Description
Teachers at Ashley Elementary School in Denver are no stranger to teaching kids in both Spanish and English.
This week, that bilingual learning got a helping hand from Grammy winning children's group, 123 Andrés.
"I love to teach, I love to see my students grow," said Rocio Vera, a First ELA-S teacher at Ashley Elementary School and international educator from Colombia.
Vera's been teaching students at the Colorado school since August. But she's spent more than a decade teaching in her home country of Colombia.
She's taking that experience into her classroom lessons with kids here.
"I feel that we teachers can be, teachers and bring hope wherever we are," Vera said.
When it comes to motivating the entire school, Vera knew just who to ask.
"I met them in Virginia and I thought they were spectacular for kids, very suitable for the kids' level and the job that we do, it really is a support for us during class and, well, what's better than them coming here and putting on a show for the kids?" Vera said.
"We love bringing a party into schools," said Andrés Salguero with 123 Andrés.
Through their musical group, Salguero and Christina Sanabria have been getting kids excited to learn.
"So our different albums have different types of learning that we're trying to share, whether it's phonics, whether it's math, whether it's science, whether it's jobs, whether it's social emotional learning," Sanabria said.
"We make them fall in love with the music and then, boom, we bring the content, we bring the knowledge. And that's why I think that's why they invite us to schools all over the country," Salguero said.
The Grammy-winning group's songs and fun helps kids learn.
For kids whose first language is Spanish, Vera said this is more than fun, it's a lesson in connection for these children helping link them to their culture, to the music and to one another.
"I think not just for me, but for the kids," she said. "We have a lot of Venezuelan community, and Colombians and Venezuelans are friends. We're close, we're neighbors, we share many traditions, and having Andrés here at our school, and him being from a Latin American country, I think that creates a connection, it reaches the hear. And I feel that this concert was an opportunity to prove that art, the arts, they can unite us, and they can unite cultures, and they can unite languages."