Kindergarten: Exploring the Solar System in Spanish and English

For the past couple of years, Spanish Teacher Kelly Viseur has collaborated with Science Teacher Michelle Benge to bring lessons to Kindergarten students that are out of this world! The tradition continued this year. While Mrs. Benge introduced a unit about the sun, Earth and moon, Señora Viseur presented sol, Tierra and luna.
“The parallel lessons are super fun to teach, and piggy-backing the topics is enlightening for the students,” said Señora Viseur, who taught about the solar system in Spanish.
 
The sessions provide an opportunity for kindergarteners to broaden their Spanish vocabularies as inflatable planets are lined up and organized accordingly. The teachers reinforce one another as they explain how the “sol,” or sun, is an “estrella,” or star. They learn how the Earth, or “Tierra,” orbits the sun and how the moon, or “luna,” orbits the Earth.
 
Señora Viseur reads the book Viaje a la Luna (Trip to the Moon), and students get to watch Neil Armstrong’s historic walk on the moon in grainy black-and-white, complete with the splashdown of the lunar capsule in the ocean. Mrs. Benge instructs them on the characteristics of the Earth, sun and moon, and their relationships to each other. They also learn the locations and movements of each celestial body and explore how this movement causes day and night. Kindergarteners then learn about the planets in our solar system. 
 
It’s also an opportunity for the teachers to remind students that “anyone in the room might grow up to be an astronaut.”
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Graland Country Day School

Graland Country Day School is a private school in Denver, Colorado, serving students in preschool, kindergarten, elementary, and middle school. Founded in Denver in 1927, Graland incorporates a rich, experiential learning approach in a traditional classroom setting, emphasizing the development of globally and socially conscious leaders who excel academically.