This Saturday had a bigger class in attendance, of 5 students, so thank you for that! Also thanks to those of you who sent your kids to school with a sports event schedule in hand. Those are very helpful, especially since I do not always have time to check my email on Friday nights (I work very strange hours). Please send me a copy of your child's events schedule--games, meets, etc--such that I can more readily plan for however many students I am going to have on Saturday.
As a wise man once said, "A lesson plan is a terrible thing to waste."
Saturday was our benchmark day, wherein through rigorous academic exercise (mostly games) we managed to determine:
- how much has been retained over the years
- what knowledge has been gained or built upon
Aside from reviving some old classics that I know they had missed since leaving 5th grade ("Hast du mein Obst?" and "Board Scrambles"), we revived the most dangerous game of all: EXTREM DEUTSCHES HOPSCOTCH, wherein hopscotch, recitation from memory, yelling things out loud, and throwing projectiles at the teacher all come together for the sake of learning/re-learning conjugation rules.
I'm happy to report that most seem to recall how to conjugate haben, sometimes sein, and the guidelines for regular verbs. They have also learned how to use dictionaries, which warmed my heart to no end. I could not tell you the number of times I'd seen verbs used in place of nouns and such in papers.
This having been shown, I'd like to emphasize that my goal this year is to track mastery as best as I can, and not to worry about grades. That being said, with each homework assignment, please avoid helping them. Give your child absolutely zero assistance on homework, please, unless otherwise specified, so that I can accurately track understanding and growth.
Next week, should all go well, we will be learning about this year's historical-cultural theme, "Ancient Germany and the Roman Empire," an oft overlooked topic near and dear to my heart, and accordingly decorating our classroom. The walls are bare right now, but shall soon be covered with decorations made by your children! We should begin learning about this topic and decorating the classroom next week.
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