Your child is in Level 4 Voyagers this year! What a big year and a huge step forward in their language learning.

The stories change from being one themed content-based story to chapter stories where they read a chapter every 1-2 weeks. This is a big jump from previous years where meaning was found within the context and illustrations. Now students are increasingly engaged and involved in the weekly chapter and each chapter ends with a comprehension check. Additionally, students will have increased writing activities that will complement the communicative games and activities done in each week´s lesson.

Unit 1 has them diving into talking about events in the PAST. Up until now, most content has been focused around talking mainly in present tenses. This does cause some confusion at times but through circling and appropriate demonstration, students
quickly start to grasp the differences and distinguish between the tenses. As they gain confidence in this unit, they will be able to talk about what they did yesterday, last weekend or last summer break.

Focus Words: bailar (to dance), escuchar música (listen to music), practicar deportes (practice sports), leer un libro (read a book), correr (run), dibujar (draw), montar en monopatín (ride a skateboard), montar en bicicleta (ride a bike), ver la tele (watch TV), usar la computadora (use the computer), jugar a los video juegos (play video games), hablar por teléfono (talk on the phone)

Focus Activitites:

• Writing:
  • Have your student make a list (in Spanish) of the different things they did last weekend or last summer.
  • Draw a picture to illustrate.
• Magazine Writing:
  • Have your child find a picture of any famous person in a magazine. Cut out picture.
  • Now, have your child find pictures of different actions or activities that someone can do, look especially for pictures of this unit´s vocabulary.
  • Students glue a picture of their famous person on the top of a piece of construction paper.
  • Now have them glue the different actions/activities on the left side of the paper.
  • Finish by having students write sentences about what their person did in the summer.

Note: If the tenses are not correct at this point, it is not worrisome. The tenses will come together naturally over the coming weeks. The students DO know the vocabulary and can write simple sentences.