Every year, students in Spanish IV create children’s books written in Spanish, and the best books from each class are voted on to be read to young Spanish learners. The students visited elementary schools to read their projects to the young students on Friday, March 15.
“Students have to use ten vocab words from Spanish IV, so we’re recycling the old vocab and using it in a new way,” Spanish teacher Katie Hayes explained. “Their illustrations are amazing, and they also have to come up with an audience reaction, so that has resulted in some really special things in their books, like pop-ups.”
Students from Hayes’ class visited second graders at St. Joseph’s, while the students from teacher Tracy Chapelle’s class visited kindergarteners at St. John’s. The books were read to small groups of kids, and the kids cycled through to get to listen to each book.
“My favorite part was seeing the kindergarteners’ enthusiasm with seeing high school people,” senior Sophie Davis said. “It was funny to see them react when I told them I was 18 and watch them pretend to faint. Their energy as a whole while I was reading the book, and how into the actions they got with the story and interacting with the book was fun.”
Each book was required to have an audience interaction, as well as a positive message, leading to much creativity in the projects.
“We’ve had a hand-painted one, some of those pop-ups, one twirled around, and so when you lift it up it twirled,” Hayes said. “Another one there were little Velcro flowers, and you took them off the page and put them into a pot. It’s so cute. There’s no limit to their creativity.”
Some students, like senior Netanya Mai who made the book with the Velcro flowers, put a lot of time and effort into the project, creating something the kids greatly enjoyed.
“I was very extra with mine,” Mai said. “I spent a good 18 hours on it, but the time I put into it reflected in my book. The kids were really into it and enjoyed it, and they were just really cute and wholesome.”
Many of the students who went on the trip agreed that it was an amazing experience, and that they enjoyed seeing how excited the kids were.
“I was talking to Sr. John Marion at St. Joe’s and she was saying how the boys in her class were just looking at the senior boys, and they were just like ‘teach me everything you know!’” Hayes said. “She was like ‘look at the way they’re sitting!’ They were just totally loving the representation. It was so cute!”
