Language: Week 8 - Compare/Contrast

Amaya, Calvin, Henry, Jesse B., Matea, Myles, Neva, Zion

We learned about languages by using the easel. We also used books; the game Uno, a poster with the ABC’s and numbers on it, songs in different languages, and many discussions.

This week’s atelier group mixed ateliers up by sharing what they know about language with the rest of us. It was quickly discovered the following of these three kids:

Matea: Croatian!

Neva: I know Spanish!

Jesse: I know French! Bonjour and Dumbo!

These three friends decided they would love to share some of their language knowledge with the rest of us, so instead of learning German, we focused on French, Croatian, Spanish, and Sign Language this week. By playing Uno in Spanish and French we all learned a lot about the numbers, as well as colors in each language, and children were excited to say “I know that number/color!” We read bilingual books in Spanish and children were particularly interested in the books “Animales/Animals,” and “Casa/Home.” They decided that the teacher should say the word in Spanish, and they want to figure out what animal or thing that is in English!

We also learned more about the English language together by figuring out words that sound similar, and calling them rhyming words, and words that are very different even if they mean similar things! We sang different ways of ABC songs in English, and used paper and pencils to write down some letters and pictures to communicate in our own, written language.

We had a very exciting atelier during which we spelled our names with a sign language book, and then learned from Matea how to count Croatian! We also learned some colors, and had since this Atelier group loved to play Uno so much, that we played it again, and tried using our new knowledge, Croatian numbers and colors, during the game. While we counted and played some of us giggled and noticed how very different Croatian numbers sound from English numbers.