Good afternoon New Tradition parents,

I’m so pleased to inform you that we have been making much progress as a class. This week we began to explore shapes, colors, and feelings, as well as a review of what we learned last week (numbers, alphabet, and action words). Along with reviewing numbers, we have also continued to integrate numbers into the activities we have done this week. I’ve noticed that the children really enjoy counting in Spanish and I encourage them to try and count as high as possible! Try asking your child to count to at least 20 (or higher) and see if they can at least tell you the multiples of each number thereafter (30, 40, 50, 100, etc); just for fun of course.

On Monday we began to explore basic shapes such as un circulo, quadrado, rectangulo, triangulo, estrella, and corazon ( circle, square, rectangle, triangle, star, and heart, respectively). Along with the basic shapes, we also started talking about colors. Many (but not all) of the children already knew the primary colors (azul=blue, rojo=red, amarillo=yellow) so we focused more attention towards learning the secondary colors (morado = purple, verde= green, and naranja= orange, rosa= pink) along with negro (black) and gris (gray).  Playing Simon dice (simon says) on the colored mat proved to be a great way to practice identifying colors combined with our action words (saltar en= jump en verde, brincar=hop en naranja, caminar=walk en morado, etc.) At the conclusion of the class, the children would draw a picture containing the specific number of shapes and in the specific color indicated (ie tres corazones en rojo y dos estrellas en amarillo).

On friday we will begin to elaborate on feelings and how to describe how we feel in a particular situation. We will try phrases such as me siento bien (I feel good), me siento mal (I feel bad), me siento enfermo(a) (I feel sick), me siento feliz (I feel happy), me siento enojado(a) (I feel mad), y me siento cansado(o) (I feel tired), tengo frio (I’m cold), and estoy caliente (I’m hot). Try asking your child about the colors of their surroundings (que color es eso), ask how many of a particular thing are present (quantos son), and also try and ask them what types of shapes are present ( eso es un circulo, es un triangulo, es una estrella, etc.). My basic goal for the next coming weeks is for the children to be able to describe their environment, expresss their feelings, and describe their actions. I hope you have a wonderful week and Happy St.Patrick’s Day!

-Ms. Joanna