Third lockdown Spanish activities - Spring 1 - 2020/21

Hello everyone. Hola a todos.

As it happened, we find ourselves in lockdown. As learning from home can be challenging at times, I decided to simplify things enough for everyone to be able to complete them independently.

In case you needed some support, you just get in touch via Spanish Class Seesaw and I will do my best to help you.

Activity 1 - Present tense verb conjugation

This is something we have been doing during Autumn 2 but in case you have forgotten and need some recap practice I have left you a few links to online activities, plus some material to download so you can do this task successfully.

If you do any of these online activities at home, take a screen shot of your results and upload it to Seesaw (just like we did back on September, if you remember well). Work at home will be rewarded.

Activity 2

We continue practicing word identification with these two easy texts. The tasks are:

1 - Underline each word in its correct colour code. Us the word bank for this activity. Words are written in colour coded boxes. FOR ARTICLES: as you know, we always use the same colour code for articles, blue for masculine, pink for feminine.

2 - Translate each text into English. Once again, you must rely on the word bank to do this. VERB CONJUGATION: use the PowerPoint of the lesson to assist you in the task.

Activity 3

Now, we will start doing translations from English to Spanish.

I strongly recommend you to download the updated version of the PowerPoint and read carefully the new section called Lesson 2. After this, download the word bank, and the irregular verbs extension document and get familiar with the vocabulary. Next, download only one of the three worksheets available for you and concentrate on doing that one only. Doing one at a time is the wisest thing to do here.

There are several challenges for this activity: 1) it is the first time that we translate from English to Spanish; 2) you will have to look up nouns and adjectives in an online dictionary ( https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english-spanish ); 3) you will have to use all the knowledge gained during the year in order to get this done correctly.

Rewards: this is a great opportunity to earn a substantial number of stickers. Doing all three worksheets correctly earns you a bonus.

Warning: some people might have the temptation of using an online translator to do this. I strongly advise you not to do this for several reasons: 1) that's cheating on all your classmates; 2) that's not being honest with you; 3) you're not learning anything; 4) doing it for a certificate would be pointless since that wouldn't reflect any achievement at all. 

The School of Spanish at Home

Summer 1

Find below the links for the documents that we will use in Summer 1. We will continue with the same topic. This time, we will be doing a comic page about our routines at home.

If you have any question, please get in touch either on Twitter or Spanish Class Year 6 on SeeSaw.

I will be uploading more work in the future, so stay alert.

Any sticker you win I will add personally to your Spanish Challenge Book. Normally, I will do this on a Wednesday.

Mr. Castro

The School of Spanish at Home

Spring 2 - week 5

Hola Year 6s. ¿Qué tal estáis? It has taken me some time, but here it is. I thought that we could write a timetable of our self-isolation routines. It will cover only a week, and don't you worry bacause you won't have to write much. We will follow a given sentence structure and our current knowledge in Spanish. This can be done by most of you and of that I have no doubt.

For those not feeling confident at all with this, I will upload some reinforcement work, and some games too! Just keep an eye on this website and Twitter at @ESPoppletonRoad as updates will be coming their way during the following days.

First of all, we must recap how to conjugate verbs in Spanish.

Verbs in Spanish fall into three groups: -AR, -ER, -IR. These are the ending syllables of the verbs in their infinitive form (or dicitionary form).

This is what we have seen in class:

So far, so good. Now, let's have a look at how to conjugate each group. You will see that each grammatical person (the subject doing the action) commands a different ending (by removing the last syllable of the verb - AR, ER, or IR depending on the verb - and placing a new one especific of each grammatical person). Does it sound complicated? Here they are:

These are all for regular verbs- A regular verb is one that conjugates following a set or typical pattern. That way, for example, most verbs belonging to the "-AR" group add the same endings in exactly the same way.

But like everything in life there are exceptions and that means there are also irregular verbs. An irregular verb is one that doesn't follow the normal pattern of inflection or conjugation. We do have some of those in English (i.e. to do, can, go, etc. - we write 'she does', not 'she dos'). Usually, you must memorise all the forms for each of these irregular verbs since you cannot deduce their inflections. But I will make things easier for all of you. I've hand-picked only 5 which happen to be of vey common use:

The following irregular verbs: tener (to have), hacer (to do/to make), ir (to go), poner (to put), ver (to see).

As you can see, the inflections for singular add different endings from the ones we have already seen, and in some cases (like "Ir", to go) they are totally different.

One thing you should keep in mind is that irregular verbs also fall in the same three groups of "-AR", "-ER", "-IR".

The inflections for plural follow the usual pattern.

I am sorry if this sounds confusing to you, but this is how the language is. In fact, those learning French and German next year will encounter these very same complexities so the sooner you understand how this works, the better for you .

Now that we know all this, is time to explain what  we are going to do.

We will write a time-table of our self-isolation. This time-table will cover just one week and we will write three sentences per day. These are going to be of simple structure, and each will start with "Por la mañana" (in the morning), "Por la tarde" (in the afternoon/early evening), and "Por la noche" (in the late evening/night).

Note: Spanish language doesn't have a proper word for 'evening'.

Each sentence will cover one activity done at home. This is the structure that we will use:

The meaning of the examples are:

In the morning, I eat breakfast.

In the afternoon, mum reads a book.

In the evening, we watch television.

If you find this too simple and easy, you can challenge yourself  by upgrading those sentences  using the conjunction "y" (and) + (new subject) + (verb) + (direct object). For instance:

Por la mañana hago deporte con Joe y juego con mi hermano. (In the morning, I do sport (P.E.) with Joe and play with my brother).

This looks more interesting and complete, doesn't it? Using the preposition "con" (with) and the possesive "mi" (my) allowed us to upgrade that simple and dull sentence.

Here are some words that you might find useful:

Some words and expressions:

- me gusta: I like

- no me gusta: I don't like

- es: is

- mi: my

- su: his/hers/its

- conmigo: with me

- juntos/juntas: together

- solo/sola/solos/solas: alone

You can use this dictionary to look for more words if you need it: https://www.spanishdict.com/translation

REMEMBER:

- Nouns, adjectives, articles, pronouns... they all have what we call 'gender', either 'masculine' or 'feminine'. They roughly correspond to 'boy words' and 'girl words', but this is not a rule as such and exceptions happen everywhere. It is just a grammatical feature and nothing more.

  - Many masculine words end with an 'o', and many feminine words end with an 'a'.

  - Adjectives: you can switch their gender by changing the final 'o' for an 'a' and  conversely.

    But if they don't end in either 'o' or 'a' (e.g. 'verde' - green), it means they can be used

    indistinctly for both masculine and feminine.

- How to make singular words plural (except for verbs - see regular and irregular verb charts above):

          - if the word ends in a vowel, just add an '-s'. For example: 'alegre' - 'alegres' (happy).

          - if the word ends in a consonant, you must add '-es' instead. For example: 'marrón' - 

            'marrones' (brown)

          - if the word ends in 'z', then you must change that letter for a 'c' and then add '-es'.

            For example: 'pez' - 'peces' (fish).

The format for the time-table that I suggest to all of you looks like this:

Please, download the document from the link right below this post.

I am seeking to receive a creative response from all of you so how about doing this your own way (on a big whiteboard, on an tablet or computer, with chalks on the ground, adding your own decoration, etc.)? Use your brains and be original!

Once you have it finished, you can choose to share it on Twitter (@ESPoppletonRoad).

You can also put it on SeeSaw (Year 6 accounts since I haven't got one), and I will check it when I go to school. Please bear in mind that I am currently going on Monday only, so if you don't see a prompt reply from me is because of that.

Reward: 2 stickers for a job well done, 3 stickers for a really good job; 4 stickers for a really good and original job. I will put the stickers on your Spanish challenge books myself (when I can). If you win a certificate, I will post it on Twitter since I cannot hand it in to you at the moment.

For any questions, suggestions, support, etc. Please contact with me via Twitter.

You can find below links to downloadble documents.

¡Ánimo y trabajad duro!

Mr. Castro