Grade 4 is beginning a Reading Unit on Social Issues. “We recently read a book called The Arabic Quilt by Aya Khalil that tells the story of an Egyptian-American girl who moves to a new town and is worried about being different,” Ms. Abigail Ramirez says to introduce this book. “Everything changes, though, when she shares a quilt made by her grandmother. The class then makes a quilt with all the children’s names in Arabic,” she adds.
The Elementary community is lucky enough to have a student in 4 White who knows Arabic. “She volunteered to lead the activity in Language Lab this week and showed us words that had a connection between Arabic and Spanish, as well as how to write our names using the Arabic alphabet,” Ms. Ramirez describes. The students enjoyed seeing the differences and how some sounds are represented differently in Arabic as compared to English and Spanish.
💬 We talked about how some languages are more closely connected than others and how many times our languages actually influence each other – just like good friends!
Ms. Abigail Ramirez
