Schöne Pause!

Grüße!

For the next two weekends, there shall be no German school. By a fluke of this year's calendar, Spring Break and Easter are back to back, so we'll be seeing you in April.

Saturday's summary:

To begin with, we presented the fashion catalogues from last class and then briefly re-introduced the concept of possessives (my/mine, your/yours...) before adding more to the list:  mein(e), dein(e), and just added were eu(e)r(e), ihr(e) and sein(e).

Our class mascot, Hans die Katze, held reign over the class period and decided how the day would proceed.  According to the Will of Hans, and his partner Gretel (yes, they are a pair of cat dolls), the kids engaged in a number of conversational exercises to have them practice what I managed to instruct them over, including arguing amongst themselves about who owned Hans, whose shoes were whose, and similar. Most noteworthy was a roleplay in which one student was a mom, and two others were siblings, both of whom tried to convince "Mom" that it was their turn to play with Hans.

Later, Gretel wanted to play hide and seek, and so we played "Wer hat Gretel?" wherein one child closed his/her eyes while the rest of the class hid Gretel somewhere, the location of which had to be guessed.

After lunch, Frau Wiegert and Frau Großkopf gave a talk and Q&A session for the classes 5-8 over the post-war experience of the Volksdeutsch.

the homework is as follows:

Hausaufgabe:

P. 83, Ex. 8

P. 85, Ex. 12

P. 101, Ex. 10

-------And ----

Using the vocabulary on pages 90 and 93 (breakfast words and morning routine verbs), describe in at least 5 sentences an ideal morning for Hans. The most appealing essay to Hans will be rewarded with that student getting to ke

9.März - Fashion Week!

The most fabulous times were had today at the fabulous German School!

As mentioned in last week's email, today we made our fabulous, fabulous fashion catalogues with the help of the various magazines and ad papers that the children brought with them. Thanks for remember to have those brought to class!
We spent most of the day making the Modekatalogen and affixing brand names, vocabulary words and prices (in Euros) to each item.
Accompanying this, we had a brief lesson over digit demarcation in Germany ("," for decimals, "." for thousands, millions and billions), the verb Kosten (Not to be confused with Kotzen!), and the phrases "wie viel" and "wie viele" (how much and how many respectively).

Further, we held the quiz over vocabulary from the Hörverständnis exercises. Those not present today will need to make this up later.

And now, for the homework:
P.79
Exercises 8-9
and
Fashion Catalogue (for those not present or those who did not finish)

• Make a catalogue of clothes or sporting goods
• Write down the German word for each item next to it
• Also write down the price of each in Euros (it can be entirely made-up)
• Use either hand-drawings, photos or cut-outs from magazines
• Name your store as well!
• At least 3 pages

Mit Vergnügen~

2.März - Hotdog Day

Guten Morgen,


Saturday played host to an outbreak of that uncontrollable contagion known as "Witzensucht," called in English, "The Giggles." No matter what was going on, what the topic at hand was, or what we were in fact doing, sporadic bursts of uncontrollable, even involuntary laughter seemed to follow at our heels.
Everything from, "how do you conjugate sollen?" to "turn in your homework" was met with laughter.
As one child put it, "It's hot dog day!" I guess it was just hot dog day.

The day opened with a listening comprehension exercise with the song "Sie erfasst mein Herz" by Elis.
From there, we went over the different forms of negation and similar words used in conversation (nicht, nichts, nie, niemals, niemand, doch)
Later, we took back up the topic of modal verbs and added sollen (should) to our repertoire that so far consists of können, dürfen, möchten, wollen. 

After the break, we ended the day with a verbal exercise of the most cerebral sort, one designed to challenge the childrens' language skills as well as their abstract thinking. I am, of course, referring to 20 Questions. A student was given a word, and then they stood up in front while the rest of the class asked them yes or no questions (up to 20) until the word was found out. For this, we combined with Fr. Nölke's 7th grade class to give us a better-sized crowd. And there was much rejoicing.

For next week, there will be a vocabulary quiz over the words we have used so far in listening comprehension exercises this semester. I would highly recommend flash cards be used in studying. The songs are "Nichts bring mich runter" by Ich & Ich, "Küssen Verboten" and "Gabi & Klaus" by Die Prinzen, and "Sie erfasst mein Herz" by Elis.

The list is as follows (with articles):

Der Schmerz – pain

Die Liebe – love

Die Stimme -  voice

Das Meer - sea

Das Herz - heart

Der Kreis- circle

Der Sand – sand

Gemein- mean

Einsam- lonely

Zu viel- too much

Wo- where

Weiter- further

Nichts - Nothing 

Die Zeit - Time

Das Licht  - Light

Nicht - Not/None 

Mehr - More 

Leise - Quiet 

Wieder - Again

Doch - However/On the Contrary 

Mein - My/Mine 

Nie - Never 

Schön - Pretty

Das Geschenk - Present

and the verbs

Hören - hear

Sehen - see

Glauben - believe

Küssen- kiss

Folgen – follow

Vergessen - forget

Sagen- say

Verstehen - understand

Mit Vergnügen

23 Februar '13 - Mauer Bauen

Guten Tag,


Saturday had a surprisingly small class with only 3 students present. I would ask that if your child is not going to be there, that you please let me know; activities planned for a full class do not necessarily work with 1-3 kids, so you'd be saving me a great deal of hassle. Thanks to those of you who let me know in advance.

This week, we took the time to discuss the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall, and to build our own, complete with all the necessary accoutrements to make it 'historically accurate': bricks, the occasional bullet hole, and oodles upon oodles upon oodles of graffiti. My instructions for the graffiti were simply, "write whatever you can think of in German." As a result, our wall is splattered with such niceties as, "SCHNITZEL!" "KATZEN!" "GRUNE HAARE" and so forth.
This also lead to the creation of our classes' new unofficial mascot, "Hans die Katze," whose visage was also drawn all across the wall.
At the very end of the year, on the last day of class, we will all take part in tearing our wall to shreds.

The lesson for the day was about arguing: how to express disagreement/have a discussion with negation and agreement words. We followed this up with a class debate, boys (the one boy present and I) against girls (the two girls present) arguing on just that topic, "boys vs. girls." Each side presented their argument as to why they were superior, and then we formed rebuttals and presented them. The girls' reasons were far more numerous, albeit not especially compelling, so in the end we were forced to conclude that, "hey, it's lunch time."

The homework is as follows:
Workbook
P.78  ex. 4,6
P. 82  ex. 5,6

Mit Vergnügen

16.Februar '13 - Gebrochene Zunge

Grüße,


Today we spent the entire class period being silly in an entirely productive and educational way. As part of a unit designed to help improve Aussprache, we learned, recited, and even made our own tongue twisters or Zungenbrecher as a class.

My personal favorite is this one:

Schnecken erschrecken wenn Schnecken an Schnecken schlecken, weil zum Schrecken vieler Schnecken, Schnecken nicht Schmecken!

This went on for a while, and then after lunch we began learning about prepositions.
Specifically we covered:
an, auf, in, aus, vor, hinter, über, unter
By way of application, we did the guessing game, "Wo ist mein Schuh?" wherein a person's shoe was hidden somewhere in the classroom, and they had to guess where it was using prepositions, hints from the class (e.g. "Kalt" or "Warm") or by simply pointing at a direction and saying, "da?"

Now the homework:

Zungenbrecher!
Make your own. It must be about YOU, YOURSELF, in at least 10 words.

Mit Vergnügen~

9. February '13 - Secret Admirer

Grüße und Füße!


Today we continued the camping activity from last time, and went back into detail over the Junge Pioniere organization from the GDR. We even went so far as to listen to and follow along with "Unsere Heimat," the theme song of the Freie Deutsche Jugend. The camps that everyone made were either taken home or, if the students wanted to instead, put on display in the classroom for future years to see.

We did a further listening exercise with my favorite Valentine's day-appropriate song of all time, "Gabi und Klaus" from Die Prinzen. To follow up with the theme, we also did a new game that was just invented this past week. I think it went rather well. It's called, "Secret Admirer."
Basically, kids drew names out of a hat, and each person had to describe the one whose name they drew, while the rest of the class guessed who it was.

Now then, for the homework:

P. 73, Exercise 5
P. 77, Exercises 1-2

FYI next week we will begin learning about prepositional phrases in the accusative case.

Mit Vergnügen!

2.Februar 13 - Kampen Gehen!!!!!!

Grüß euch alle!


As you may have gathered, I have returned from my sojourn through the South and took back my place as benevolent leader of the 5.Klasse up here in the frozen North. Many thanks go out to Martin Bauer for subbing for me for those 3 weeks!

Just as had been forewarned, today we began the class period with a quiz over modal verbs, their meaning, usage, conjugation and place in the structure of a typical sentence. Verbs covered included können, wollen, dürfen, and so-called "möchten."

Afterward, we continued our historical-geographic unit on the former so-called GDR, this time covering the famous, state-run, semi-mandatory communist boyscouts, the Junge Pioniere.  We discussed how this and similar extra-curricular organizations, such as the Freie Deutsche Jugend for teenagers, combined socialist indoctrination with civic values, naturalism and year-round outdoor fun, e.g. camping and hiking. Accordingly, the activity we did up until the end of class was to make our campsites, replete with campfires, cabins, tents and the like--all out of popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, card paper; the usual craft materials.

We will continue making our campsites first thing next class period, especially seeing as how only 3 students were present for the activity today and it is far too fun of a craft for so many kids to miss out on!

This brings me to the homework.
Both for those who were present today and those who were not, prepare the following:
Make up your own camp!

• Name the camp (something in German)
• Explain in up to 5 sentences what activities there are to do there (German...)
• Make up a camp song or slogan, at least 3 lines in length. (Spanish. Just kidding, German)

These will be presented along with the finished camp grounds themselves next class period.

As always...

Mit Vergnügen!