5.Oktober '13 - Ein Rätsel

What do you get when you combine 1000 popsicle sticks, 5 sheets of felt, two hot glue guns, 50 refill glue sticks, 4 pounds of 'magic model clay,' 6 7th graders and 3 hours of time?

A mess of epic proportions. I think we broke the vacuum cleaner. Suffice to say, it was awesome.


Today began relatively innocently; the students presented their homemade decorations (the pie plate axe was especially intimidating) and read aloud 2-3 sentences auf Deutsch over each while showing them to the class. We then set about hanging them on the wall with varying degrees of success.
Please keep them coming! Even something as simple as posters or printouts of all things Rome and Ancient Germania (busts of Caesar, maps, etc) would be greatly appreciated to adorn our walls.

The class was then introduced to Sven, our mascot, a viking doll I got in Norway an ancient Teuton warrior here to grace the school with his presence as we learn about his time period. He was presented with a sparkly-haired Barbie horse noble steed by one of the girls, upon which he shall proudly stride into battle!

We began a unit on spatial location and the dative case today, learning the basics of dative declension of definite articles (der/das - dem, die - der, die (pl) - den) and the meaning of dative ("staytive") as, among other things, denoting something's location. We then took notes and made examples with the essential dative prepositions: An, auf, hinter, vor, neben, über, unter, zwischen

This transitioned into shear madness an activity called "Wo ist Sven?" where Sven was hidden in various places throughout the room, sometimes in plain sight, and the students, divided into two competitive groups, had to describe (coherently and correctly, articles and everything) where Sven was in relation to objects, people and furniture.
"Sven ist unter dem Tisch!" "Sven ist in dem Schrank." "Sven ist unter dem Pferd under der Stuhl neben der Ziege unter Herrn Walker" and so on.

For the rest of class, as promised, we made a big mess.

Our end product was a Roman Villa made out of white clay, including wooden furniture, clay fruit, a clay garden with crops, and surprisingly enough, a pool. The other group made a mud-and-wood Germanic hut with Beer kegs, a wood-burning 'stove' hutch, a partitioned space for the goats, a rather sad looking patch of crops, and an accompanying barn.

Much thanks to all who brought supplies for today's lesson! It wouldn't have gone anywhere near as well without your contributions.

And now for the homework:

"Wo ist Sven?"

• Draw Sven in a location somewhere within an imaginary house. So draw Sven and the room he is in. It may be fantastical and strange if you'd like.
• Describe where Sven is in comparison to at least 4 different things. 
• Remember to use the Dative!

Mit Vergnügen