Our summative project for the year is making a movie.
No, seriously.
Putting together all the various grammatical bits with the cultural theme of Teutoburg, the students are putting together a short play, about 10-15 minutes long ideally, portraying the final evening before the Roman legions of Magna Germania, under provincial governor Varus, took a shortcut back over the Rhine as suggested by the German tribal chieftan Arminius, only for it to end with the combined forces of all the local tribes decimating all 3 legions. This is also known as, "The reason German isn't a Latinate language."
The scene in question is basically Arminius and his entourage convincing Varus and his Generals to take his advice, despite the fact that some other tribal bigwigs, like Arminius' rival Segestes, were practically yelling in Varus' ear that the whole thing was an obvious trap.
We spent yesterday developing an outline of the script and dividing up the various roles. So far, it looks like it'll be fun, if not particularly historically accurate (I had to help translate, "Come at me bro!"). Next week will be spent finishing up the script and practicing so that we can record the play on 10 May.
The homework is to finish translating any lines originally written in English. Also, if your kids could bring either white sheets (for togas) or fuzzy towels/bathrobes (for bear-skin robes) the next two weeks to serve as costumes, that'd be much appreciated.
Mit Vergnügen
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Saturday, April 12, 2014
12.April '14 - KRIEG
Guten Abend,
Today we fought a terrible battle, and much fun was had by all.
Playing off last week whereupon we built Legionnaires, this week we made our own Teutonic warriors and made both of the above groups engage in combat.
We reviewed and added onto our vocabulary regarding parts of the body, and armor, weaponry and clothing of the 1st century AD in Roman - occupied Germania, as well as martial details, and then divided into two groups: one for Deutscher, one for Römer. Using a point system assigned to different actions, and with "hitpoints" assigned to each warrior or legionnaire that the class had made, based on their equipment and armor, we held battle on the board.
Each team called out an action (which had to be correctly said for it to count--conjugated, arranged, and using the right cases) against certain targets (hence the body part vocabulary last week) and those targets lost hit points accordingly.
The first round, 3 Romans against 6 Germans, the Germans won. Second round, 3 Romans +1 German Auxiliary versus 5 Germans was a wash.
A typical fight looked like this:
Team Rome: "Julius schlägt Sven in das Bein mit dem Schild"
Me: "-3 für Sven. Er hat nur noch 3 HP."
Team Germania: "Sven zerhaut Julius in den Kopf!"
Me: "-4 für Julius. Er hat nur noch 6 HP."
And so on...
It was basically Pokemon with historically-decorated figurines. Since they knew we were going to battle with our figures from the outset, the amount of practicality that went into their design was extraordinary, e.g. "better give him a shield so he gets +1 HP" and so on.
Now that we have had our battle, the classroom walls are adorned with the figures, should you wish to see them. They are quite lovely.
There is no school next week--It's Osterfeier.
Mit Vergnügen
Today we fought a terrible battle, and much fun was had by all.
Playing off last week whereupon we built Legionnaires, this week we made our own Teutonic warriors and made both of the above groups engage in combat.
We reviewed and added onto our vocabulary regarding parts of the body, and armor, weaponry and clothing of the 1st century AD in Roman - occupied Germania, as well as martial details, and then divided into two groups: one for Deutscher, one for Römer. Using a point system assigned to different actions, and with "hitpoints" assigned to each warrior or legionnaire that the class had made, based on their equipment and armor, we held battle on the board.
Each team called out an action (which had to be correctly said for it to count--conjugated, arranged, and using the right cases) against certain targets (hence the body part vocabulary last week) and those targets lost hit points accordingly.
The first round, 3 Romans against 6 Germans, the Germans won. Second round, 3 Romans +1 German Auxiliary versus 5 Germans was a wash.
A typical fight looked like this:
Team Rome: "Julius schlägt Sven in das Bein mit dem Schild"
Me: "-3 für Sven. Er hat nur noch 3 HP."
Team Germania: "Sven zerhaut Julius in den Kopf!"
Me: "-4 für Julius. Er hat nur noch 6 HP."
And so on...
It was basically Pokemon with historically-decorated figurines. Since they knew we were going to battle with our figures from the outset, the amount of practicality that went into their design was extraordinary, e.g. "better give him a shield so he gets +1 HP" and so on.
Now that we have had our battle, the classroom walls are adorned with the figures, should you wish to see them. They are quite lovely.
There is no school next week--It's Osterfeier.
Mit Vergnügen
Saturday, April 5, 2014
5.April - Gut und Gerüstet
Guten Tag!
It's been a while, what with trips out of the country followed soon after by two consecutive weekends off for Spring Break! Welcome back to German school.
Today we learned vocabulary for the parts of the body, and also Imperial Roman armor. Not kidding. We used both sets of vocabulary to fill in diagrams of a person and a legionnaire, and then we used paper people cut-outs along with tons of felt, pipe cleaner, glitter, balsa wood, posterboard, glue, tape, and acrylic markers to decorate the cutouts like legionnaires. We now have legionnaires hanging on the wall, complete with gladii (swords), spathae (spears) and shields. Come around and see them sometime!
As the year draws to a close, I intend to explore some of the more obscure and interesting angles of our historical theme, so you can expect the arts and crafts to continue.
The homework is quite simple:
In 5 sentences or more, write a short argument auf Deutsch about which you think was the better legionary weapon: the sword or the spear, and why. Think about it in the context of Teutoburg and how/why the Roman's lost that battle to the Germanic tribes.
It's been a while, what with trips out of the country followed soon after by two consecutive weekends off for Spring Break! Welcome back to German school.
Today we learned vocabulary for the parts of the body, and also Imperial Roman armor. Not kidding. We used both sets of vocabulary to fill in diagrams of a person and a legionnaire, and then we used paper people cut-outs along with tons of felt, pipe cleaner, glitter, balsa wood, posterboard, glue, tape, and acrylic markers to decorate the cutouts like legionnaires. We now have legionnaires hanging on the wall, complete with gladii (swords), spathae (spears) and shields. Come around and see them sometime!
As the year draws to a close, I intend to explore some of the more obscure and interesting angles of our historical theme, so you can expect the arts and crafts to continue.
The homework is quite simple:
In 5 sentences or more, write a short argument auf Deutsch about which you think was the better legionary weapon: the sword or the spear, and why. Think about it in the context of Teutoburg and how/why the Roman's lost that battle to the Germanic tribes.
Saturday, March 8, 2014
8.März - Höfflichkeit
Hallo liebe Leute!
I came back from France to hear that everything went smashingly with the sub in my absence, so that was good to hear. Thanks to all in attendance that day for leaving my colleague Jack with an excellent impression of our school.
Today we had a surprisingly small class of 3 until the last half hour, but we made the best of it. I showed us some videos on 1.) strange laws on the books still in Germany (for fun) and 2.) politeness and etiquette for eating out or dining with friends, as part of what I plan to be a little unit on similarities and differences between customs here and customs there.
After discussing what's polite and what isn't, we did skits where one student was the epitome of ünhöfflichkeit at dinner, and the other was the pulling-out-their-own-hair polite one trying to keep their friend under control.
For the last few minutes of class, we played an oldy/goody game, Herr Fuchs.
Hausaufgabe
-In at least 10 sentences, write me a little story wherein you have a friend over for dinner who acts like an absolute Schweinhund! What does he/she do wrong? This should be from a German perspective.
Mit Vergnügen~
I came back from France to hear that everything went smashingly with the sub in my absence, so that was good to hear. Thanks to all in attendance that day for leaving my colleague Jack with an excellent impression of our school.
Today we had a surprisingly small class of 3 until the last half hour, but we made the best of it. I showed us some videos on 1.) strange laws on the books still in Germany (for fun) and 2.) politeness and etiquette for eating out or dining with friends, as part of what I plan to be a little unit on similarities and differences between customs here and customs there.
After discussing what's polite and what isn't, we did skits where one student was the epitome of ünhöfflichkeit at dinner, and the other was the pulling-out-their-own-hair polite one trying to keep their friend under control.
For the last few minutes of class, we played an oldy/goody game, Herr Fuchs.
Hausaufgabe
-In at least 10 sentences, write me a little story wherein you have a friend over for dinner who acts like an absolute Schweinhund! What does he/she do wrong? This should be from a German perspective.
Mit Vergnügen~
Saturday, February 22, 2014
22.Februar - Teutoburgerschlacht
Guten Tag,
Today we finished our vast mural of the Battle of Teutoburg Forest and hung it up on the wall (it takes up the entire back wall) for all to see.
We also played, "Wo Warst Du?" the "lead your classmates around blindly" game that everyone enjoys and helps us practice both the past tense and the dative case.
I will be gone for the week--I'll be in France--and there will be a sub on Saturday.
The homework is as follows:
Choose a German song
Today we finished our vast mural of the Battle of Teutoburg Forest and hung it up on the wall (it takes up the entire back wall) for all to see.
We also played, "Wo Warst Du?" the "lead your classmates around blindly" game that everyone enjoys and helps us practice both the past tense and the dative case.
I will be gone for the week--I'll be in France--and there will be a sub on Saturday.
The homework is as follows:
Choose a German song
- Either online or from a CD, find a German-language song that you like. Something that describes you or that you simply enjoy
- Bring the song itself (or write down the weblink or the name of it on YouTube) so that it can be played for the class next week
- To open class, each student will present their songs.
- Provide a lyric sheet, and be prepared to verbally give a short summary of the song (in a few sentences, the main idea of what it's about and why you like this song).
Mit Vergnügen!
Sunday, February 16, 2014
15.Februar '14 - Crouching Legions, Hidden Candy
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.
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.
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
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