Frühlingspause - bis 7. April

Guten Tag,

For the next two weekends, we will not be meeting for class. I know, I'm sad about it too, but what can you do? I'll have to find something else to do with my next few Saturdays.

This past Saturday we spent the majority of the class period doing two things:

• The quiz over the vocabulary from our Hörverständnis exercises
• Making our own fashion catalogues

Thanks to those of you who sent your kids to school with magazines and the like. This was a big success, and I look forward to grading and giving back the results. If your child was not present in class to do the fashion catalogue assignment, or did not finish in class, then this will be homework.
The assignment was as follows:

Make your own fashion catalogue

• Include both pictures (handdrawn, clip art, magazine clippings etc) and the words for each type of clothing, e.g. "Das Hemd, der Schuh"
• Include prices in Euros
• Name your fashion company as well

After the quiz and catalogue, we spent the remaining class time, which wasn't much, playing a new game: "Wo ist mein Schuh?" wherein one person's shoe was hidden somewhere in the classroom, and the student had to find where it was by asking the others a maximum of 3 questions, e.g. "Ist es IN etwas?" "Ist es in einem Schreibtisch?" and so on.

The homework to be turned in the next class period is as follows:

Page 79 (workbook)
Exercises 8-9
And
Fashion Catalogue (if not done in class or not finished)

I'll be seeing you in April.

17.März - St. Patricks Tag

Guten Morgen,

Today we began with one last Hörverständnis exercise before our quiz this upcoming week. We did the song "Tage wie dieser" by Juli.
The quiz next week will include vocabulary from the following songs:

• Rammstein - Ohne Dich, Ich Will
• Elis - Sie Erfasst Mein Herz
• Die Prinzen - Mein Fahrrad
• Juli - Tage wie dieser

I would recommend using flash cards.

We learned another modal verb today from the lyrics of the song: sollen (should). Our repertoire of modal verbs is nearly complete now: sollen, wollen, können, dürfen, möchten

To hone our conversational skills, we played a game of "20 Fragen." It went surprisingly well, and I was also pleasantly surprised at the creativity of the kids. One of the unguessable things was me, oddly enough, though I stumped the kids at my turn: no one ever expects your topic to be "Ohio." 

To celebrate the day, we played bingo with regular verb conjugation, and each bingo won a green donut. That is, until we started to run low on time, so alternative donut-earning acts included conjugating "können" all the way and wishing the birthday girl (Jillian) a happy birthday in German. 

Homework for the week:

Study for the upcoming quiz.

Mit Vergnügen

10 März: Der ewige Streit

Guten Abend,

Today, as part of our unit on arguments and dialogue, we as a class tackled one of the most important issues of our time: pirates vs. ninjas. After a short review of argument words (nicht, nichts, nie, niemals, niemand, doch) and a pop quiz over modal verbs, regular verbs and the accusative case, we divided into two groups. One half of the class argued that Pirates are better than Ninjas, and the other argued the reverse. After a half hour of discussion, the two groups presented their points.
Ninjas:

• They have nerf guns (?)
• They have free wi-fi (apparently)
• They are honorable
• The don't go around hunting for stupid treasure all day
• They are, and I quote, "faster than snipers."

Pirates:

• They're rich because of all that treasure they gather
• They are multicultural and speak many languages (french, spanish, english) whereas ninjas tend to be culturally-isolated
• Parrots
• They have more movies about them, and their movies are consistently better than ninja movies
• Johnny Depp

Conclusion: Ninjas won because pirates don't have internet access. 

The class ended with a quick review on time-telling (24-hr, 12-hr) and a game of "Herr Fuchs." 

Homework for the week is as follows:

Arbeitsbuch

P. 78, Exercises 4, 6

P. 82, Exercises 5, 6

3. März - Fahrräde!!!!!!!

Guten Tag,

Today we started off by playing a game that the children had prepared themselves. Two weeks ago, you may recall we spent class time divided into group with the assignment of making new games for the class. So, first thing today we were finally able to try them out. We played "Wer bin ich?," where the children wrote beforehand 5 sentences each, describing themselves. We then sat in a circle with one child in the center as all the others read out sentences from one person's sheet. The person in the center then had to guess whom it was describing.

From there, we went into our hörverständnis exercise, "Mein Fahrrad" from Die Prinzen, all about one person's absolutely insane love of his bicycle, which provided the perfect segue into today's topic: accusative prepositions.

I was rather surprised that the kids did not know what prepositions were, so after a short explanation, we covered some basic accusative preposition-article combinations (as shown on page 69 of the textbook). The catchphrase we used, which is what I learned back when I learned this topic, was "accusative = movative." Silly, I know, but the point being that, with these prepositions (and with most cases in German), moving toward a place takes the accusative case.
In den
Ins
In die

Auf die
Auf den
Aufs

The lesson was followed up with some partner work out of the workbook (page 72).

After lunch, the class was down to 2 students. I'm sensing a pattern here.

We went over negation (nicht, nichts, nie, niemals, niemand, kein) and learned a new phrase: "doch." This introduced us to a VERY German idea: ARGUING.


Which brings us to today's homework:

10 lines of dialogue:
An argument between two people over one of the following topics:

• Katze oder Hunde?
• Vanilla oder Schockolade Eis? 
• Hamburgers oder Hotdogs? 
• Nintendo Wii oder PS3?
• Deutsch oder Spanisch lernen?

Mit Vergnügen. 

Aus 4, 2 - 25.2

Guten Abend,

Today's lesson began with an introduction to "Zungenbrecher," tongue twisters. I introduced the class to a few of my favorites, to start off:

• Fischer Fritz ißt frische Fische, frische Fische ißt Fischer Fritz
• Am Zehnten Zehnten um Zehn Uhr Zehn zogen zehn zahme zarte Ziegen zehn Zentner Zücker zum Zoo
• Hinter Herman Hannes Haus hängen hundert Hemden raus; hundert Hemden hängen raus hinter Herman Hannes haus

usw...

Then it was time to go about making our own! First this was done individually, then the class came together as a group to make up one. 

After the break, it turned out that our class of 4 had become a class of 2. So the boys and I finished out the day watching "Monsters Inc." 

The lesson as planned shall continue next week. 

Homework for the week shall be in preparation for next week's lesson:

Arbeitsbuch

P. 73, Exercise 5

P. 77, Exercises 1-2

Modal Verbs and New Inventions - 2.18

Hello everyone,


Today we had the modal verb quiz, as promised/forewarned last week. I will be handing those back along with the pop quizzes next week.

Aside from that bit of fun, we did a little review today over previously-covered topics, beginning with a round of Bingo to remind us of the conjugation rules of regular verbs. Despite my having upped the anté several times, the class still managed to meet the goal I'd set for them: if at least 5 of them got "Bingos" within the last 15 minutes before lunch, I would have to bring them donuts next time. Now I have to bring them donuts next time. I suppose that's my own fault for not thinking they could pull it off.

We did a sentence-construction (syntax) exercise in the second half of class, wherein the students divided into 2 teams and attempted to outdo each other with guessing how to put a set of words on the board in the correct order, e.g. I'd write "ICH DICH GERN HABE NICHT" and they would have to arrange them in the proper order for a point.

We also show-cased the games that they had mostly finished developing as a group last time, and I will be reviewing these for feasibility. Should they seem manageable to use for the class, then next class period we will be playing some of these games.


I do not have Hausaufgabe scheduled for this week since I have been rather quiz-heavy lately. Consider this a breather period as there will, indeed, be homework again beginning next time.

Cheers!

Mit Vergnügen

2.11 Mitten Februar

Hello everyone,

Sorry that this post is a little late; my wife and I both have been sick this week and took turns taking care of each other. I spent the week sick, so it was apparently her turn this weekend. Don't worry--I've been fine for a few days now.

Saturday's class period began with our writing paragraphs describing our favorite animals such that the rest of the class would have to guess what they were, e.g. "mein Lieblingstier hat 8 Beine, wohnt tief im Meer und frisst Fische gern..."

Our modal verbs unit continued with the addition of the verb "wollen," leaving us with a list as follows: Dürfen, Können, Möchten, Wollen. There will be a quiz over the meaning, conjugation and usage of these verbs next weekend. We then played a round of mad-libs to practice proper syntax with modal verbs and helping verbs in standard, single-clause sentences.

We also played a revised version of the game that was played earlier in January while a sub was present, "Folge den Leiter," wherein one person commanded a group of his/her blindfolded classmates through an obstacle course using basic imperatives: "Geht nach Links/Rechts/Gerade aus/Rückwarts," "HALT!" usw.

After the break, the class earned a pop quiz by deciding to spend the lunch period hiding all my dry-erase markers. Every minute spent hunting down my markers and/or being loud earned a quiz question, leaving us with an 18-question pop quiz over modal verbs, regular verbs and imperatives. I will be returning these with the other pending papers to be graded.

To end the day, I asked the children to split into groups and try to invent their own games over any of the grammar points we have learned so far throughout the year. Their results will be presented next class period.

And now, for the homework.

Hausaufgabe: study for the modal verbs quiz. Review conjugation and meaning of each verb as well as how to form sentences with modal verbs and helping verbs.