23 November '13 - Logic is a little bird

Guten Morgen,


As you are doubtless aware, there is no school next week due to that little holiday known as Thanksgiving.

For Saturday's class, we spent most of our time working through logic puzzles designed to challenge, well, logic skills, as well as reviewing the dative case, family vocabulary, and comparative statements.

The rest of class was spent doing dramatic readings of dialogues intended to reinforce the common dative-pronoun phrases, including "es tut mir weh," "es tut mir leid," "wie geht's dir?" usw. They were quite dramatic! The two character parts in these were Jan Jakob and Jingleheimer Schmidt. Think about it for a second.

Homework for next class is as follows:

Compare yourself to Sven, our class mascot. In 10 full sentences, how are you alike or different? Use comparative statements.

Mit Vergnügen.

16. November '13 - "Besser schöner reicher schneller!"

"Your face is disruptive!"
My favorite quote from today. It's followed closely by,

"Ich bin nicht so haarig wie Sven."
Also true. No one is as hairy as Sven.

Today we covered comparatives, so we opened class by comparing ourselves with one another in an of course professional, academic, and orderly fashion. In groups of 3, each group compared themselves with the other group in up to 5 ways with adjectives provided on the board, e.g. klug, schön, haarig, groß, klein, etc. Apparently there was disagreement as to which group was haariger, as both group were convinced it was the others. We thankfully avoided debating this as things could've otherwise gotten truly hairy.
We went over basic comparisons: "so (or genauso) _____ wie" (just as ____ as), "nicht so _____ wie" (not as ____ as) and "____er als" (something-er than, e.g. "taller than")
Then in pairs, we compared people in the class with celebrities, with my having assigned the celebrity and the pairs choosing a person. Students were compared to Elvis Presley, Selena Gomez, Barack Obama, and I tried to assign my favorite actors, but none of them had any idea who Hugh Jackman is, and only one of them knew Clark Gable (guess who).

And then there was lunch and the Ruhepause for those who brought homework. Please write homework answers on separate sheets of paper instead of in the book--it makes life easier for all involved.

Between the Pause and the singing, we went over dative declination of the pronouns "ich" "du" and "ihr," so "mir" "dir" and "euch." This was followed up with the most common phrases that use dative pronouns, which are used VERY commonly in everyday conversation:

• "Wie geht's dir?"
• "Mir ist kalt/heiß"
• "Es tut mir leid"
• "Es tut (mir) weh!" 

We had a lot of unexpected fun with those last two phrases. 

Then we played, "Ich und Sven," where we sat in a circle, threw Sven at each other, and whoever caught Sven had to both make a comparative statement aloud about themselves and Sven (hence the quotation up top) AND repeat the statement made by the person before them before tossing Sven onward.

And then there was singing. So very much singing. We're only 6 weeks away from Christmas, folks.

And then the day came to a close. 

Homework:

Workbook (yes, I remembered we had those)

P. 16, #4 (a-c)

P. 20, #6

Mit Vergnügen

9.Nov '13 - Rettet den Sven! und St.Martins Tag

Guten Abend!


I'm back, having taken last weekend off for a family getaway down to Southern Illinois. Ever been to Decatur? It's exciting. So very, very exciting. Yep, Decatur.

Class today began with acknowledgement of St. Martin's Day, segued into a group activity. Instead of simply telling the story of Martin of Tours and/or singing a song, making lanterns, making geese, or any of those other things, I divided the class in half and had each group write out, and then act out, a summary of the two main parts of the Martin story: the story where he was a legionnaire who shared his cloak with a beggar, and the part where the people of Tours tried to make him Bishop and he hid in a barn full of geese.
One of my favorite parts of this was when one of the girls went around 'shivering' saying "SO KALT!" while "St. Martin" rode up on his horse and heroically surveyed the situation in a Superman-esque pose.

The main lesson covered contractions of prepositions in dative and accusative (ins, ans, aufs, im, am) and then lead into an activity that we've never tried before: battle plans.
This was called, "Retten des Svens" and the object was to, well, rescue Sven (our historical class mascot, the Iron Age teutonic warrior) from the Romans. On the board was drawn stick figure Sven in a forest with trees and a river, with angry-faced Roman legionnaires stationed around the board between him and his goal on the other side, Svens Haus. Using basic commands ('du' imperatives) and directions (nach links, rechts, oben, unten) and I apologize if random english words pop up--the autocorrect is going insane--in two teams, the students directed Sven how to get home safely.
Rules included:

• Be specific! State the desired location in relation to other things (e.g. "Hinter den Bäume, Spring in den Fluss und Schwimm, komm aus zwischen dem Legionär und den 2 Bäume….)
• Sven can only take down one Legionär at a time so don't send him plowing into them
• Legionärs can see up to an inch away from them (lines of aggro drawn around them)

One group got Sven safely home via the river and then an empty field, and the other got him home then had him double back and take out half a legion since they finished quicker than the other group and it seemed like a fun idea. 

Then there was lunch.

Then there was cleaning of the main hall since it was our class' turn. 

Then there was the debate as to the merits of the Pretty Pretty Princess board game, ending in a stale mate

Then there was the Umzug, wherein instead of honking or singing, one of our very own donned a cape, legionnaire helmet, horse and sword, and rode around the school as Martin while the rest of us wandered around saying, "WO BIST DU, SANKT MARTIN?" until it was time for the group assembly.

The Homework:

Workbook

P. 9, Exercises 8 and 9

We will start work on dative-only verbs, dative and accusative pronouns and common phrases that use these pronouns (mich/mir, dich/dir, etc)