Page 4 - Grade 4

ISB Lower School Specialists’ Newsletter

Spanish

Dear fourth grade parents,

Welcome to our fifth Spanish newsletter! As always, in this letter, you will find out all the
exciting learning activities taking place in the Lower School Spanish class.

The month of February was reserved for the last part of our connected unit of inquiry -
“How We Organize Ourselves” – Natural Disasters. We worked on three different texts
Sonja Jecmenica about Tsunami, Tornado and Earthquake, where the students had an opportunity to learn
Spanish Language Teacher
to describe in Spanish each of these natural disasters and talk about their causes and con-

sequences. In our Spanish classes we learned how to prevent some dangerous situations
caused by nature by watching various video clips adapted for their age. As for the gram-
matical concepts we are learning and practicing, we were focused on the phrases expres-
sions like “(No) hay que..”. For example : Hay que guardar la calma/You must remain calm.

Durante el terremoto hay que alejarse de la ventana/ During the earthquake back away
from the window.

Within this unit, we also learned first aid vocabulary, what is useful to have in the first aid
bag and what things are not necessary to have during the natural disaster. We learned to
put new words in context by discussing their purposes and uses (Las cerillas sirven para en-
cender el fuego/ The matches serve to light the fire /El casco sirve para proteger la cabeza/
The helmet serves to protect the head).

In the end of the month, we started with the new unit where we are talking about our free
time activities and the students´ hobbies and preferences.

EAL

Intermediate Group

We supported the PYP trans-disciplinary theme How We Organize Ourselves - Natural
Disasters, and its central idea: Earth’s natural phenomena cause various human respons-
es.
We continued our focus on further developing reading fluency, vocabulary and compre-
hension, as we read different non-fiction articles about natural disasters from a book se-
Divna Stakic ries titled: True Stories. We read articles about what could happen during an earthquake,
EAL Teacher
volcanic eruption, lightening, flood, and avalanche. We practiced finding the main idea in
a paragraph, paraphrasing and summarizing skills, as well as skimming and scanning. The
students are now fluent readers, and we focused on reading with expression. EAL stu-
dents also watched and discussed various video clips about natural disasters caused by
tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and volcanic eruptions.
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