Using Google Earth for Los Países Hispanohablantes

There are many ways that Google Earth can help you with your project, such as climate, places of interest, and dangers. Choose two slide topics to incorporate Google Earth, and in your descriptions make specific comments on how Google Earth resources gave you information (see my examples below):

The Climate of Bolivia

As you can see in the picture above, the climate of Bolivia is different depending on the part of the country. Although it is 86° F in the eastern and northern parts of the country, it is cooler (45° F) in the western part. This is because of the mountains, shown more to the west, and the rainforest represented by trees in the east.

Bolivia's Religious Sites:

 

Cristo de Concordia as well as many famous cathedrals are indicators of Christianity's influence in Bolivia. According to the US Department of State, the official religion of Bolivia is Catholicism, though it has a constitution that gives Bolivian citizens freedom of religion.

Países Hispanohablantes Project Search Engine

Students,

Use the AMAZING search engine I made to help you with your projects. I have selected some very useful websites that the engine will search when you type in your country and topic. There is a mixture of Spanish language and English language sites, so if you don't find what you are looking for in English, try searching in Spanish (ex: "Sports in Bolivia" and "deportes en Bolivia").

¿Dónde está?
Scroll to the very very bottom of this page!

Ser: to be

Review Alert!
If this looks like new information, come into tutorial immediately! This is a review post!



When we describe nouns (people, places, things, or ideas), we can use the verb ser (to be) before the adjectives we use. Ser is also an irregular verb, so be sure to memorize the conjugations:

To help you remember these conjugations, review your (least) favorite video from class. You may hate having the song stuck in your head, but you will love the way it helps you speak Spanish!

Describing and Discussing Classes

Vocabulary
Today we learned 2 sets of vocab*:

1. school subjects/classes
2. adjectives to describe school subjects/classes

Remember that la clase is a feminine word, so any adjectives that describe a class should be feminine.

Neutral adjectives like fácil, difícil, and interesante are both masculine and feminine without a spelling change.

*Your vocabulary handout is filed in the folder "S6 In Class"

Masterpieces from the Lesson

Students sorted their classes into favorita/menos favorita, fácil/difícil, and aburrida/interesante. Here are CHAH Spanish Masters' opinions on their classes:

The highest level of mastery was reached by students who...

• wrote in complete sentences
• spelled the classes correctly
• used feminine or neutral adjectives to describe the class

Upcoming Assignments

• Unit 3 Performance Assessment
• Unit 3 Exam

The verb "tener"

What does it mean to be irregular?
The prefix ir- means not, so we can say that something irregular is not regular.
ENGLISH CONNECTION: words like irrelevant (not relevant) and irresponsible (not responsible) also use the prefix ir-

What is an irregular verb?
An irregular verb is not regular, meaning it does not follow the regular patterns we have learned for -ar, -er, and -ir verb conjugations.
The bad news: You have to memorize the conjugations
The good news: We usually learn the irregular verbs one at a time, so there is a lot of time to practice!

Tener
The verb tener means to have. Tener is an irregular verb, so we have to be careful when we conjugate it! See below:

yo tengo	nosotros tenemos
tú tienes	vosotros tenéis
él/ella/usted tiene	ellos/ellas/ustedes tienen

Try it!

Check the comments section for answers:

1. Yo ______________ un libro de español.
2. Nosotros ________________ dos teléfonos.
3. Pablo ________________ tres amigos.
4. Laura y Roberto ________________ cuatro computadoras.

Need more help?

Check out this video of Pablo and Pili talking about what they have inside a box.

Rap along with this music video (you know how much Ms. Svenson loves rap!)

¡Bienvenidos!

¡Bienvenidos al blog de la clase de español de Ms. Svenson!

You're probably thinking: "Ms. Svenson... why do you have a blog? You already talk enough!"

Well, students, this is where you can look if you forgot to write down the homework, if you were confused by a lesson and want to see it again, or if you just can't get enough of Spanish and want to practice it all day and all night. If you aren't inspired yet, check out this list of the Top Ten Reasons for Learning Spanish.

This blog will have the following for you:

• Daily aim (la meta) and homework (la tarea)
• Presentations or notes about what we are learning
• Videos and pictures so you aren't always listening to me
• Useful links to websites with games, practice, and other ways to learn Spanish
• A place for you to comment on things that are interesting, don't make sense, or that you do/don't like

I will also enlist YOUR help (that's right-- I mean YOU) to help me write this blog. 

I want YOU to help me blog!

You are learning, but that doesn't mean you can't teach. Throughout the year, I will assign you a lesson to teach on this blog. You will get to add pictures, find videos and websites, and think of other ways to teach the lesson that I have not thought of yet!

My writing style in this blog will be conversational and hopefully a little bit funny, but keep in mind this is still an academic setting and I expect everything on here to fill one purpose: learning! Because this is a blog for beginning Spanish students, I will mainly be writing in English.

Enjoy, and contact me if you have any questions!

Sinceramente,

Ms. Svenson

Response Task #1: Copy and paste the following statement into a comment, then write your name and submit it to this blog post as your Professional Promise (you can see my example below):

As a member of Ms. Svenson's Spanish class and blog community, I promise to keep my contributions professional and focused on learning.