29 de abril: Piñatas y Fiesta

Almost finished!

Today we got to "finish" the basic structure of our piñatas. Some students even started decorating them with tissue paper. For those of you who took them home, have fun finishing them! If you can bring them back next Monday for our fiesta great! If you don't get to finish them, don't worry, we will get a chance to finish them later in the session.

Preparations for our celebration are taking shape and we will have different families bringing ingredients for salsa and guacamole. I will bring ingredients for our tostadas,  churros con chocolate and sangría. Also we may have some raspados or granizados (snow cones).

We will have some green, white and red balloons (Mexican flag) papel picado (please watch embedded video below or click on this link) and lights to decorate our "cantina". If we have enough time we will hit some piñatas filled with candy, if not, some other time.

Enjoy the pictures below and see you next Monday. ¡Hasta el lunes!

Making the body of a snake...

... & covering it with "papel verde"

A  four point star (estrella)?

The Taj Mahal?

A sun (sol)?

22 de abril: Cinco de Mayo.

Today we reviewed some of what we have learned so far in class and continued working on our piñatas.

Next week we will start working on our conjugation of regular verbs (AR-ending group) and will review some recipes for our upcoming celebration: guacamole, salsa, tostadas, churros con chococlate and cranberry-grape juice "sangría"

If you could, please watch these two videos (piñata and Cinco de Mayo) before class next Monday.










¡Gracias y hasta el lunes! (Thanks and see you on Monday!)

15 de abril: Cumpleaños y Piñatas

Today we further practiced how to say dates in Spanish and learned how to express likes and dislikes. We also started building piñatas for our 5 de Mayo "celebration" which will take place during our May 6th class. In the course of the next few weeks we will start planning a vegan/gluten-free "Hispanic" menu to be put together by students in the kitchen during class.

If you could, please watch these two videos ahead of class. The first one is a short birthday song in Spanish by Ricky Martin and the second one a 10 minute documentary on a Piñata making family from Los Angeles (subtitled at times). Please notice how they use the hand held stapler to build their creations and how color paper is cut and over imposed to cover the finished pieces. We will have both (hand-held stapler and decorating paper) in class if you need them.

¡Hasta el lunes!

8 de abril: ¿Te gusta/n? Me gusta/n y no me gusta/n

Yesterday we studied the days of the week, the months of the year and how to say dates. If you need to review these concepts please visit our last post.

Next Monday we will cover how to express likes (me gusta/n) and dislikes (no me gusta/n) in Spanish.

Please, if you have a chance, take a look at the videos below before class. Don't worry if you don't understand everything you hear, just pay attention to the verb gustar (to like) part.

If you experience problems watching the embedded videos in your particular device please try these links: Me gusta, Sesame Street , jugo de naranja, What is your favorite sport? 

¡Gracias y hasta el lunes! (Thanks and see you on Monday!)