28.9 - All a Matter of Perspective

Guten Morgen, Sonnenschein!


I was very proud of the way class turned out this Saturday; your kids showed more critical understanding than I had originally estimated. To be truthful, I was nervous about this one, but the lesson turned out very well.

The class started out with everyone reading aloud their homework (as is our habit), followed by a
cooperative learning exercise (you'll see lots of vocab like this since I'm currently in an MAT program and kind of got into the habit of using it) where we divided into two groups, each group being tasked with filling out a vocabulary list of "Zimmer und Zuhaus" words which we would use later. The group that finished first and most accurately received points. Then the two groups were pitted against each other in a board race for further points. The winners were promised their choice of Starbucks beverages at the beginning of next class.

We then learned about the Roman Empire and its interactions with ancient Germany in the 1st Century AD. It was a quick little introduction; we covered the basics overview at first, what the Roman Empire looked like at that time under Augustus, what life was like for an average Roman, and most importantly how the Romans tended to treat other nations.
This lead to a "think - learn - do": we webbed out associations with Rome and how the kids thought they would treat their neighbors, then went into a lecture/discussion about what it was ACTUALLY like, followed by the mixed reactions to Roman incursions on the part of ancient Germanians.
The high point of the class was when one student chimed in, "There were no good guys or bad guys. It's all perspective!" I was so proud.

After comparing lifestyles and cultures of Imperial Romans and the teutonic tribes, we then spent our time using the vocab from earlier to design both Roman Villas and Germanic steads (huts + farms). The class voted on the best two, and those are what we will make in class next week. I will make a run to Hobby Lobby for felt, popsicle sticks, paper and hot glue, but if you have any of the above lying around, please feel encouraged to donate them to the cause of creative anarchy for next week!

Homework for the week:

DECORATE THE CLASSROOM!
Choose two of the following to make at home and then bring to class to decorate the walls:

• Germanic or Roman swords, helmets, armor, spears
• Maps of Germania or the Roman Empire
• Roman-style Tapestries
• Fake "animal skin" rugs, wall hangings or beds

Also great but not required would be any posters, prints, or printouts of pictures of anything Imperial Roman, e.g. maps, busts of Caesar, and so forth. 

The room will be divided into the "Germania" side and the "Rome" side with the Rhein running down the center. 

My recommendations for making things such as weapons would be to cut shapes out of cardboard (like from boxes), then color and cover with either foil, glitter, or colored paper. Wonderful Roman pyla (cavalry spears) can be made from 5-6 paper towel rolls taped together with a cardboard spear tip at the top.

21.9 - EXTREM DEUTSCHES HOPSCOTCH

Hello All,

This Saturday had a bigger class in attendance, of 5 students, so thank you for that! Also thanks to those of you who sent your kids to school with a sports event schedule in hand. Those are very helpful, especially since I do not always have time to check my email on Friday nights (I work very strange hours). Please send me a copy of your child's events schedule--games, meets, etc--such that I can more readily plan for however many students I am going to have on Saturday.
As a wise man once said, "A lesson plan is a terrible thing to waste."

Saturday was our benchmark day, wherein through rigorous academic exercise (mostly games) we managed to determine:

• how much has been retained over the years
• what knowledge has been gained or built upon

Aside from reviving some old classics that I know they had missed since leaving 5th grade ("Hast du mein Obst?" and "Board Scrambles"), we revived the most dangerous game of all: EXTREM DEUTSCHES HOPSCOTCH, wherein hopscotch, recitation from memory, yelling things out loud, and throwing projectiles at the teacher all come together for the sake of learning/re-learning conjugation rules. 

I'm happy to report that most seem to recall how to conjugate haben, sometimes sein, and the guidelines for regular verbs. They have also learned how to use dictionaries, which warmed my heart to no end. I could not tell you the number of times I'd seen verbs used in place of nouns and such in papers.

This having been shown, I'd like to emphasize that my goal this year is to track mastery as best as I can, and not to worry about grades. That being said, with each homework assignment, please avoid helping them. Give your child absolutely zero assistance on homework, please, unless otherwise specified, so that I can accurately track understanding and growth. 

Next week, should all go well, we will be learning about this year's historical-cultural theme, "Ancient Germany and the Roman Empire," an oft overlooked topic near and dear to my heart, and accordingly decorating our classroom. The walls are bare right now, but shall soon be covered with decorations made by your children! We should begin learning about this topic and decorating the classroom next week.

Erster Schultag - 14.9.13

Guten Abend, alle!

Welcome to the new school year with the 7.Klasse of the German School! I'm pleasantly surprised that you all seem to be pleasantly surprised at the pleasant surprise of my being your children's teacher once again, which I find surprisingly pleasant.

Our attendance today was rather sparse, with 4 students at the beginning which ended up dwindling down to 1 by the last hour. To avoid miscommunications and planning difficulties, I'd asked those present to present me next class, or whenever possible, with schedules for their sporting events and the like for my reference. This way, I can easily check these calendars to know in advance who is going to be absent, which is extremely helpful, so please turn in to me all event calendars/meet schedules and such at your earliest convenience.

Most of our time was spent creating the class charter, or the rules and expectations for this year, as a collaborative effort, hoping to inspire 'ownership' of the class and investment in its orderliness and success. The best part, I'd say, was that those who bring their homework to class will be allowed 10-15 minute break (possibly nap time) after lunch each day, whereas those who don't will need to use this time to do the homework.

Next class we will begin our more academic forays, and possibly go pearl diving off the coast of the Virgin Islands, if all goes well.

Mit Vergnügen~

18.Mai - Letzter Schultag

Guten Abend, liebe Leute aus Lernenland!


Today was our last day of German school for the '12-'13 school year, to recommence in September of this upcoming Fall.

For the duration of our class time, we played GEIST (it's like "SPUD," apparently) with the 7th grade class as lead by Fr. Noelke. This we did up until the Graduation Ceremony and subsequent picnic.

Report cards were handed out, and all past assignments that had been posted on the wall throughout the classroom were taken down to be brought back home.

Those not present will have their report cards mailed to them by Fr. Lussem.

Much was learned this year, much was played, much was eaten, and there was definitely children in attendance most of the time: this much is certain. Thank you for the privilege of teaching your kids, and I hope you all grace us with your continued presence and patronage in upcoming years.

Wie immer, mit Vergnügen~

11. Mai '13 - Götterdämmerung

Ragnarok is upon us! To arms, brave teutons! To arms! Loki's brood falls upon the world of men!

Being slightly less dramatic, today was indeed the test day, the day where all the knowledge that has managed to seep into the brains of the 5.Klasse over the course of the year was tested, set through the crucible. I will have the graded tests next week. So far, they're looking rather nice. I'm very proud of the progress your kids have made this year.

I was subbing for the 6.Klasse today, leaving the 5.Klasse in the capable hands of Fr. Lussem, who proctored the test and monitored the children during the well-earned frolicking and frivolity that followed. Thanks goes out especially to those children such as Max who helped Fr. Lussem in tidying up the building as well in preparation for the Mothers' Day celebration.

Next week shall be the picnic, end of the year wrap-up, presentation of awards and graduation of the 8.Klasse. Usually I'm also given a flower that I subsequently give to my mother-in-law to plant in her garden since every plant I take care of dies. So be present for that--it's a fun time. It really is, especially the part where they give us food. Food is very German.

Zeugnisse will be given out next week, and those who are absent will receive it in the mail. There are currently 2 students who have not yet turned in their books; please do so lest you be charged the price of them.

Mit Vergnügen~

4.Mai '13 - Jeopardy

Guten Abend,


Today we played our traditional review game of Jeopardy. The teams were 3 vs. 3, "Hans die Katze" versus "Nuddelsuppe." Nuddelsuppe won by a margin of about 600 points.

The test will be next week, covering the following topics from all that we went over during the year:

• Modal verbs - meaning, usage, syntax
• Regular verbs - conjugation rules
• Articles - definite, indefinite
• Pronouns - meaning and usage (e.g. "difference between 'du' and 'ihr' and 'Sie')
• Accusative case
• Possessive adjectives
• Food vocabulary
• Family vocabulary
• Time (12 hr, 24 hr, quarter or half 'til/after, days, months, seasons, time of day)
• Numbers

Neither books, nor notes, nor dictionaries, nor thesauruses are allowed during the test. 

For questions, please get in touch with me as I would want to make sure your child is clear on what to study. 

~Mit Vergnügen

27. April - Mauerfall

Guten Tag und Guten Appetit,


Today, a historic event occurred: the Wall came down. I do not mean that there was a Pink Floyd concert--had there been one, I'd have been absent today--but rather, that the "Berlin Wall" we made as a class a few weeks ago was rent asunder with great wrath.
I shall start from the beginning.

To open class, the instructions were for everyone to write at least 5 random words (Deutsch!) in the following categories: Jobs, Names, Vehicles, Careers, Numbers, Animals, Foods, Hobbys. They were not told why to do this. Also, they were to write down, randomly, any questions on any topic at all that they could think of, (e.g. "Wo ist mein Schuh?" "Wie steht die Uhr?" "Wer ist Hans?" usw.)
Shortly afterward, we did our final listening comprehension of the year, "Dein Herz" by L'Ame Immortelle, an extremely silly love song so very over the top that translating it lead to endless giggles. This is one of my personal favorites.
Finally, the reason for the initial exercise was finally revealed: they were to use them in a role play. The students were divided into pairs: 2 were the Parents/Grandparents, and 2 were the kids. They were playing families that had been divided by the Berlin Wall for 40 years, and who were finally getting to see each other for the very first time after travel restrictions had been lifted on 9.Nov.1989.
The parents/grandparents (and sometimes crazy aunts/uncles when we had an odd number) were to ask their kids/grandkids the following questions which I wrote on the board:

1. Was macht ihr zum Beruf? (answer: list a 'job' word)
2. Wie viel Kinder habt ihr? (answer: list a number word)
3. Wie heißen sie? (Names)
4. Habt ihr Haustiere? Wie heißen sie? (Animals, Names)
5. Was sind eure Lieblingsspeisen? (Food)
6. Was sind eure Hobbys? (Hobbys)
7. Wie heißen eure Kinder? (names)
8. Was fährt ihr? 

And finally, in response to all this, the 'kids' had to turn around and ask their long-last parents the random questions they had previously written down. This lead to such exchanges:

Parent: "Was macht ihr zum Beruf? Und was fährt ihr?"

Kid1: "Ich bin Zahnartz. Ich habe kein Auto."

Kid2: "Ich bin Drachenflieger. Ich fahre tausende Katzen."

P: "Wie viel Kinder habt ihr?"

K1: "1294."

K2: "3."

P: "Wie heißen sie?"

K1: *Deep breath, starts saying names....*

K2: "Hans, Gretel, Hans Jr."

My favorite exchange:

P: "Habt ihr Fragen für mich, liebe Kinder?"

K1: "Wo ist mein Schuh?"

K2: "Wo ist die Toilette!?"

P: "Ich gehe nach Haus." 

I suppose you could call that, "Family Reunion Mad-Libs." 

Afterward, we all tore down the wall, yelling "FREIHEIT!" 

After the break, we went over the content of the test for 2 weeks from now, and I took any questions they may have over the material:

• Modal verbs (use, meaning, conjugation)
• Regular verbs (conjugation and place in a sentence)
• Time (12 hr, 24 hr)
• Food vocab
• Family vocab
• Articles (der, die, das, in accusative and nominative)
• Possessives (mein(e), dein(e), sein(e), euer/eure, ihr(e))

Most kids had questions over how to tell time, so we reviewed this and then played "Herr Fuchs" outside until Singprobe. 

I recommend they begin studying this week, or at least looking over past notes and homework, so that the final week's studying isn't such a burden. Next week will be our review day, meaning we shall play Jeopardy.

Mit Vergnügen~