11.Jan '14 - Rappenkrieg

"Herr Walker, where do you come up with such random things?"
That was about the reaction I was expecting to the introductory activity of "compose a rhyming couplet."

Today, we spent most of our time locked in the most time honored of all forms of combat, rap battles. Two groups developed a rhyming rap of a minimal 15 lines long, and then rehearsed their performance, including beat boxing and dancing. We then took it "to the streets" and let the harshest of audiences (the 1st grade class) be the judges as to which group was better.

We also had an introduction to the simple past today with a lesson on hatten (from haben) and waren (from sein). This was followed by a game that relied mostly on observational skills and/or paranoia called, "Ich war's nicht" where an individual with their eyes closed had to guess who in the classroom kept running up and poking them.

The second rap battle didn't go as well, probably because it took too much concentration for so late in the day, but it was worth a try.

The homework for today:

• Compose a poem of at least 3 lines (auf Deutsch!) which rhyme
• The topic is describing yourself. These will be mixed up next class period and then read aloud, and the class must guess whom each poem describes.