Bagnall Blurb for Octubre

Bagnall Blurb #2

Octubre

Padres y Amigos,

This is a great time of year! I absolutely love the different colors outside on the trees and the crisp air that comes into my classroom when we crack open a window. I also enjoy now being into a “rhythm” at school. It always takes awhile to get used to the schedule and pace of life, but I think that both myself and the students have adjusted well. I am also (anxiously) awaiting the arrival of our first baby… the due date is one week away! The students have been very curious about this baby, and I’ve promised to come back and visit before Christmas. Before I take my maternity leave I wanted to update you on what has been happening in my classroom!

Quinto Grado (5th): We finished our first unit of “mis amigos”. The video dialogues went well and students impressed me with their great Spanish accents and knowledge of the questions and answers! We are now in our second unit “En clase” (In class). We are learning classroom and school related vocabulary with the verbs tengo/necesito (I have/I need). Please use quia to practice these new words (There is a link to quia on the upper right hand side of the blog)! We are also learning a new praise song in Spanish, “Demos Gracias al Señor”  which expresses thanks and praise to our heavenly Father for all that He blesses us with. Feel free to practice this song at home by listening to the video on the blog as well.

Sexto grado (6th): We just finished a great assigned by researching a famous Hispanic person. Each student created a profile on their assigned person all in Spanish using the vocabulary and verbs that we have been practicing in class. We are now moving on to study how other verbs work (and conjugate). We are starting with the verbs comer and beber (to eat and drink).

 I also want to make you aware of my quiz policies, and that is that if a student/parent is disappointed with a quiz result they may take their quiz home with them and fix any mistakes, return the quiz, and earn ½ of each point that was taken off back. It is the students’ choice to do so, and he/she must be responsible for remembering to turn it back in… but I thought it might help if you all also knew about this nice bonus!

 Finally, in conclusion of our first unit we have memorized the bible verse I Juan 3:1 “!Fijense que gran amor nos ha dado el Padre, que nos llama hijos de Dios! Y lo soy!  (See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!) , perhaps you could ask your student to say it at home before dinner or bed sometime in the upcoming weeks!

Séptimo Grado (7th): In 7^th grade we are about to finish our first unit. Before we end, we have two big things to accomplish. The first, being our end of the unit final quiz.  A review sheet was done in class this past week and there are review games on quia for students to practice with. The second, next week we will be starting a project that required students to make a family tree in Spanish. Students can choose to use real family pictures and relatives, or create an “imaginary” family with cartoons and celebrities. Please ask your students about these two big graded assessment pieces and look on net classroom for grades to be posted.

Coming up will be our second unit “el cuerpo” (the body). Our vocabulary will include all body parts, how to describe pain, and how to give advice. We will also being asking students to share (in Spanish) a home remedy that they may have in their family (for example, putting tooth paste on a bee sting or taking a tablespoon of honey for a sore throat). So look for more information on that to come!

 Octavo Grado (8^th): As the weather is changing outside, our eighth graders are learning how to talk about the weather in Spanish! Putting vocabulary, grammar, and culture together… students are creating their own weather forecast videos reporting from various Spanish speaking cities. The scripts have been written and the videos have been recorded. The videos are due on Tuesday, October 16tth. I will attempt to post some of the videos that turned out well on the blog, so be sure to check back for those. We will be wrapping up our first unit with a final quiz that will be on Tuesday, October 23^rd. A review sheet for this quiz was sent home today and is a homework assignment due next week. Lastly, be sure to check out the Spanish assignments and grades that are posted regularly on net classroom.

For everyone, … I will continue to pray for all of my students and classes as I am at home with the new baby Bagnall. I am sure that time will pass quickly and I will be back at it in early January. Until then, please direct your questions and communication to Kim Knoester (kknoester@grcs.org) who is my maternity substitute. Please schedule a time during parent teacher conferences to visit with her and hear more about Spanish here at GRCMS! Adiós y hasta luego,

Sra. Becky Bagnall

bbagnall@grcs.org

616 574 6343

1st Bagnall Blurb of 2012-2013!

BAGNALL BLURB

August 31^st, 2012

Parents & Guardians,

Just a quick, “HOLA” to start off the year from the perspective of your friendly GRCMS Spanish teacher! For many of you this is not a new introduction and I have had the pleasure of teaching your GRCMS student(s) for the past few years! But to those of you who are new to our school or just new to having me as a Spanish teacher, I look forward to getting to know you and your student as the year progresses!

This will be my 4^th year at GRCMS and it feels SO comfortable and exciting to be in the position I am now. Last year we graduated our first class of 8^th graders who went through the MS Spanish program. Of that class, about a third of them tested into high school semester 3 of Spanish! It has been a blessing to witness and be a part of the continual Spanish growth within the GRCS schools. Even so, we are continuing to make changes, adjustments, and improvements as we head into another new year!

This year holds some big changes for me personally. For starters I am part time for the first time. I am teaching my classes on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays and staying home on Mondays and Wednesdays. In order for this to “work”, I have the privilege of team teaching with Kim Knoester! She is a Calvin College graduate and just so happens to be the daughter of two excellent teachers already in our GRCS family (Arie and Pat Knoester)! We each have our own middle school Spanish classes, but we are also “sharing” three sections. Those being: 6^th graders that have Spanish on Wednesdays and Fridays, 7^th graders who have Spanish Mondays and Thursdays and 7^th graders who have Spanish on Wednesdays and Fridays. With those classes, Kim Knoester will be teaching the first lesson of the week and I will be teaching the second. We are working closely together with great communication to make this a successful schedule for all involved!

Another big personal change will be the arrival of my first child in the middle of October. My husband and I are very much looking forward to the start of our family and also anxious to know if we will have a son or daughter! I will be taking time off to make my motherhood adjustment starting around October 18^th. At that point Kim Knoester will take over all of my classes until I return after Christmas break in early January. God has truly blessed me with a healthy pregnancy and I still feel very energetic as I head into these weeks of school!

Just some final thoughts before I “sign off”. I wanted to share with you what our principal, Ashanti Bryant, challenged all of us teachers to do at our recent staff retreat. And that was to write our own personal mission statement for teaching.  Although I am not an eloquent writer, this is what God poured onto my heart:

“It is my calling to engage ALL students in a Christ loving community as we learn about God’s global and LOCAL Spanish speaking kingdom; To find ways for my students and I to partake in His work by serving and learning from “the stranger”; To give students the tools and practice to be loved and love those who are different from them”.

I ask you to join me in faithfully praying throughout the year for all of my students and myself as I do my best to live out that mission statement in this new school season. Thank you in advance for your support, communication, and prayers! Please use my blog (www.senorabagnallsclassroom.blogspot.com )as a way to stay in touch with what is going on in room 29 with Señora Bagnall as well as email (bbagnall@grcs.org) and/or calls/texts (616-322-4188)!

Gracias y Dios le bendiga (Thanks & God bless!),

Señora Becky Bagnall!

Bagnall Blurb #4 diciembre y enero

Bagnall Blurb #4

December & January

Padres y Amigos,

“Casi casi”… we are so close to the half way mark of our school year! It is always great at this point in the year to look at how much we have accomplished so far while at the same time anticipate continued growth with another semester on the way! You may be aware that report cards will be sent out in the next week or so, that means that all make up or missing work needs to be turned in by this week Friday, Jan. 20^th. Please check on net classroom to see what work is missing for your child in Spanish class. Also read below to get the details on what has been happening in the different Spanish classes!

Quinto Grado (5th): The 5^th graders are now studying unit III, “Mis Actividades” (my activities). When we start a new unit we get a corresponding packet to put in our Spanish binders. I encourage you to once and awhile ask your 5^th grader to take their “cuaderno” (binder) home so that you can see and practice what we are doing in class. As we continue on in the year we will be adding some more “take home” work to practice for the upcoming years where they will be getting more outside of class work. One of these assignments will include a student written booklet coming home to be read and then signed by an adult at home. We are also preparing right now for a skype date with a Christian International School in Guatemala. The 5^th graders raised money to send this school Bibles and when we skype them we will be saying hi and singing to in Spanish. The songs that we are singing can be found at http://spanishsongs.posterous.com/tag/alabanzaniños “Soy yo, soy yo Señor” and “Tengo gozo, gozo, gozo”.

Sexto grado (6th): The 6^th graders just finished doing skits that they wrote and performed in Spanish. Please check out the blog post that has some video examples of those great skits. The students are gaining a lot more confidence in their speaking abilities and continue to expand their vocabulary with new verbs and nouns! We have finally set a date to visit the 1^st graders at Cesar Chavez School! We will be visiting their classrooms on the afternoon of Friday, January 27^th. The students there come from Spanish speaking homes and are in a special ESL (English as a Second Language) classroom to improve their English speaking, reading, and writing skills. During our time together we will be reading together, playing games, and just building great relationships! Look for more trip details in a separate email.

Séptimo Grado (7th): 7th graders had the Christmas celebration extended in Spanish class by learning about and celebrating 3 Kings Day together. 3 Kings Day is celebrated in the Hispanic world on January 6^th with the arrival of the magi. We were able to eat special bread together and a few lucky students received a figurine of baby Jesus in their piece! Now we are now studying, “La Casa” (the house/home). Our new unit packet is now in their Spanish binders complete with notes, vocabulary lists, and homework assignments. Please encourage your child to take his or her Spanish binder home when needed to study or get work done. We just took a quiz on the page 5 vocabulary list; those grades are now posted on net classroom. Will have at least one other vocabulary quiz in the next month. Before the long weekend we were able to do a fun project, making bookmarks for the students at a Christian School in the Dominican Republic. Each student decorated a bookmark with their favorite bible verse written on it in Spanish. These will be sent to the same school that they raised money to give Bibles to; you may know it as the M.O.B project.

Octavo Grado (8^th): The 8^th graders just finished learning about the verb form, “present progressive” or the “ing” verb. They also completed a speaking activity day where they traveled from one conversation group to another asking questions and answering in Spanish the entire time. Some of the topics of conversation included Christmas plans, weather, school, and family. I was so impressed on how comfortable our students are at using their Spanish in ways to communicate their opinions and thoughts. We are now studying the cultural celebration of “la quinceañera” (Sweet 15) which is the religious “passage to adulthood” of a 15 year old Hispanic girl. Students are in groups planning their own quinceañera celebration, plans that need to include invitations, venues, cake, music, and all on a budget! We will be hearing from our Honduran pen pals on how their families have celebrated la quinceañera. Before the end of the week please make sure that your students has turned in all their work for 1^st semester!

Sra. Becky Bagnall

bbagnall@grcs.org

616 574 6343

Bagnall Blurb #3 Noviembre

Bagnall Blurb #3

Noviembre

Padres y Amigos,

It was wonderful to get a chance to meet some of you and chat over parent teacher conferences! I had wonderful things to share and it was encouraging to hear that students are using their Spanish at home. As we head into the month of December here are some updates on what has been happening in your child’s Spanish class and what is to come in these Christmas season weeks!

Quinto Grado (5th): We are still continuing in our second unit (En Clase). The students have been learning how to say the different classes that they have (arte, ciencias, educación física, etc) and adjectives to describe them (fácil, interesante, mi favorite, etc). In the next week we will be putting a small graphic organizer together of their class schedule all in Spanish. We will also be having a QUIZ on Dec 8 or Dec 9 (depending on your home room class. This quiz will be on all the vocabulary and grammar from unit II. 5th graders should take their Spanish binder home that week to study. I will also have a practice quiz on my quia site (www.quia.com/profiles/rbagnall15). And since it is Christmas time we are signing some Christmas songs in Spanish. You can practice these songs by clicking on the link on the upper right hand side of the blog that says “Spanish Class Songs”. You will be directed to a site with all videos of our songs, for the Christmas ones select NAVIDAD. Feliz Navidad everyone!

Sexto grado (6th): The 6^th graders have just added a new verb to their vocabulary. The verb they have learned is “querer” which means to want. They are using it in more complex sentences to say what they want to do, such as “Quiero jugar videojuegos” (I want to play video games) or “Quiero domir porque estoy cansado” (I want to sleep because I am tired). They also completed their first “free write” in Spanish where they had fifteen minutes in class to write a story all in Spanish. The stories they came up with were great and it was amazing to see how they could put together what they know! The most exciting thing happening, however, is writing to our 1^st grade buddies at Cesar Chavez Elementary School. The students there are learning English and we will be writing to them and visiting them before Christmas break. The 6^th graders seem excited to start this relationship and practice their Spanish with native speakers!

Séptimo Grado (7th): We are wrapping up our unit on health in 7^th grade Spanish. Everything that we have done thus far with vocabulary and grammar has led us to our Home Remedies Project. Each 7^th grader will create a presentation all in Spanish on a home remedy that they use/learned about from their home and family members. It will be a great way to put together everything that we have learned about the body parts, giving advice, and medical solutions. We will also be taking a quiz on this unit on 14^th/16^th of December (depending on your home room). Students can practice for this quiz on quia, so check it out at www.quia.com/profiles/rbagnall15

Octavo Grado (8^th): The 8^th grade weather videos turned out great! Check out the blog where I posted a couple of example ones. They 8^th graders also took a quiz in class last week on their computers. They were able to take the quiz up to 3 times in order to fix their mistakes and improve; most students took advantage of this and scored very high! We are moving on now in class with the verb ESTAR (to be) and its different uses. We are currently studying how it is used in the verb form of the present progressive (the “ING” verb). We will have a quiz on this information before Christmas break sometime, be sure to check net classroom for updates on assignments and assessments. Most excitingly, we received letters back from our pen pals in Honduras. We wrote them back and are now practicing Christmas carols in Spanish so that we can Skype Carol them before break!

Adiós y hasta luego,

Sra. Becky Bagnall

bbagnall@grcs.org

616 574 6343