Our Trees Are Complete
And we did it all in Spanish
Spanish skills that are being learned in our short nine week stint together should be skills that are fun to learn, but fun to use outside of the classroom. For this unit, we used our English literature book to read a short story entitled "Names/Nombres". We learned of a girl and her family living in New York in the 1960's. She is never really called by the correct name due to the fact that it is Spanish (Puerto Rican) and many do not bother to ask for the correct pronunciation. She simply wants to blend and be an American. But isn't being American being different? We all come from so many different cultures, for this is the American way. In addition we also discover the reason for her lengthy full name and the traditions that surround family.
To reinforce our reading we learned how to describe our family relationships (vocabulary for each person), adding "his/her name is", discussing more of the Latino culture in regards to family, and finally working on speaking skills to present our family's to one another. I should add that many were able to do so without using notes. Take a few moments to scan these great family tree for your student's work.
