Cryptic title, isn't it?
We began the day with a bit of psychological puzzling, namely we took turns hiding candy around the room, and then the rest of the class had to guess where they all were. Any piece that could not be found in the allotted time period of 1 minute became property of the one who hid it. Some especially ingenious hiding places were in the CD player, behind a poster, between the whiteboard and the wall, behind the door... Suffice to say, it was interesting.
After a brief review of the past tense, we did round-robin storytelling, the thing where you pass around a piece of paper and everyone gets a set amount of time either to write a sentence on it or to finish one that came before them, culminating in one (in)coherent story. We did this a few times, and hilarity ensued.
Things took a turn for the surreal when a seemingly innocuous activity brought to my attention the existence of A GIGANTIC REAM OF PAPER WITH A GRASSLAND BACKGROUND in the supply closet. This brought us a moment inspired by one of my favorite cartoons, and I declared to the class, "Kids, I know what we're going to do today!" We began, and will continue in coming weeks, illustrating the Battle of Teutoburg in mural-form, to be hung all along the back wall of the classroom.
Hausaufgabe:
Now we attempted to peer-review the stories we had written over Teutoburg, but that admittedly did not go near as well as I had hoped. So the homework this week is to re-review their own story, considering any questions or corrections their neighbors may have added (and parents may help too, just this once!) and then bring in an updated copy along with a nice, color illustration. These will be hung up on the wall for posterity since words can barely describe how proud I am of these stories.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Saturday, February 8, 2014
8.Februar '14 - Schatzsuch
Today, we ran amok around the school in search of treasure. Chaos Learning ensued, and it was glorious.
It all began innocently enough, with the sharing of our homework, as we do every class period. The stories the students wrote about the Battle of Teutoburg were, to put it lightly, surprisingly hardcore. The depth of emotion and the descriptive power of each of them was beyond anything I could have ever expected, giving us such treasures as, "Nur mein Hund hält mich warm in der Nacht... ich vermisse meine Familie," and "Das Blut meines Feindes fließt in die kalte Erde," and "Es war still. Ich sah nur den Tod."
These stories will be hung up on the wall, if not framed, for future classes to view in awe-struck wonder.
The Schatzsuch was, in short, a devious scheme on my part to force the students to use their knowledge of basically all we've learned so far this year grammatically to locate and then describe (afterward) an assortment of "Squinkies" that I hid all throughout the school in as odd (yet safe) of places as I could find. I have no idea what Squinkies are aside from "$4.99 at Walgreens" and "easy to hide," but they seemed cute, and 5th graders went nuts over them and had to be convinced not to take them from their hiding spaces, so I guess I stumbled onto a fad of some kind.
Anyway, the class was divided into two groups, and I gave them a sheet of clues describing where to find all the different Squinkies. The groups set out to find them all, and then had to describe to me afterward both what they found and where they were.
The girls' group won by a margin of about 30 seconds.
After lunch, the tables turned. The class hid the Squinkies and wrote clues, and then I had to find and describe them. The clock ran out for me when the bell rang at the end of the day, with ONE Squinkie left! Oh well.
Suffice to say, fun was had. We laughed, we cried, we GERMAN'ED.
And that was that.
Mit Vergnügen
It all began innocently enough, with the sharing of our homework, as we do every class period. The stories the students wrote about the Battle of Teutoburg were, to put it lightly, surprisingly hardcore. The depth of emotion and the descriptive power of each of them was beyond anything I could have ever expected, giving us such treasures as, "Nur mein Hund hält mich warm in der Nacht... ich vermisse meine Familie," and "Das Blut meines Feindes fließt in die kalte Erde," and "Es war still. Ich sah nur den Tod."
These stories will be hung up on the wall, if not framed, for future classes to view in awe-struck wonder.
The Schatzsuch was, in short, a devious scheme on my part to force the students to use their knowledge of basically all we've learned so far this year grammatically to locate and then describe (afterward) an assortment of "Squinkies" that I hid all throughout the school in as odd (yet safe) of places as I could find. I have no idea what Squinkies are aside from "$4.99 at Walgreens" and "easy to hide," but they seemed cute, and 5th graders went nuts over them and had to be convinced not to take them from their hiding spaces, so I guess I stumbled onto a fad of some kind.
Anyway, the class was divided into two groups, and I gave them a sheet of clues describing where to find all the different Squinkies. The groups set out to find them all, and then had to describe to me afterward both what they found and where they were.
The girls' group won by a margin of about 30 seconds.
After lunch, the tables turned. The class hid the Squinkies and wrote clues, and then I had to find and describe them. The clock ran out for me when the bell rang at the end of the day, with ONE Squinkie left! Oh well.
Suffice to say, fun was had. We laughed, we cried, we GERMAN'ED.
And that was that.
Mit Vergnügen
Saturday, January 25, 2014
25.Januar '14 - Die Teutoburgerschlacht
The day began like any other day: we went over the homework as a class, moving problem by problem through the dark and mysterious streets of grammar, unsuspecting of the horrifying events that awaited on the horizon.
We then had a lesson over strong versus weak verbs (how to know what form a verb takes as a past participle) accompanied by a handout for the students to keep for future reference.
Then suddenly, out of nowhere, came ANOTHER EXERCISE only this one was listening-comprehension, something I have given to classes almost daily in years past but that we did for the first time this year today. We went through a listening comprehension (Hörverständnis) exercise with the song, "Mein Herz Brennt" by Rammstein.
After lunch and our Ruhepause, we did something about which I had been crossing my proverbial fingers, hoping it would work, and lo and behold! It actually went quite well and wasn't too hard for the class, much to my relief. I prepared a handout to-be-read in pairs. It was excerpts taken from this article:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-ambush-that-changed-history-72636736/
I prepared a word bank with the key figures and locations, and then they read the abridged article, underlining key points (Hauptthemen) for later discussion. Even though they may not have understood every word ('aforementioned' and 'foreordained' were commonly greeted with, "huh?"), each group found the key points and main ideas and managed to summarize them afterward rather well.
We then held a whole-class discussion over the Teutoburgerschlacht, and how this single event in the 1st century AD redefined the course of history for Germany, and even all of Europe. The Battle of Teutoburg is, I've found, never even mentioned in most school curricula, even though it is easily the most pivotal point in all of Germany's history. Without this battle, German would be a romance language like French, Spanish, Italian, and even to an extent English (with lots of latinate roots).
Also, the students got to learn such concepts as "guerilla warfare" and "cultural assimilation."
And now, the homework:
Next week, we shall do further exercises on the worksheet that was turned in today. This week, the homework is to write a one-page long 1st person account of the Teutoburgerschlacht. Students take the role of a witness to the event, either a Roman legionnaire or a Teutonic skirmisher under Arminius. They should, using the 1st-person (ich) past tense, recount:
We then had a lesson over strong versus weak verbs (how to know what form a verb takes as a past participle) accompanied by a handout for the students to keep for future reference.
Then suddenly, out of nowhere, came ANOTHER EXERCISE only this one was listening-comprehension, something I have given to classes almost daily in years past but that we did for the first time this year today. We went through a listening comprehension (Hörverständnis) exercise with the song, "Mein Herz Brennt" by Rammstein.
After lunch and our Ruhepause, we did something about which I had been crossing my proverbial fingers, hoping it would work, and lo and behold! It actually went quite well and wasn't too hard for the class, much to my relief. I prepared a handout to-be-read in pairs. It was excerpts taken from this article:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-ambush-that-changed-history-72636736/
I prepared a word bank with the key figures and locations, and then they read the abridged article, underlining key points (Hauptthemen) for later discussion. Even though they may not have understood every word ('aforementioned' and 'foreordained' were commonly greeted with, "huh?"), each group found the key points and main ideas and managed to summarize them afterward rather well.
We then held a whole-class discussion over the Teutoburgerschlacht, and how this single event in the 1st century AD redefined the course of history for Germany, and even all of Europe. The Battle of Teutoburg is, I've found, never even mentioned in most school curricula, even though it is easily the most pivotal point in all of Germany's history. Without this battle, German would be a romance language like French, Spanish, Italian, and even to an extent English (with lots of latinate roots).
Also, the students got to learn such concepts as "guerilla warfare" and "cultural assimilation."
And now, the homework:
Next week, we shall do further exercises on the worksheet that was turned in today. This week, the homework is to write a one-page long 1st person account of the Teutoburgerschlacht. Students take the role of a witness to the event, either a Roman legionnaire or a Teutonic skirmisher under Arminius. They should, using the 1st-person (ich) past tense, recount:
- What they saw
- What they thought during the event
- What they did
- In short, what happened around them
I will accept a minimum of 20 sentences, but it may be more, up to a whole page (please not much longer! I have to read these!)
Also, I sent the Zeugnisse (report cards) home today. Please have those brought back, signed, next weekend.
Also, I sent the Zeugnisse (report cards) home today. Please have those brought back, signed, next weekend.
~Mit Vergnügen
Sunday, January 19, 2014
18.Januar - Storytime
Guten Tag!
Saturday began with our presenting the homework assignments, rhymes describing ourselves, which were then shuffled, given to me, and I read them aloud for the class to get which was about whom.
Our main lesson for the day was adding on to last week's introduction to the simple past of haben and sein. We have now become acquainted with the past tense (present perfect) formed with the helping verbs haben and sein. The guiding principle we're going on is that transitive verbs tend to use haben in the past, and intransitive tend to use sein, e.g. werfen (throw) uses haben since it takes an object, whereas fliegen (fly) uses sein since it does not take an object.
And so began storytime! As an activity, in pairs, the students wrote short stories around a word bank I gave them with character names, verbs, and objects that needed to be incorporated.
After lunch, we sat around a circle doing "popcorn" style reading of rhymes and riddles and nonsense words for fun and pronunciation practice.
Aaaaaaand now the homework.
Please navigate to this page, whereupon there is a veeeeeery large worksheet. I only want them to do part B. PART B. It will take hours if they do the whole thing. JUST PART B. It is only 15 questions, the object of which is to choose the right helping verb, haben or sein, for each sentence.
http://www.nthuleen.com/teach/grammar/perfekt1.html
Mit Vergnügen
Saturday began with our presenting the homework assignments, rhymes describing ourselves, which were then shuffled, given to me, and I read them aloud for the class to get which was about whom.
Our main lesson for the day was adding on to last week's introduction to the simple past of haben and sein. We have now become acquainted with the past tense (present perfect) formed with the helping verbs haben and sein. The guiding principle we're going on is that transitive verbs tend to use haben in the past, and intransitive tend to use sein, e.g. werfen (throw) uses haben since it takes an object, whereas fliegen (fly) uses sein since it does not take an object.
And so began storytime! As an activity, in pairs, the students wrote short stories around a word bank I gave them with character names, verbs, and objects that needed to be incorporated.
After lunch, we sat around a circle doing "popcorn" style reading of rhymes and riddles and nonsense words for fun and pronunciation practice.
Aaaaaaand now the homework.
Please navigate to this page, whereupon there is a veeeeeery large worksheet. I only want them to do part B. PART B. It will take hours if they do the whole thing. JUST PART B. It is only 15 questions, the object of which is to choose the right helping verb, haben or sein, for each sentence.
http://www.nthuleen.com/teach/grammar/perfekt1.html
Mit Vergnügen
Saturday, January 11, 2014
11.Jan '14 - Rappenkrieg
"Herr Walker, where do you come up with such random things?"
That was about the reaction I was expecting to the introductory activity of "compose a rhyming couplet."
Today, we spent most of our time locked in the most time honored of all forms of combat, rap battles. Two groups developed a rhyming rap of a minimal 15 lines long, and then rehearsed their performance, including beat boxing and dancing. We then took it "to the streets" and let the harshest of audiences (the 1st grade class) be the judges as to which group was better.
We also had an introduction to the simple past today with a lesson on hatten (from haben) and waren (from sein). This was followed by a game that relied mostly on observational skills and/or paranoia called, "Ich war's nicht" where an individual with their eyes closed had to guess who in the classroom kept running up and poking them.
The second rap battle didn't go as well, probably because it took too much concentration for so late in the day, but it was worth a try.
The homework for today:
That was about the reaction I was expecting to the introductory activity of "compose a rhyming couplet."
Today, we spent most of our time locked in the most time honored of all forms of combat, rap battles. Two groups developed a rhyming rap of a minimal 15 lines long, and then rehearsed their performance, including beat boxing and dancing. We then took it "to the streets" and let the harshest of audiences (the 1st grade class) be the judges as to which group was better.
We also had an introduction to the simple past today with a lesson on hatten (from haben) and waren (from sein). This was followed by a game that relied mostly on observational skills and/or paranoia called, "Ich war's nicht" where an individual with their eyes closed had to guess who in the classroom kept running up and poking them.
The second rap battle didn't go as well, probably because it took too much concentration for so late in the day, but it was worth a try.
The homework for today:
- Compose a poem of at least 3 lines (auf Deutsch!) which rhyme
- The topic is describing yourself. These will be mixed up next class period and then read aloud, and the class must guess whom each poem describes.
Sunday, December 15, 2013
14.Dez. '13 - Jeopardy
Guten Morgen!
Yesterday we spent the class period locked in a glorious battle of the minds between two warring factions: "Obst" and "Gemüse," as we reviewed the content covered this semester.
So in other words, we played Jeopardy in teams.
In the end, Gemüse won by one of the narrowest of possible margins, 150 points (the value of half a question) due to a team member having been highly skilled at searching for hidden shoes.
Next week will be the last class period of the year, and we will reconvene in January 2014. Yes, there is school next week.
Those who attend next week will have a great deal of fun in my class, so come to German School!
Also, if any of your children are allergic to the contents of a frosted sugar cookie--my documentation doesn't indicate as such, but thought I'd ask just in case--PLEASE let me know.
Mit Vergnügen
Yesterday we spent the class period locked in a glorious battle of the minds between two warring factions: "Obst" and "Gemüse," as we reviewed the content covered this semester.
So in other words, we played Jeopardy in teams.
In the end, Gemüse won by one of the narrowest of possible margins, 150 points (the value of half a question) due to a team member having been highly skilled at searching for hidden shoes.
Next week will be the last class period of the year, and we will reconvene in January 2014. Yes, there is school next week.
Those who attend next week will have a great deal of fun in my class, so come to German School!
Also, if any of your children are allergic to the contents of a frosted sugar cookie--my documentation doesn't indicate as such, but thought I'd ask just in case--PLEASE let me know.
Mit Vergnügen
Saturday, December 7, 2013
7.Dez. '13 - Haariger als Sven?
Today we compared ourselves to the unattainable specimen of perfection that is our beloved Sven.
First we began by correcting the homework together and reading the results aloud, then switching it up a bit and making the previously first-person statements of comparison to Sven be 3rd person, so we all talked about how we all compared to dear old Sven.
We went back over the comparatives unit from before Thanksgiving, and added onto it the superlatives (Am besten, am größten, der/die/das Beste, der/die/das Größte, etc.) and some dialogues/roleplaying exercises to go with them.
We also took as many chances as we could to go bother the 8th grade class with what we've learned, such as running over there, saying, "Wir sind am klugsten!" nice and loud and then running away, because it builds community. That was my reason. Of course it was.
Singprobe happened just before lunch, so we then did lunch and our Ruhepause, nice little block of time there, and wrapped up with some further dialogue exercises, including mad lib versions of the ones from last week.
And now, the homework:
Workbook page 12, #10; page 11, #6
Fahrvergnügen
First we began by correcting the homework together and reading the results aloud, then switching it up a bit and making the previously first-person statements of comparison to Sven be 3rd person, so we all talked about how we all compared to dear old Sven.
We went back over the comparatives unit from before Thanksgiving, and added onto it the superlatives (Am besten, am größten, der/die/das Beste, der/die/das Größte, etc.) and some dialogues/roleplaying exercises to go with them.
We also took as many chances as we could to go bother the 8th grade class with what we've learned, such as running over there, saying, "Wir sind am klugsten!" nice and loud and then running away, because it builds community. That was my reason. Of course it was.
Singprobe happened just before lunch, so we then did lunch and our Ruhepause, nice little block of time there, and wrapped up with some further dialogue exercises, including mad lib versions of the ones from last week.
And now, the homework:
Workbook page 12, #10; page 11, #6
Fahrvergnügen
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