NAME:
Señora Claudia Olea
SCHOOL:
St. John Catholic School
CLASS:
Spanish (Español)
I was born in Santiago, Chile, so I grew up speaking, playing, singing and
even dreaming in Spanish. The first time I came to Lawrence I was two years
old, but I didn't move to Lawrence from Santiago until I was seventeen. I
have a husband named David and three daughters. All three of my girls are
attending St. John School this year!
One of my main goals is to make learning Spanish fun! I like to use art,
stories, music, games and connections to real places and people to learn and
practice our Spanish.
Preschool to third grade-
Our primary grades from preschool to third grade will be taking a trip around
the town as talk about "mi pueblo." Each week we'll visit a different part of
town to practice our Spanish words. We'll practice body parts with a puppet
in the toy store. We'll talk about the clothes that fire fighters wear in the
fire station. We'll order food in a restaurant and shop in a supermarket.
Second and third graders will continue practicing their reading and
writing skills by creating a new book about the city we live in. It will be a
semester of fun games, songs and stories around our town... in Spanish!
Fourth to sixth grade-
Each semester in 4th to 6th grade Spanish class, we will study a different
country to make the Spanish language come to life. These are some examples of
how we’ve done that in past classes:
• When we “visited” Spain, we studied the Spanish masters like Picasso
and Miró, and learned about shapes, colors, feelings, and parts of the body.
• On our trip to Mexico, we practiced verbs like “I want” by trading
food and goods in an Aztec market.
• In Perú, we practiced writing and saying large numbers by learning
the Inca system of recording numbers by tying knots on a quipú.
• Costa Rica was a bird and animal lovers' paradise, and we also
practiced checking into a virtual hotel.
• In Chile we learned about the mysterious moai statues and wrote plays
set in a Chilean ski resort.
Our next country is one that is was visited by Christopher Columbus, was a
Spanish colony for many years, and later became a commonwealth of the United
States. Although the residents of this island nation are citizens of the
United States, they do not vote in our presidential election. Do you know yet
what country it is? One more clue: the capital is San Juan. If you guessed
Puerto Rico, you were right! So pack your maletas, get your pasaportes ready.
¡Vamos a Puerto Rico!