Bonjour tout les monde,
Saturday's class shall be our only class for the next 3 weeks; 28th March and 4th April are free for Spring Break and Easter.
We covered two primary topics in class this period:
-The perfect (past tense, written)
-Tribal warfare
Two of my favorite topics!
We discussed how to form the past tense using haben or sein as a helping verb, followed by the past participle at the end of the sentence. Whether haben or sein is used depends primarily on whether the verb being put in the past is transitive (takes an object) or intransitive (takes no object). Verbs that use haben are typically transitive, and the intransitive verbs (being, location, movement) take sein.
Ich bin gerannt (I ran)
Ich habe Baseball gespielt (I played baseball)
Movement, location, or being doesn't typically take an object, so they are intransitive. Everything else is typically transitive as objects are taken, "stuff is done to things."
Our cultural unit was over tribal warfare in Iron Age Germania, namely how and why it was that there was no such unified "Germany" in those days and instead were just a gaggle of mostly hostile, insular tribes. We discussed such ideas as regional language shifts, and how geography affects lifestyle, habits, traditions, beliefs and technology. I was very impressed at how the kids were able to list reasons for tribes to grow apart or develop differently from one another without my needing to prompt them.
The day ended on a high note as we took out the garbage without any squirrel-related incidents.
Frohe Oster and schöne Frühlingspause!
Mit Vergnügen
Monday, March 23, 2015
Sunday, March 8, 2015
7.März '15 - die schönsten
Today's class period opened like any other day, with a choreographed dance routine involving 17 bengal tigers, a can of green beans, and a few hundred roman candles.
Actually no, just kidding. Frau Rill said our insurance covers neither pyrotechnics nor exotic animals, so that got vetoed outright.
Instead we did listening comprehension with "Am Besten Sein" by Juli and used this as a segue into our lesson over superlative adjectives. This was followed by an activity I'm very proud of having thought up, namely our having a school-wide election.
That's right! Those present divided into competing pairs, which coincidentally became the two boys against each other, and the two girls against each other, competing for the titles of "Die Schönste Haare" and "Der Klügste" (prettiest hair and the cleverest--they chose what to compete for themselves). They made posters, composed speeches, and then we all went from classroom to classroom to hold a debate campaign. Each class heard out the candidates and voted whom they found the most convincing.
In the end, the girls tied for prettiest hair, and a boy was declared the cleverest mostly because he had an awesome poster that was covered in feathers, and let's be honest, who doesn't like feathers?
Next week, the class will be taking a practice version of the AATG proficiency test as a sneak peak and benchmark for the test they will take for real in 8th grade, so please let me or Frau Lussem know if your child will not be present.
-Mit Vergnügen
Actually no, just kidding. Frau Rill said our insurance covers neither pyrotechnics nor exotic animals, so that got vetoed outright.
Instead we did listening comprehension with "Am Besten Sein" by Juli and used this as a segue into our lesson over superlative adjectives. This was followed by an activity I'm very proud of having thought up, namely our having a school-wide election.
That's right! Those present divided into competing pairs, which coincidentally became the two boys against each other, and the two girls against each other, competing for the titles of "Die Schönste Haare" and "Der Klügste" (prettiest hair and the cleverest--they chose what to compete for themselves). They made posters, composed speeches, and then we all went from classroom to classroom to hold a debate campaign. Each class heard out the candidates and voted whom they found the most convincing.
In the end, the girls tied for prettiest hair, and a boy was declared the cleverest mostly because he had an awesome poster that was covered in feathers, and let's be honest, who doesn't like feathers?
Next week, the class will be taking a practice version of the AATG proficiency test as a sneak peak and benchmark for the test they will take for real in 8th grade, so please let me or Frau Lussem know if your child will not be present.
-Mit Vergnügen
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)