts in this Lenten season to receive the mercy of God, and to share that mercy with others.

Academically, we are also in a time of intense preparation, looking ahead to the coming year.  We are in the part of the year where the concepts move up a few notches, and it is exciting to see the kids rise to the challenge.  Our 4th graders are learning all of the conjugations of ser and how they match with the subject pronouns. Next week, our 5th graders will be writing compositions about themselves with appropriate adjective agreement and sentence structure. Our 6th grade class is deep in the intricacies of stem-changing verbs. The 7th graders have been learning about spelling changes in the preterite, and the 8th grade class is finishing the last set of irregular preterites before moving on the the imperfect. Our goal is to have learned the material covered by most Spanish II courses before the end of the year.

Our 7th and 8th grade students are also preparing for the National Spanish Exam in March, and our 8th graders are also planning to take the proficiency exam for Bishop Kelley to test out of Spanish I or II.  Although the BK exam is not used by other high schools in our area, I am confident that any students who pass it would also test out of Spanish I or II in other schools.  

We have had a very special way to balance the intensity of our studies by working with our buddies from pre-K, kindergarten, first and second grades.  Together with Mrs. Stafford's elementary classes we have done centers, learned about Hispanic saints such as Santa Rosa de Lima and Santa Laura de Colombia, and reinforced vocabulary skills.  Most of all, we love seeing the camaraderie and joy of our students of all ages working together.