¡Hola!

It has been a long time since I've updated my blog and a lot has happened! I am now living in Madrid, Spain and teaching at the American School of Madrid!

Find España on the map on the left. It is right next to Portugal and France!



Now look to see where Madrid is located in Spain. It is in the center of the country, which is convenient since it is the capital!


Madrid is a beautiful city. Just look at some of the pictures below to get the feel of the old European streets, many of them one-way and cobblestoned. Compare this then to streets in the United States and think about when the car was invented and what impact that had on city planning...



The picture of the archway is from Plaza Mayor (the grand plaza in the middle of the city). I pass through that arch on my walk home!

Madrid is also home to the Museo del Prado and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, two of the best art museums in the world.

I look forward to updating this site with news from Spain...at least once a month! :) I miss Falls Church and hope you are all doing well!

¡Hasta luego!

Love,
Señorita Coulter

What's Happening in Class? 2/4-2/8

Language Arts: I introduced a few new (and exciting) writing initiatives this week! Students started “speed writing” where I give them a single word and then time them for one minute. They are to write as much as they can about the word given. The goal of this exercise is to energize students to write and help them practice and improve their brainstorming skills by getting their ideas onto paper. This is not an exercise in editing or revision. That comes later when students choose one speed write to elaborate on and eventually publish. Students also started journaling this week and will be using the journal for personal writing, whether it be responding to a prompt on the board, writing a story, or explaining what they did over the weekend. The Wednesday Night Write of the week had the students break down a prompt into three main ideas and then provide detail to support each. Their drafts are due Monday. In class they will revise (make it better) and edit their work. Final drafts are then due Wednesday.

In reading, we’ve been comparing books written by Doreen Rappaport, an award-winning author who happens to be coming to our school next week! We are analyzing her writing style by looking at multiple examples of her work.

Social Studies: This week, in addition to reviewing for the test students took yesterday (Atlantic) and today (Pacific), we finished our discussion about slavery in the colonies. Rappaport’s books fit in perfectly this week since she tends to writes about history and has a number of books that discuss slavery.

What's Happening in Class? 1/28-2/1

Language Arts: Moving into the third quarter, we continue to scaffold expectations for students. Language arts this quarter will focus on writing a paragraph and three-to-five paragraph essay with good elaboration as we prepare for our Writing SOL in March. We will be breaking down a variety of prompts to practice and will be moving through the writing process as we go.

Friday I retested the students in Word Study and will evaluate their needs in order to place them in the appropriate Word Study level starting Monday.

Social Studies: After studying Jamestown, Roanoke, Plymouth, Williamsburg, and the three colonial regions, the students are almost at the end of our unit. Our last section is slavery. The students learned about dilemmas presented to West African leaders, slaves during the Middle Passage, and slaves in the Americas. For a more complete look at slavery, we compared numbers and found that British North America was fifth in number of imported slaves. In total, over 11 million slaves were brought into the Americas. In British North America there were many different ways slaves dealt with their hardships. Some ran away, some resisted by working slowly or breaking tools, and some worked hard in hopes of positive consequences. As we move on to the American Revolution, we will be looking at various perspectives, including those of the slave and freed African American, as well as learning about the events leading to the revolution. *Our next social studies test will be on our colonial unit and will be next week. Atlantic on Thursday and Pacific on Friday. I will be holding a review session Tuesday after school.*

What's Happening in Class? 1/7-1/11

Language Arts: “Because she was late, she had to schneble to get there.” What word could fit in place of schneble?? Students have been practicing their reading strategies this week, focusing on using context clues. As students’ reading levels improve, students will be introduced to new vocabulary in more advanced books. Having strategies already in place will help them decipher the tough words. This week, we worked on skipping the tough word and substituting a synonym that could fit. We also looked at the surrounding details for clues. Next we’ll be studying a variety of Greek and Latin root words to build students’ vocabulary and deciphering skills. Students just took the SRI test again this week and received their new lexile levels. Next week they will bring home book lists tailored to their lexile level and interest. They should continue to read books that challenge their vocabulary!

Social Studies: Roanoke, Jamestown, and Plymouth were the first three English settlements in the New World. This week the students compared the three and identified their motivations, obstacles, and strategies, looking then to see why two succeeded and one failed. Explorer tests are coming home today. Students need to do corrections (on actual test in a different color) and then return them to school with your signature!

Week of January 1-4, 2008

Language Arts: This week we added to our pre-reading strategy toolbox and reviewed how to make connections! There are three “big” questions to ask when making connections: How does this relate to my life? (text-self) How does this relate to something I’ve read, heard, or seen? (text-text) How does this relate to the world around me? (text-world) The students then made connections to a variety of books, both fiction and non-fiction. With their non-fictions books, they used the pre-reading preview/predict/connect strategy to warm-up their brains for reading. Then, after reading the book, the students have started answering an interpretive question, like “Why is this topic important?”, and are writing their answers in paragraph form.

Social Studies: As a conclusion to our exploration unit, we talked about the main impacts of cultural contact and were able to apply historical examples. In addition, the students then brought up current examples of cultural contact and conflict. We encourage students to start becoming more aware of the world around them by watching and reading the news more often. Our next unit is colonization and our first mystery is the lost colony of Roanoke.

What's Happening in Class? 12/3-12/7

Rafa! Rafa!
Today students took part in a cultural simulation that divided the classes into two different cultures. One, the Alpha culture, believed in luck and that luck came from games and other people. They also respected their “Olders.” The Beta culture believed in hard work and traded for money. The most successful Beta was the most respected. Betas also did not like getting too close to others in their community.

As the students interacted, they made observations about the other culture and were able to participate in the other culture’s community. After the simulation, the students debriefed each other and discussed any misperceptions and evaluations that were made. Then students were asked to make connections to real-life and were able to apply it to our unit on explorers (and their contact with Native Americans). We will continue to use this experience to discuss current events and cultural interactions.

Language Arts: Grammar!! Your students have worked very hard this week dissecting a sentence not only into the different parts of speech, but also into the type, purpose, and parts of the sentence (subject, verb phrase, prepositional phrase, etc). They are even learning how to diagram a sentence, a tough skill which they are trying! Just this week, the students’ grammar vocabulary has increased leaps and bounds. A few things they’ve identified this week are: a helping verb in the future tense, an action verb, and a preposition and prepositional phrase. Through practice, the students will continue to improve!

Social Studies: What were the costs and benefits of exploration? Both sides, the explorers and Native Americans, suffered and gained as an impact of exploration. This week we also started looking at specific explorers and identified their personal background, motivations for exploration, route traveled, and impact. Next week we’ll continue to go into more detail about these explorers and then will compare the major countries, like France, Spain, England, and Portugal.

What's Happening in Class? 11/26-11/30

Language Arts: Book projects look great! The students were able to share their puppet shows, t-shirts, new endings, and more with their fellow creative classmates!

Have you ever wondered why the sun sets in the west? Or why there are deer in the Eastern Woodlands? This week, the students set to explaining natural phenomena like these through Native American-like origin stories. Following the examples from Native Americans, the students wrote origin stories explaining how something in the environment came to be. Today we got to share a few of the stories and heard about some fascinating characters, problems, and solutions!

Why does a non-fiction text include so many different conventions, like pictures, subheadings, and captions? As we’ve just learned, by looking at the conventions of non-fiction before we read, we are helping our brains to warm up to the information we are about to read. By previewing the text, our Velcro is up and we won’t be reading coldly. In our newest literature unit, non-fiction, we are going to be examining a variety of non-fiction texts, focusing on strategies to understand the layout and comprehend the text.

Social Studies: We DOVE into exploration this week! Today’s unexplored frontiers are space and the ocean, but go back 500 years and the unexplored frontier was land! Students used their observation and research skills when they became deep-sea archaeologists exploring a sunken ship. Each artifact they found told them about explorers’ motives, technology, and discoveries! Students grouped our discovered artifacts into three categories: motivation for exploration, new technology that encouraged exploration, and new products from the Americas. This helped them identify some impacts of exploration. We also discussed the exchange that occurred between the Americas and Europe. Do you know from where bananas, beans, and pigs came? Next week we will look at individual explorers and their contributions.

***Social Studies tests came home this week. Students need to get them signed and returned (with corrections). Please feel free to contact me with any questions.