Villas and Forts and Play-Dough OH MY! - 27.Sep 14

Let it never be said that I don't know good art supply stores.

Today, we began our time after the usual introductory activities by voting for which of the houses the students designed (homework) we wanted to go about making.

Once the vote was decided, we did "Der Letzte Tag" by Elis for our listening comprehension exercise, and then devoted the rest of our day to the creation of creative creations.

Before we went to making basic paper designs into actual structures, we viewed some pictures and some research to help us get on the right track. This is a great resource for information on what a 1st century German settlement looked like: http://www.funkenburg-westgreussen.de/
That's the Funkenburg Museum, a restored 1st century fort and open-air museum that sometimes also holds Renaissance festival-esque festivals. Field trip idea? We also looked at some online articles about Roman villas from different regions of Imperial Rome.

The boys made a teutonic fort complete with pike wall, guard towers, a blacksmith and a main stead building. The girls divided into two groups and made two very comfortable-looking villas complete with furnished rooms, gardens, utilities, and floaties in the volcanic hotspring baths. Did you know that hot glue actually *does* stick to modeling clay?

We will continue our regular rotation of activities and lessons now that this activity is complete. It was fun! And I got clay all over my shoes! And that was kind of funny.

I'm going to be in a wedding next week, so I will see you all in two weeks!

~Mit Vergnügen

Häuser und Mäuser - 20.Sep.14

Grüße an euch alle,


Today we spent the entire time eating ice cream and watching movies.

Then I woke up.

Today we actually spent the entire time in class doing German-related things, much to everyone's surprise.

We did the morning intro of "Wie ist das Wetter?" and "Wie Geht's?" and "Wer seid ihr/wer bin ich?" as explained in the previous entry, and our song for the day for the listening comprehension portion was "Ein Elefant für dich" by Wir Sind Helden, an adorable pop band that I've come to like and hope your kids will too.
It's a challenge to find German music that meets all of these criteria, you see:

1. Child-appropriate
2. Comprehensible to someone who isn't at near-native level of fluency
3. Able to be found online without "this song not available in your country"

Using the house and rooms vocabulary sheet we filled out last week, we broke into groups and designed and labelled our own houses, which shall be decorated and made pretty and then hung up in the future. 

We then transitioned into the culture lesson, talking about the different features and amenities available in Iron Age German versus Imperial Roman homes, and how and why they were what they were. 

The regular verbs unit continued with the verb forming rules for er/sie/es, and then we went into modal verbs with Wollen and translated verses from "Ich Will" (last week's song).

The day ended with a game that's often hit-or-miss depending on the class; it went rather well this time. It's called, "Wo bin ich?" and it involves *carefully* leading around a classmate, who has a bag over their head, and then stopping them in a random room of the school and asking them, "Wo bist du?" and they have to guess, "Ich bin in... *name of a room*" 

And now, for the homework assignment:

we divided up among the students who shall do Roman style houses and who shall do old Germanic.

Accordingly, do the following:

Design (illustrate, label, color) one of the two styles of houses: a Roman Patrician Villa (rich house) or a Germanic stead (farm house/hut)

• Label all rooms
• Label any furniture or equipment
• Make it *feasible* even if not entirely realistic, e.g. no iron age water slides or ice cream makers

Mit Vergnügen

Der erste Schultag! - 13.Sep.14

Grüzi an euch wieder! Es freut mich euch alle wiederzusehen, oder zumindest eure Kinder wiederzusehen, denn ich sehe euch weniger als ich sie sehe.

In any case, welcome back! I'm glad I didn't manage to scare all of you off back in the 5.Klasse and that you decided to stay long enough for them all to experience the 7.Klasse with me.


This year, we are endeavoring to be organized. As your kids may have informed you, our typical day will go a bit like this:


Greetings - we have a little intro routine where we ask "Wie ist das Wetter heute?" and discuss that with motions, e.g. "Kalt!" (we all shiver) "Warm!" (bask) "Es schneit" (jazz hands) and so on; following is "Wie geht's uns?" whereupon everyone turns to their neighbor and asks how they're doing (hint: the answer is apparently *always* "müde") and then I ask "Wer bin ich?" to which they yell, "Herr Walker!" and finally, "Wer seid ihr?" responded to with "DIE SIEBTE KLASSE!" as loud as their adolescent lungs can belt it.
We have a new teacher next door, you see, so we have to show her the ropes by being as disruptive as we can at all times.

Listening Comprehension - daily, we will have an exercise where we listen to a song and try to fill in the blanks on a lyric sheet

Vocabulary - we will go through units or cycles of vocabulary, adding onto our list each week.

Cultural Study - our historical-cultural unit this year is "Iron Age Germany," believe it or not;  it went remarkably well last year so it stuck. We will be focusing on the interactions between what was then "Magna Germania" and the Roman Empire in the first century AD and how that time period formed the Germany we know today.

Verbs - we have begun with regular verbs and modal verbs

Grammar - though we didn't manage to pull it off today, daily the goal is to talk about the finer points, such as cases and syntax.

Clean-Up - the last 10 minutes are time to clean the room and take out the garbage. Traditionally, if we play any competitive games, whichever group does not win takes out the garbage, whereas the others stay and clean the room. Today it was board races over regular verb endings, so the girls, team "Awesomes," ended up taking out the garbage.

To keep track of all this, they will need certain supplies.
I have requested the kids inform you that everyone needs a 3-ring binder for their notes and handouts. This should have various divided tabs for the following things:

• Vocabulary
• Songs
• Notes
• Verbs and Grammar
• Graded Papers

The homework for this week is to come prepared with all of this next week.

Mit Vergnügen