Greensboro Montessori School:
Liberal Arts

Spanish News
See the latest and greatest from our talented students in Spanish.

Primary & Lower Elementary Spanish
Sandra Lee

Our Upper and Lower Elementary School Spanish teacher, Sra. Sandra, has links for activities for Upper El and Lower El. She is always updating with new games and activities, so check back often.

Upper Elementary & Middle School Spanish
Walter Moore

The goals of the Upper Elementary and Middle School Spanish programs branch into two main objectives. The first objective is to reinforce and deepen the students’ grammatical capacity; that is, to explore and teach structural concepts in a small-classroom environment. In all classes, this is achieved by means of multi-sensory activities and materials. This grammatical component is integrated in the Upper Elementary curriculum as seamlessly as possible. For instance, Montessori grammar materials are employed for Grammar and Sentence Analysis, helping to highlight the differences and similarities between Spanish and English. This exploration becomes a dialectical process in Middle School, wherein the grammar is taught inductively; students are encouraged to discern patterns and regularities (adjective placement, for example; in English the adjective typically is placed after the noun, in Spanish, it generally arrives before the noun: la alumna intelegente). In addition, past topics, such as numbers, the alphabet, colors and accurate pronunciation are reintroduced and recycled.

The second branch of the program encompasses developing conversational and communicative skills. This goal is closely interconnected with the previous objective in that it provides a means for the students to apply the grammatical knowledge they gain. This is achieved through conversational activities, from mini-dialogues to skits and presentations. This helps students improve their phonetic awareness, as they must listen to their classmates as well as create their own productions. Such in-depth experience is extended into Permaculture gardening, which is taught in Spanish and includes enrichment activities to increase their vocabulary and incorporate cultural knowledge into the lessons.

Culture of the Spanish-speaking world, in addition to being included in their instructional materials, is further explored in mini-lessons in history and other aspects of Spanish and Ibero-American society.