Middle School Spanish

Welcome to Middle School Spanish!

Nearly every student at ISB studies Spanish.  They learn foremost, to engage in real or simulated conversations in familiar situations, through imitating and adapting models, and taking part in common, everyday conversations.   Through narrating short stories,  students learn to identify main messages in a text, then use this information to participate in a variety of other activities.  They contribute to group writing activities, and independently write short texts about familiar situations in their lives.  By the end of Middle School Spanish, students are able to apply basic elements of grammar in new contexts.

To download a sample of the syllabus for Grade 6, 7 and 8, please visit the Middle School Documents page.

Argentinos eat gnocchi together on the 29th of every month and it's a national holiday.

People all over the country get together on the same day every month just to eat gnocchi.  Now, that's s my idea of a national holiday! In Argentina, the tradition is that on the 29th day of each and every month, one is supposed to eat gnocchi. 

Argentinos are fond of the expression 'a full belly, a happy heart,' and on the 29th they prepare Ñoquis (as they spell it) at home and invite friends over to share the meal; it's also quite common to find ñoquis on the menu in restaurants on this day.  Either way, diners end up both full and happy.

Traditionally, money is placed under the plate to attract prosperity.  The money is kept by the diner as a good luck charm, is left for the hostess to pay for the gnocchi for the following month, or can be given to a member of the party who is in need.

There are a number of stories about how this tradition got started.  Italian immigrants (whose descendants make up about 50 percent of Argentina's population) may have brought this tradition with them. Some say that an Italian saint named San Pantaleón, one of the patron saints of Venice, was canonized on the 29th, each month this day is celebrated as his feast day. 

Some s ay it was a group of housewives in the 1970s that finally made the tradition widespread, a way to celebrate an otherwise dreary time of the month for most households-the last days of the month before payday, when the money had run out.