24 Samstag - Das Abendteuer geht noch weiter!

Grüße an eure Füße!

Ich bitt' euch um Entschüldigung für den verspäteten Beitrag dieses Wochenendes, aber meine Frau ist ziemlich krank und benötigte etwas Aufmerksamkeit von mir.

This Saturday was a fun day, full of exciting grammatical discoveries, new vocabulary and new intellectual challenges! Sadly, we also had to have game time every now and then, but rest assured that all that "fun" nonsense that kids these days seem to like did not serve to hamper our cognitive growth time.

Introduced in class Saturday was an activity we do intermittently throughout the year, Nachrichten exercises. In short, I print out news/culture articles taken from Deutsche Welle (deutschewelle.de), highlight passages in which the primary facts/themes of the article are located and underline key words the children might not know. I then provide them with a vocabulary table and between 4 and 7 questions over the material. This week we covered the below-listed article, which also serves as a segue into our geographic theme for the year:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,6615856,00.html

Our theme or "Landeskündliches Thema" is East Berlin under the GDR.

After doing this article, I gave a brief introduction to the division of Germany post WW2, including the division of Berlin and the construction of the infamous wall. We will be covering elements of life and culture in the DDR Berlin throughout the year.

Following this, we reviewed spelling and pronunciation of numbers 1-100, and with this fresh in our brains we played a memory game, matching numbers with their written-out forms on little cards.

One of many grammar points were covered as we were introduced to the verbs Haben and Sein, including their meaning, usage and conjugations. Expect more on this to come!

One of my favorite games to play in class was introduced as well, "Wer hat den Schlüssel?" Where the children sit in a circle with one person in the center, who then has to guess which one of his/her classmates is hiding the key (I used a little plastic key from Walmart).

And now, for the moment you've all been waiting for...

The Homework:
Page 8 in the workbook
Exercises 8 and 9

The class was a little loud on Saturday, and I warned them that my having to tell them 3 times to stop talking out of turn would result in more homework. So here is the rest of the homework:

1. Conjugate Haben and Sein
2. Make 10 sentences with these verbs. 

Bei fragen stehe ich euch gerne zur Verfügung,

~Mit Vergnügen

Erster Schultag '11

Guten Tag und schönes Wochenende jedem!


We had our first day of classes today, as you are doubtless aware, and in my humble opinion it all went rather smoothly!

To begin with, we filled out a small questionnaire over ourselves, "Wir lernen uns kennen," wherein the students were challenged to answer each (German) question about themselves with the best German they could muster, serving both to 'brush off the cobwebs' of the summertime as well as give me a benchmark as to their current proficiency levels. We then read these out loud in the class to introduce ourselves. I followed suit, of course.
Questions answered included such classics as the following:
"Was ist deine Lieblingssüßigkeit?" or "Schulfach," "Wann ist dein Geburtstag" usw.

The content covered was a wide variety of basic vocabulary as today's emphasis was on review.

We took a quiz over counting, using the numbers 1-1000 in German and went over basic guidelines for number formation.

1. Teens = # + zehn. (z.B.: acht + zehn = achtzehn) 
2. Tens = # + zig. (z.B.: neun + zig = neunzig)
3. Hundreds = # + hundert + # (ein hundert eins, zwei hundert zwei, neun hundert acht...)

We then covered Tageszeit and which greeting goes with which time of day:

Guten Morgen: "Good Morning," for morning

Guten Tag: "Good Day," for afternoon

Guten Abend: "Good Evening," for the evening/night hours

Gute Nacht: "Good Night," which could be used during the same hours as Guten Abend, but it is more personal and implies that you or the person you're saying it too is just about to go to bed. 

Example: You run into a friend on the street after dark. You'd say "Guten Abend." Compare this to being in your PJs and on the way to your bedroom when you run into a sibling. Then you'd say "Gute Nacht." 

Months and seasons (Sommer, Herbst, Winter, Frühling) were covered as well.

The format for these lessons is what has historically been standard for my class, a summary of a concept/set of vocabulary with plentiful examples, notes taken over the concept, and then a game to let the concept sink in.

Now the moment you've all been waiting for:

Homework:

P. 6-7 (Arbeitsbuch)

Exercises 2-6

17.9.11 - der erste Schultag

 Guten Tag one and all,

As you are doubtless aware, this upcoming Saturday will be the first day of this year's Donauschwaben Wochenendschule session. I look forward to meeting those of you whom I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting, and of course likewise I'll be happy to see again those of you whose children I've had in class before.

For those of you who have not yet met me, allow me to introduce myself a bit. I'm Hr. Walker, 5th grade teacher of the Society's weekend school. I'm currently in my 4th year at the school, and I would like to think that with each year I grow at least a little bit in wisdom and pedagogical ability. My curriculum is rather grammar-heavy, and as such there will be much in the way of note-taking accompanied by as many corresponding activities and games as we can fit into a 3-hour morning!

For your information, my classroom has changed locations for the first time in years. I am now located on the side of the building closest to the front entrance (not the back one where the kids have lunch). You may know it as Frau Dickerson's former room. With the addition of the new wing for the school, we did a bit of switching around among the teaching staff so as to ensure that each class had enough space based upon the projected class sizes.

Please be certain that your children are as close to on time as possible as we will be engaging in various introductory activities as well as distributing textbooks and workbooks on Saturday. Please be sure as well that your student has the following on Saturday as well as each and every day of the school year:

• Pencils
• Notebook paper
• Adequate erasers
• Shoes suitable for both indoor and outdoor activities
• Jackets (as necessary throughout the year)
• Clothing that would allow them to sit on the floor as easily as in their desks (e.g. please avoid skirts as far as possible)

This is a very active class, and I would hate for anyone not to be able to participate fully due to not being adequately prepared or properly dressed.

Each Saturday evening, I will be sending an email out to the parents with information over what we covered in class today as well as that week's homework assignment. This will also be covered in detail on the blog I established for this purpose... which you are now viewing!

bei weiteren Fragen stehe ich euch gerne zur Verfügung.

~Mit Vergnügen

Herzlich Willkommen!

Ein Gruß an die lieben Eltern meiner Schüler!
Ein Gruß an die Kinder selbst!
Ein Gruß an meine KollegInnen, die herausgefordert wurden, diesem hässlichen Blog zu folgen und ihre eigenen auch zu erstellen!

Ein Gruß an jeden.

For the 2010-2011 school year, I will be making weekly posts each Saturday/Sunday for the purposes of ...

• sharing the homework assignments for those who may not have been present, as well as for the parents for their tracking purposes
• displaying an outline of what we went over in class each day, including posting page numbers from the textbook where applicable
• reminding everyone of upcoming school events, namely holidays
• posting any and all announcements as may be deemed necessary
• giving fair warning/forewarning of upcoming tests, quizzes and extra credit opportunities.

It is my hope and intention that no one be left behind.

• Don't have email?
• Can't open/receive my email notifications each week?
• Kid insist he/she has no homework or that they were never warned about the test?

Now you have a blog to look at to keep any of that from keeping you down!

Please feel free to contact me with any questions/concerns you may ever have over the course of the school year. I much prefer emails to blog comments to ensure that I will be able to respond to you in time--I do have a day job, after all, and cannot always view my blog at work!

~Mit Vergnügen