MURSD Spanish Immersion Update

It's been an amazing year in the MURSD Spanish Immersion Program, and in this newsletter you will find highlights of all that has been going on and what is to come.

Our elementary students have enjoyed a productive year of listening, speaking, reading and writing...as well as singing, dancing, laughing and playing! The kindergarteners held their Family Picnic complete with singing and dancing performances. The 4th graders at Memorial met our Education Advisor from the Spanish Embassy, Antonio Caballero, and then they received their ISA diplomas for having completed their studies at an International Spanish Academy, in this case, Memorial (pictured here). Several other highlights can be seen in the photos below!

At Miscoe students have been working hard all year and are now enjoying end-of-the-year projects and activities.

Recently, we were visited by two students from Spain who had the opportunity to join in on our Spanish immersion classes. It was a great experience for our students to interact with native speakers their own age. In this picture you can see them working together with some 6th grade SI students on a class video project in Sra. Pike's class.

Seal of Biliteracy

Our Spanish Immersion program culminates in high school as students finish their studies and are recognized for their life-long achievements with their second language. One way our students' accomplishments are honored is through the Seal of Biliteracy. This is an award to students who demonstrate high level of functional and academic proficiency in English and at least one other world language. Using their AP Scores and/or their AAPPL exam scores, several SI students qualified for recognition on their language achievements.

The following students at Nipmuc have earned the Global Seal of Biliteracy, with more specific honors as mentioned below:

Jacob Bigelow (Global and MA Seal of Biliteracy with Distinction - Working Fluency)

Marina Brockett-Delgado (Global and MA Seal of Biliteracy with Distinction - Working Fluency)

Alyssa Crotty (Global and MA Seal of Biliteracy - Functional Fluency)

Bryson Fitts (Global and MA Seal of Biliteracy - Functional Fluency)

Ryan Fournier (Global Seal of Biliteracy - Functional Fluency)

Gavin French (Global and MA Seal of Biliteracy with Distinction - Working Fluency)

Fiona Healey (Global and MA Seal of Biliteracy - Functional Fluency)

Alex Heather (Global and MA Seal of Biliteracy - Functional Fluency)

Kendyl Johnson (Global and MA Seal of Biliteracy with Distinction - Working Fluency)

Sarah Ludwigson (Global and MA Seal of Biliteracy with Distinction - Working Fluency)

Emma Nadolski (Global and MA Seal of Biliteracy with Distinction - Working Fluency)

Liana Patrick (Global and MA Seal of Biliteracy with Distinction - Working Fluency)

Olivia Skiba (Global and MA Seal of Biliteracy - Functional Fluency)

Alexander Vanasse (Global and MA Seal of Biliteracy - Functional Fluency)

Danielle Walsh (Global Seal of Biliteracy - Functional Fluency)

We have had a great year with Ana, our Spanish language assistant. She has been a tremendous resource to our K-4 classrooms, and we were very sad to see her return to Spain at the completion of her stay with us. Recently we received the great news that we will be assigned TWO language assistants for the 2023-2024 school year. We are in need of two potential host families to house our incoming language assistants. If you are interested in this opportunity, please contact Meagan Pike at mpike@mursd.org.

In April, part two of the Spanish Exchange was completed when Nipmuc students made the journey to Spain to experience Spanish life and culture with their exchange partners. Some highlights of that trip were shadowing at the Divina Pastora School as well as visits to Madrid, Segovia, Valladolid, León and Bilbao.

Host families needed

The Spanish Exchange committee is looking toward next year and seeking families interested in hosting Spanish students or chaperones for about 15 days in September. Please contact Ms. Ana Soto at asoto@mursd.org for more information and/or to express interest in hosting.

We are excited to announce that there will be an upcoming trip to Spain for the 7th and 8th graders during April vacation next year. This trip will be filled with authentic language opportunities with tours in Spanish, Spanish immersion classes, cooking and dancing workshops in Spanish, and interaction with students at a Spanish school. Because this trip is so language-focused, spots will be offered first to Spanish immersion students starting in June, and remaining spots will be available to 7th and 8th graders not in SI starting in September. You can find information about the trip on this document. If you would like more information or are interested in signing up, please contact Meagan Pike at mpike@mursd.org.

There are two 15 year old girls from Spain looking to spend their 10th grade year studying in the United States. They have all of their official documents finalized, all they need is a host family. It would be a wonderful opportunity for an SI family to host a high school student from Spain. If you are interested, please reach out to Macarena Ibañez, one of our Kindergarten SI teachers, at mibanez@mursd.org.

We are thrilled that interest in Spanish immersion was high enough in both Mendon and Upton to be able to run two Spanish Immersion Kindergarten classes, one at Clough and one at Memorial. The option to have both classes at Memorial and eventually transition all SI classes to Memorial was considered, but ultimately there is just not enough space at Memorial to make this a sustainable long-term plan. While that model did have some benefits, there are also many perks of having a strand from each grade in each school. We will continue to work hard toward our long-term goal of having one strand K-4 in each school, to come together in 5th grade at Miscoe.

Due to the movement of our groups through the grade levels, some teachers had to move around. We also hired two new teachers. One will replace Srta. Herrera who has to return to Spain after 5 years of outstanding teaching in our district. We will miss her terribly. The other teacher will be for one of the incoming second grade strands, as currently we only have one second grade teacher. Both of these new teachers will be visiting teachers from Spain, who we hope to keep in our district for 5 years. Their names are Carlos Garcia and Nazaret Molina, and we are very excited to have them next year!

The teachers and their locations for the 2023-2024 school year are as follows:

• Lola Martinez - Kindergarten at Clough
• Macarena Ibañez - Kindergarten at Memorial
• Ana Moreno - 1st grade at Memorial
• Marta Calvo - 1st grade at Memorial
• Rosa Mumbiela - 2nd grade at Memorial
• Nazaret Molina - 2nd grade at Clough
• Santiago Dominguez - 3rd grade at Memorial
• Carlos Garcia - 4th grade at Memorial

The Spanish Immersion teachers and district administrators have been working together this year to focus on curriculum alignment, scope and sequence, and curriculum resources. Recently, we received a training from representatives of McGraw Hill Maravillas, the Spanish counterpart for Wonders. The training started with the representatives getting familiar with our program in order to better accommodate our needs. What better way to get to know our program than to spend some time talking to our students? We had the opportunity to call in two students from each grade, where Venessa, our Maravillas representative, asked the students some questions and we all listened to their answers. Everyone in the room was thrilled with the conversational skill and articulate confidence our students. You can see some highlights from that meeting in the video below!

On Thursday, May 18th, we held our district Multicultural Night with approximately 400 people in attendance. We had many different activities aligned to our district's global citizenship competency including performances in the auditorium, multicultural read-aloud sessions in the library/media center and country and culture tables in the cafeteria. We had 20 countries and cultures represented including: Spain, Vietnam, Argentina, Ireland, Brazil, Egypt, Puerto Rico, Norway, Scotland, Netherlands, Iran, Dominican Republic, Italy, China, England, Tonga, Mexico, Finland, Lebanon, as well as ASL/Deaf Culture.

Upon arrival at the event students would pick up passports in the lobby and then get stamps for participating in different activities and visiting the various destinations. When they returned they received souvenirs on the way out.
In the lobby we also had travel tables to highlight all of the countries our students have recently traveled to such as Ecuador, Costa Rica, Italy, as well as our Spanish Exchange Program
We had world travel photo booths, world games and coloring of maps/flags for students.
A new highlight of the evening was the addition of four food trucks to our event: Atrevete a Probar, Mortar and Pestle, Sweet Wise, Bird's Nest.
The evening was a great success and we are looking forward to next year's event!

Over the years, many parents have expressed an interest in learning Spanish. We would like to offer classes this coming school year in basic and practical conversational Spanish to those parents who are interested. If this is something that you would like to participate in, please fill out this form.

NSSA All Sports 2 (Spanish Immersion)

July 17-20 - Monday-Thursday

9 am-2 pm (8 am-3 pm Extended Drop off / pick up)

Grades K-6

Miscoe Hill Middle School, Mendon MA

NOTE: Instruction in both Spanish & English

$160 per week per athlete.

INFORMATION:

NSSA will run one week of its All Sports Clinic this summer with Spanish Speaking Instructions. Experienced teachers and coaches will focus on providing sports instruction in Spanish, supported by HS Spanish immersion counselors.

Participants will play three different sports each day. One hour each.

Great way to expand their skills and knowledge in various sports while bolstering their vocabulary and increasing their opportunity to speak in Spanish.

Register online: Registration is open!

Register online at www.NS-Sports.org

Email: mpike@mursd.org
Website: http://mursdspanishimmersion.weebly.com/
Location: 150 North Avenue, Mendon, MA, USA
Phone: 508-634-1585