Wellness News.....Great times, working hard and seeing amazing results.  We have so much fun in Wellness and we learn how to get fit and strong without the need for equipment.  W.E. are fit. W.E. are strong.  W.E. are active. W.E. stands for Wellness Education!
Volleyball News.... Practicing hard. Learning alot. Having fun! Games start the week of October 4th ( after fall break ).
Cross crountry News....  First meet went great.  All runners did outstanding! Next meet is Friday, September 24th, 2:00 at Buffalo Park

        Our True Lies class has spent a few weeks working on their observational and descriptive writing skills, as well as working on their character development.  We have shifted into the beginning stages of writing our novels.  There are some great book premises out there and some great starts.  Ask them about it!

        In Lives of Music we have been looking at music from around the world and watching classic performances ranging from the Indian music of Ravi Shankar; the field recordings of African American Prison Songs by Alan Lomax; to Eastern European Gypsy brass band music and Kora music from the Griots of West Africa.  We will continue by comparing more world music, as well as looking at the way in which modern music is recorded and the effect of music on our nervous system.

        We have finished the first unit and the students should be able to form simple complete sentences using the different subjects, the verb "ser" and various adjectives in agreement with grammatical gender and number.  Our vocabulary list has already reached 120 items and the students should be practicing these with flashcards.  The first reading assignment was due this week and the first writing assignment will be due the week after fall break.  We will be reviewing when we return from break and then taking the first exam over the preliminary lessons and unit one.   
         It is important to remember that the students are learning Spanish just as they would come to understand concepts in other content areas.  Many of them have passed the critical period for natural language acquisition, and given the many rules and infinite number of words to be learned, even the basics we have covered thus far require a great deal of attention.  The students should keep their Spanish notes updated and complete and come to me for help whenever needed.