Autumn 1 - 2020/21

Mi Ciudad - My City

We start Spanish in Year 4 with a unit about places in town.

Our first step will be learning the names of some of the most important places of any given city. Well, in this case I couldn't resist to put pictures of my home-town of Córdoba:

The colour code used is to help you identify the gender of each place name. Do you remember?

Here are the meanings in English:

¿Dónde estás? - Where are you?

This activity was good fun for everyone. Placing our little people on the map as the person sitting next to us asks "¿Dónde estás?", and we have to answer with "Estoy en + (place name)".

If you think you need more practice, you can do it at home and send it to SeeSaw.

Download the map and the mat here:

Summer Term 2020

Hola niños y niñas. Did you have a happy Easter at home? I hope self-isolation is not driving you crazy yet! But if it is starting to work its influence on you, here I come to your aid with a new Topic unit for you: Going to the restaurant.

First, we will have to learn how to use greetings properly:

We will use new sentence structures. The following notes are about the sentence structures to be used by the costumers going to a restaurant. Read the following slides carefully:

Waiters and waitresses will ask a lot of questions:

It might be useful to re-read past units in this section before starting to do the activities. Also, you can download all the material you need in the section under Year 4 Spanish.

Mr. Castro

Spring 2 - 2020

Buying at the market

We will continue where we left last half-term so please revisit what we posted for Spring 1.

We will add to this more vocabulary:

Mr Castro

Spring 1 - 2020

Big numbers: hundreds

We did great with tens. Now it is the time for hundreds. It's very easy:

This is how we form numbers with hundreds: "hundred's name" + "ten's name" + "y" + "unit". Let me show you with an example: 246 would be "doscientos cuarenta y seis". Do you see? Not complicated at all.

And now, do some practice on your own!

At the shops - paying with euros

Now that we know numbers, we will apply this knowledge to something practical. If we go to Spain we don't use pounds but euros. In truth, both currencies are used in pretty much the same way. Just the names are different. Take a look:

Now:

- instead of pounds, we say "euros";

- instead of pence or 'pennies', we say "céntimos" (cents).

The question "¿Cuánto es?" means 'How much is it?'.

The answer will be "Son (number price) euros" which means 'It's (number price) euros'.

Here is an example:

Just make sure that you read the number correctly.

Mr Castro

Autumn 2 - 2019

Giving and receiving directions

Now that we know about places in town, it is time for us to learn how to use directions to go from one place to another:

Act it out

Autumn 1 - 2019

Places in town

We will learn about the city and its most important places:

Masculine and Feminine

We will revise this very important grammatical aspect to make sure that we learn it properly.

Definite and Indefinite articles

We will see both types of articles in greater depth this year. Make sure that you read this carefully:

Identifying places in town

Describing my city

We will start with easy descriptions first. These are the things we will need to know:

Mr. Castro

Spring Term

We have two main topics this Spring Term: Family and Animals.

Family - Los Simpson

We will learn about the family with the most family in the world: The Simpsons!

Just remember that Bart can be either "hijo" (son) or "hermano" (brother) depending of the point of view you see him. Same goes for Lisa ("hija" and "hermana"). Keep it in mind and don't get confused.

Introducing the family

We will pretend to be a Simpson family member so we will introduce our "new" family from that point of view (we will be either "hijo" (son) or "hija" (daughter)).

The patter that we will follow to introduce each member is:

And this is how the full text would look like:

Watch out for the inverted exclamation mark ("¡") at the beginning of the word. This is a Spanish thing. We always put an inverted exclamation mark at the beginning and a regular one at the end. Interesting, isn't it?

Time

We will learn and practice times in Spanish as well.

It means: "What time is it?"

When we want to say 'o'clock' in Spanish we follow this structure: "Son las" + hour.

 Rule breaker!: when it is 1 o'clock we say "Es la una". Why? Because 1 is singular, and so need to be the verb and the article. Keep it in mind.

The structure is: "son las" + hour + "y cuarto" (careful with the spelling. Don't get confused with number 4).

For quarter past 1 is "Es la una y cuarto".

We add the words "y media" after the hour. Same rule breaker for 1 applies here.

We add the words "menos cuarto" after the hour. Same rule breaker for 1 applies here as well.

Autumn 2 - 2018

Ready for the new half-term?

The topic is weather. We will learn how to say what the weather's like with confidence.

Our first aim will be saying: 'In (name of city) is (weather condition)'.

You might remember that 'in' in Spanish is "en". Quite similar! Just remember to read it in Spanish .

For names of cities/boroughs in Spain just have a look on this map and pick your favourite one:

Next, a quick glance on the weather conditions chart above will show you that we use different verbs depending on the climatic condition we want to state. These are:

- "Está": it literally means 'is' in English.

- "Hay": it means 'there is/are", but we will translate it here as 'is' in order to make sense for us.

- "Hace": it means 'it makes'. Once again, let's translate it as 'is'.

And this is all we need to get it right. Here you are some examples:

- En Madrid hace frío.

- En Córdoba hace calor.

- En Barcelona llueve.

But we can also make more complex and interesting sentences like:

- En Cáceres hace viento y llueve, pero en Sevilla hace sol y hace calor.

We have used two old friends: "y" (and), and "pero" (but).

We can also use the adverb "no" to make simple negative sentences:

- En Segovia hay niebla, pero en Madrid no hay niebla.

Let's use our previous knowledge to explore this new topic!

Autumn 1 - 2018

¡Bienvenidos! Are we ready to learn more Spanish this year? Here are the topics for Autumn 1:

Instructions and Classroom Routines

We already knew these ones from last year, but we have many more to come! Check them out:

Can you work out their meaning just by looking at the pictures? Some of the are tricky? Don't you worry! We will see then in class one by one. By the end of the year you will know them all by heart 

The especial one for this half-term is:

"Can I go to the toilet, please?" A very important question indeed! Just don't forget the actions.

Big numbers till 1000

We already learned numbers till 31 last year. Now it is time to explore tens and hundreds. You will see that it is easier than it looks. Step by step. First, the tens:

Pay attention to colour code. There is an action attached to each colour.

Now, the hundreds:

It is very important that you remember your Spanish phonics. Check the phonics table from time to time and practice.

And finally, numbers including hundreds, tens, and units:

All numbers from 30 to 100 follow this structure: "ten's name" + "y" (and) + "unit". For example: 57 would be "cincuenta y siete". Piece of cake!

And, what about hundreds? Very simple: "hundred's name" + "ten's name" + "y" + "unit". Let me show you with an example: 246 would be "doscientos cuarenta y seis". Do you see? Not complicated at all.

And now, do some practice on your own!

Telling the time

This half-term we are going to learn the basic reading of time in Spanish, that is: o'clock and half-past.

When we want to say 'o'clock' in Spanish we follow this structure: "Son las" + hour.

Rule breaker!: when it is 1 o'clock we say "Es la una". Why? Because 1 is singular, and so need to be the verb and the article. Keep it in mind.

We add the words "y media" after the hour. Same rule breaker for 1 applies here.

Mr Castro

Summer 1

Bienvenidos de nuevo. This half-term we are going to learn about animals. Also, we will start using biligual dictionaries to look for new words and work out their gender (Masculine and Feminine). Seems a lot? Do not worry. We'll take it step by step. First, this is the vocabulary:

This is part of a song called "El Cha-cha-cha del Cocodrilo". Funny stuff! Check it out 

Mr Castro

Autumn 2

Hola de nuevo. This half-term we are going to learn simple descriptions using colours and shapes.

First, a quick reminder on colours:

Do you remember the actions for each colour? 

Shapes

We will say simple descriptions following this structure:

"El / La" + (shape name) + "es / no es" + (colour Masculine or Feminine).

In order to do it correctly we must make sure that we put the right article before each shape name. In singular, there is one for Masculine and one for Feminine:

But, how do we know if a word is either Masculine or Feminine? Well, there is a general rule:

Keep in mind that this is not a strict rule, so it just apply to most cases. Exceptions happen every now and then. But this applies very well to our shapes. So, what happens with "cruz" (cross)? "Cruz" is Feminine, therefore: "La cruz".

"Es" means 'it is', and "no es" means 'it isn't'.

The last aspect to know is word order. In Spanish we put the noun first, followed by the articles. The other way around! So while we would say in English "red circle", in Spanish is "circle red":

Mr Castro

Autumn 1

¡Bienvenidos! It's good to be back, ready to learn more Spanish Year 4s .

The topics this half-term will be:

Meeting and Greeting

We did lots of this last year and now it is time for us to go into greater depth. Just check on the slides below:

¡Sí! There is a new question to learn: "¿y tú?" (and you?). Instead of replying with the same question we can use "¿y tú?" to make the conversation flow more naturally.

Instructions

We will reinforce these and learn a new one. Can you work out its meaning by yourselves?

Numbers 1-31

They follow a pattern. Just check on the colour code, have you worked it out yet?

From 30 on, all numbers are written following the same pattern: "ten's name" + "y" (and) + "unit". Following the example above, can you say all numbers from 32 to 39? I'll give you a hand: "treinta y dós"...

Days of the week

"Lunes" = Monday, "martes" = Tuesday, "miércoles" = Wednesday, "jueves" = Thursday, "viernes" = Friday, "sábado" = Saturday, "domingo" = Sunday.

Months

As you can see, they are very similar to months in English. I'm sure you won't have any problems figuring their meaning out .

Dates

Once you know days of the week, numbers up to 31, and months, saying and writing dates in Spanish will be the easiest thing in the world. Just make sure you follow this structure:

Happy learning, children!

Mr Castro