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)
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