Spanish Prayers

One of my favorite things about All Saints is that it is truly a Catholic school.   Although we are always in the presence of God, we deliberately take time throughout the school day to turn our hearts and attention to Him.  Not only do our children learn the prayers in English, but even before they come into third grade Spanish, they have learned many prayers in Spanish, too.

Why does this matter?  Well, in terms of faith. I believe that this opens our hearts and creates a beautiful rhythm to our days, bringing peace and virtue.  But even if you are not a Catholic family, I think that there are some wonderful blessings from a Spanish language standpoint to this practice.

First, it introduces vocabulary and grammar structures in an authentic way.  In particular, the students see and hear Spanish outside of a textbook.  There are new words, and patterns of words, that enrich their vocabulary.  Always, always, we find examples of the grammar concepts that we are reviewing, from adjectives to past participles to irregular verbs.

Additionally, it allows the students to see the progression and evolution of language, noting older examples of Spanish in some prayers, and how others have been slightly modernized.

One of the biggest pitfalls for elementary Spanish classes is that so often students hear isolated nouns instead of rich, flowing sentences.  As we practice the prayers and creeds in Spanish, our students experience the fluency of complete and complex thoughts being expressed in beautiful words.  They become accustomed to intonation patterns and internalize correct pronunciation.  

I want the prayers to be a source of peace for our students, not anxiety.  For the most part, they do not learn them as a test or assignment.  It is simply how we open our class.  Even our third graders have mostly memorized the Apostles' Creed in Spanish this way!

The following are some of the prayers we have learned:

The Sign of the Cross
Our Father
Mary, Queen of All Saints
Hail Mary
The Angelus
The Apostles' Creed

Although not all of the students know all of these yet, most of them are very familiar with these prayers and can easily pray along with the class.  As we talk about the meanings of each of the words, we find that we are truly learning them by heart.  It is not vain repetition, but more like breathing:  a regular and life-giving part of our day.

Round Up

We have had quite a time in Spanish the last few weeks!  There is so much going on this time of year with field trips, testing, (and unfortunately sickness), but we have been busy in Spanish.  The 7th and 8th graders participated in the National Spanish Exam.  I am so impressed by the effort that they have put into studying this year.  We will not have the official results of the NSE until May, but I expect some great scores.

Our 6th graders have been learning about e to ie stem-changing verbs.  These are a special group of irregular verbs in the present tense that follow a pattern of spelling changes.  They made boot posters to remember which conjugations show the stem-change (the ones inside the boot) and which ones follow the normal pattern (those outside the boot).  

Our 5th graders are learning about telling time this week.  Recently we finished a section on adjective agreement and they each wrote down the qualities that they admired in their classmates.  I am still working on getting all of those printed up and laminated, but reading all of the kind things that they expressed about each other made my whole day better.  

The 3rd and 4th grade students have been going over animal vocabulary.  I love it that they aren't content to learn the basics like cat, dog, bird.  We went over everything from anteaters to opossums to zebras!  As we continue this week, they are making masks of an animal, and will come to the front of the class, identify their animal in Spanish, and talk about care for creation and how we can help to care for animals and our environment. 

That is just a quick round up of some of the things we have been up to.   The school year is flying by, but I am so pleased by the things our students are learning, and so impressed by the people that they are becoming.