Schöne Pause!

Grüße!

For the next two weekends, there shall be no German school. By a fluke of this year's calendar, Spring Break and Easter are back to back, so we'll be seeing you in April.

Saturday's summary:

To begin with, we presented the fashion catalogues from last class and then briefly re-introduced the concept of possessives (my/mine, your/yours...) before adding more to the list:  mein(e), dein(e), and just added were eu(e)r(e), ihr(e) and sein(e).

Our class mascot, Hans die Katze, held reign over the class period and decided how the day would proceed.  According to the Will of Hans, and his partner Gretel (yes, they are a pair of cat dolls), the kids engaged in a number of conversational exercises to have them practice what I managed to instruct them over, including arguing amongst themselves about who owned Hans, whose shoes were whose, and similar. Most noteworthy was a roleplay in which one student was a mom, and two others were siblings, both of whom tried to convince "Mom" that it was their turn to play with Hans.

Later, Gretel wanted to play hide and seek, and so we played "Wer hat Gretel?" wherein one child closed his/her eyes while the rest of the class hid Gretel somewhere, the location of which had to be guessed.

After lunch, Frau Wiegert and Frau Großkopf gave a talk and Q&A session for the classes 5-8 over the post-war experience of the Volksdeutsch.

the homework is as follows:

Hausaufgabe:

P. 83, Ex. 8

P. 85, Ex. 12

P. 101, Ex. 10

-------And ----

Using the vocabulary on pages 90 and 93 (breakfast words and morning routine verbs), describe in at least 5 sentences an ideal morning for Hans. The most appealing essay to Hans will be rewarded with that student getting to ke

9.März - Fashion Week!

The most fabulous times were had today at the fabulous German School!

As mentioned in last week's email, today we made our fabulous, fabulous fashion catalogues with the help of the various magazines and ad papers that the children brought with them. Thanks for remember to have those brought to class!
We spent most of the day making the Modekatalogen and affixing brand names, vocabulary words and prices (in Euros) to each item.
Accompanying this, we had a brief lesson over digit demarcation in Germany ("," for decimals, "." for thousands, millions and billions), the verb Kosten (Not to be confused with Kotzen!), and the phrases "wie viel" and "wie viele" (how much and how many respectively).

Further, we held the quiz over vocabulary from the Hörverständnis exercises. Those not present today will need to make this up later.

And now, for the homework:
P.79
Exercises 8-9
and
Fashion Catalogue (for those not present or those who did not finish)

• Make a catalogue of clothes or sporting goods
• Write down the German word for each item next to it
• Also write down the price of each in Euros (it can be entirely made-up)
• Use either hand-drawings, photos or cut-outs from magazines
• Name your store as well!
• At least 3 pages

Mit Vergnügen~

2.März - Hotdog Day

Guten Morgen,


Saturday played host to an outbreak of that uncontrollable contagion known as "Witzensucht," called in English, "The Giggles." No matter what was going on, what the topic at hand was, or what we were in fact doing, sporadic bursts of uncontrollable, even involuntary laughter seemed to follow at our heels.
Everything from, "how do you conjugate sollen?" to "turn in your homework" was met with laughter.
As one child put it, "It's hot dog day!" I guess it was just hot dog day.

The day opened with a listening comprehension exercise with the song "Sie erfasst mein Herz" by Elis.
From there, we went over the different forms of negation and similar words used in conversation (nicht, nichts, nie, niemals, niemand, doch)
Later, we took back up the topic of modal verbs and added sollen (should) to our repertoire that so far consists of können, dürfen, möchten, wollen. 

After the break, we ended the day with a verbal exercise of the most cerebral sort, one designed to challenge the childrens' language skills as well as their abstract thinking. I am, of course, referring to 20 Questions. A student was given a word, and then they stood up in front while the rest of the class asked them yes or no questions (up to 20) until the word was found out. For this, we combined with Fr. Nölke's 7th grade class to give us a better-sized crowd. And there was much rejoicing.

For next week, there will be a vocabulary quiz over the words we have used so far in listening comprehension exercises this semester. I would highly recommend flash cards be used in studying. The songs are "Nichts bring mich runter" by Ich & Ich, "Küssen Verboten" and "Gabi & Klaus" by Die Prinzen, and "Sie erfasst mein Herz" by Elis.

The list is as follows (with articles):

Der Schmerz – pain

Die Liebe – love

Die Stimme -  voice

Das Meer - sea

Das Herz - heart

Der Kreis- circle

Der Sand – sand

Gemein- mean

Einsam- lonely

Zu viel- too much

Wo- where

Weiter- further

Nichts - Nothing 

Die Zeit - Time

Das Licht  - Light

Nicht - Not/None 

Mehr - More 

Leise - Quiet 

Wieder - Again

Doch - However/On the Contrary 

Mein - My/Mine 

Nie - Never 

Schön - Pretty

Das Geschenk - Present

and the verbs

Hören - hear

Sehen - see

Glauben - believe

Küssen- kiss

Folgen – follow

Vergessen - forget

Sagen- say

Verstehen - understand

Mit Vergnügen