Two weeks ago we started a new project with the school. It's via e-twinning again and becasue I don't have any permanent bigger group of pupils, I decided to do this with more classes at the same time.
We're going to work with a Slovak school. It's a secondary school in the heart of Slovakia in a beautiful nature. The mean topic of the project are fairy tales. Because Germany and Slovakia are both rich in their folk tales and we both had some famous collectors in our history, we decided to make OUR OWN BOOK.
We've already started with getting to know each other. The first part is so to present ourselves. I'm going to make a presentation about the school on Friday with Linda's 5th graders. Kathrin's 6th graders have already written a little about themselves. I'm going to post these presentations onto e-twinnnig this weekend.
Second part will be to teach our partners something what we are proud of. The Germans are going to present their famous collectors - the Grimm brothers, and Slovak group will present Dobsinsky. At least I guess so, I'll let it be a surprise.
After that, each group is going to look for fairy tales that are "the most..." We'll look for the shortest, the funniest, the scariest... and some more. And this will be the basis of our book. The Slovak group are German learners, so it's a great practise for them to translate these tales into German. As far as the Germans are concerned, I will use this to teach them some more interesting words in Slovak and some new things about my culture. We will also try to illustrate the given fairy tales. Illustrations will be used in our book too. We can make a cover too, but that will be decided rather spontaniously.
At last we're going to write one short fairy tale together. We'll take turns and let our creativity flourish...
I'm sooo looking forward to it :)
I just hope we'll manage till the end of the term. Of course we will!!!
:)
I'll post some more info as said, later. For now, traditionally, our label.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Sunday, March 25, 2012
...so how's photoclub doing?
It's great. Photo club was the best idea. There are not many pupils who would visit this club regularily. Rather the oposite (no wonder-we meet on Friday afternnoons). However I try to bring some usefunl techniques to my girls since they love to make pictures and for them it seems like quantity was more than quality. So I'm happy about every good composition, light and idea. Well, they have enough ideas. They are always full of hearts, jumping and having fun. I'm glad when my girls can learn a little.
We also took part in a competition for European youth in action, called German youth photo prize. We don't know the results yet. We'll see, just cross your fingers for us :)
Here are some latest pictures:
We also took part in a competition for European youth in action, called German youth photo prize. We don't know the results yet. We'll see, just cross your fingers for us :)
Here are some latest pictures:
...so how's Slovak doing? ✌
I meet a small group of students once a week. We're supposed to learn Slovak language and culture. We play games, we have fun...
So far we've learnt to count to 20, some family members and a family tree, some pronouns. We can greet you and introduce our family members. As a proof, you can watch this short video about Dana's family.
So far we've learnt to count to 20, some family members and a family tree, some pronouns. We can greet you and introduce our family members. As a proof, you can watch this short video about Dana's family.
:)
Slovak Easter
For those who know how Easter in Slovakia and Czech Rep. is celebrated, it will be easy to understand why an interactive presentaion about Easter was really interesting for the children. It will also be easy to understand that the boys decidet to visit our countries on Easter Monday :)
I prepared some powerpoint presentation, pictures and poems. Children also played Slovak games with our national heritage pictures. They learned about the bee Maja, Jánošík, Bathory, Maťko a Kubko and many Slovak castles. Unfortunatelly I was so into the action, that I forgot to take pictures.... So I only have some:
I prepared some powerpoint presentation, pictures and poems. Children also played Slovak games with our national heritage pictures. They learned about the bee Maja, Jánošík, Bathory, Maťko a Kubko and many Slovak castles. Unfortunatelly I was so into the action, that I forgot to take pictures.... So I only have some:
If everything goes well, my mum will come to visit me and bring a real korbáč with her... Well, I'm quite curious to see how the children will react :)
Fairy tell me~Reading and thinking ♘
In the last 3 months I've done some reading connected to the environment with four classes. All the books I used are available for free download at the EU Bookshop.
The first one was a story about Blossom and her friends, who live in a little town. Everything is great until Blossom comes to visit her friends and is hit by a car on a busy and dirty road. The kids manage to change the road into a beautiful clean and safe place. You can download the book here. We read this book in German.
Based on our reading, I asked the kids a few questions about the content and the environment - they had to write their opinions and find the correct answers in the text. Moreover, I gave the children a chance to draw an unhealthy street with a lot of cars and pollution (more popular part for drawing) and then a clean one, with trees and no pollution. I'll post here some pictures later.
This story inspired us to play a little theatre. We split the class in two groups and they chose parts in the story to perform. Again, a very popular activity with a great feedback from the children...
The second reading was about Mathias and Amadou. One boy from Europe and the other one from Africa. The main topic is to help those who need it and motivate children to support those in need. We read this story in English with a group of 6th graders. With a little help and seeing the illustrations, they were able to fully understand the story.
Our last reading was called Benny's a champion. A story about a boy who wanted to buy a new bicycle, supported by his father that consuming is important, and his cousin and a fox, who show him, that recycling is much more important and cheaper. At the same time the boys helped an old man to gain the meaning of life again. We read this story in German and I prepared some questions for the kids too. They as well drew some nice pictures connected to this story. I hope to post them too.
The first one was a story about Blossom and her friends, who live in a little town. Everything is great until Blossom comes to visit her friends and is hit by a car on a busy and dirty road. The kids manage to change the road into a beautiful clean and safe place. You can download the book here. We read this book in German.
Based on our reading, I asked the kids a few questions about the content and the environment - they had to write their opinions and find the correct answers in the text. Moreover, I gave the children a chance to draw an unhealthy street with a lot of cars and pollution (more popular part for drawing) and then a clean one, with trees and no pollution. I'll post here some pictures later.
This story inspired us to play a little theatre. We split the class in two groups and they chose parts in the story to perform. Again, a very popular activity with a great feedback from the children...
The second reading was about Mathias and Amadou. One boy from Europe and the other one from Africa. The main topic is to help those who need it and motivate children to support those in need. We read this story in English with a group of 6th graders. With a little help and seeing the illustrations, they were able to fully understand the story.
Our last reading was called Benny's a champion. A story about a boy who wanted to buy a new bicycle, supported by his father that consuming is important, and his cousin and a fox, who show him, that recycling is much more important and cheaper. At the same time the boys helped an old man to gain the meaning of life again. We read this story in German and I prepared some questions for the kids too. They as well drew some nice pictures connected to this story. I hope to post them too.
ORIGAMI
In February and March I decided to join an etwinning project about origami. The task is to make origami, make pictures of the things and post them on etwinning for other lands to guess. In the second step is showing the children origami things made by other kids in other countries and let them guess what they can see.
I did this project together with one class of 5th graders and two classes of 6th graders. We also made pictures of our origamis and I also let the photo club make some pictures. So I kind of involved more kids into this project.
Certificate of our project with the involved countries and schools.
Generally it was quite fun to see how are some kids able to work with their hands and fold paper according to the instructions, whereas some were quite lost even at the beginning - folding the paper in halves :) However they all managed to finish their origami at last.
Here are some pictures from how we were making origami animals and flowers:
I did this project together with one class of 5th graders and two classes of 6th graders. We also made pictures of our origamis and I also let the photo club make some pictures. So I kind of involved more kids into this project.
Certificate of our project with the involved countries and schools.
Generally it was quite fun to see how are some kids able to work with their hands and fold paper according to the instructions, whereas some were quite lost even at the beginning - folding the paper in halves :) However they all managed to finish their origami at last.
Here are some pictures from how we were making origami animals and flowers:
So how about you, can you name our origami products? In case you are more interested and want to see more, visit our etwinning page.
Of course I let the children draw whatever they wanted on their origamis.
When we made little frogs, the funny part was to make a competition involving the jumping frogs jump the furthest. It's so great when one can get the kids' attention :)
Saturday, January 21, 2012
one~two~three~ACTION
Well, this week was a hard one for everybody. As a part of the Comenius project "Communication is an art" is my school obliged to make a film about communication. Possibly connected with exchanging students, the novel Gulliver's Travels and art. The class 8b had one week to make this film.
Finally we didn't make only one film, we split the kids into 4 groups of four to five students. Each group was led by a professional media person. Yes, I find this totally amazing, that here, in Saxony-Anhalt there's an opportunity to have media people come to your school and make a film based on your expectations. They don't make the film themselves. They provide technology, knowledge and assistance, the films are made by pupils. This institution called Medienanstalt is responsible for the broatcasting rules, laws and all different things. However a big thing they do is working with schools on different projects. Just to imagine how much they are wanted and how much schools and kids want to have media education, we had to apply for this week's assistance one and half years ago!!!
I am not yet allowed to spread what the films are about because they first need to be shown to our partner schools who are coming to visit us in April. Only then we can show the films. Nevertheless, I can say, there's a comedy among them, an action film and they all are interesting, funny and good. The most important thing is that the kids had fun, they wanted to do this and they learned without noticing it. They of course started with collecting the ideas for the film, writing the storyline, script, then recording the film and finally putting it together in Adobe Premiere. What I find great is that all had to participate on everything. All of them had to videotape, hold microphone, act and finally cut and do the rest. And from now on they will never ever watch films with the same eyes like before.
Here are some of the pictures I made during filming and the premiere, where we had a red carpet and five classes to watch :)
For more pictures and descriptions please wisit my gallery.
Finally we didn't make only one film, we split the kids into 4 groups of four to five students. Each group was led by a professional media person. Yes, I find this totally amazing, that here, in Saxony-Anhalt there's an opportunity to have media people come to your school and make a film based on your expectations. They don't make the film themselves. They provide technology, knowledge and assistance, the films are made by pupils. This institution called Medienanstalt is responsible for the broatcasting rules, laws and all different things. However a big thing they do is working with schools on different projects. Just to imagine how much they are wanted and how much schools and kids want to have media education, we had to apply for this week's assistance one and half years ago!!!
I am not yet allowed to spread what the films are about because they first need to be shown to our partner schools who are coming to visit us in April. Only then we can show the films. Nevertheless, I can say, there's a comedy among them, an action film and they all are interesting, funny and good. The most important thing is that the kids had fun, they wanted to do this and they learned without noticing it. They of course started with collecting the ideas for the film, writing the storyline, script, then recording the film and finally putting it together in Adobe Premiere. What I find great is that all had to participate on everything. All of them had to videotape, hold microphone, act and finally cut and do the rest. And from now on they will never ever watch films with the same eyes like before.
Here are some of the pictures I made during filming and the premiere, where we had a red carpet and five classes to watch :)
For more pictures and descriptions please wisit my gallery.
little 6th graders
My group of 6th graders was supposed to conduct a poll on the topic of mobile phones. The first tree weeks they didn't bring any results. Last week they brought something which for me looks more like their oservations connected with imagination. However, here are some of their results, I'll be more strict next time :)
Most of the grandparents use their mobile phones in emergency cases. However, there are two grand parents who use it more often, even for texting and playing games. The most frequent activity children in the 6th grade use mobiles for is playing games. The second one is texting.
4 out of 5 children in the class are not allowed to use Internet on their mobiles, even if they are smartphones. Those, who are allowed, use it more times a day to keep in touch with friends (social networking), or look up information on the web.
Dealing with this topic, kids learned how fast the technology of mobile phones is developing and when it all started. They also learned how the mobiles in past looked like, when the first iPhone came to Germany and how have the prices changed. The most interesting part for them was to learn, that the car phone in 1960s to 70s cost 15000 DM, while a VW Beetle cost just 5000 DM.
Most of the grandparents use their mobile phones in emergency cases. However, there are two grand parents who use it more often, even for texting and playing games. The most frequent activity children in the 6th grade use mobiles for is playing games. The second one is texting.
4 out of 5 children in the class are not allowed to use Internet on their mobiles, even if they are smartphones. Those, who are allowed, use it more times a day to keep in touch with friends (social networking), or look up information on the web.
Dealing with this topic, kids learned how fast the technology of mobile phones is developing and when it all started. They also learned how the mobiles in past looked like, when the first iPhone came to Germany and how have the prices changed. The most interesting part for them was to learn, that the car phone in 1960s to 70s cost 15000 DM, while a VW Beetle cost just 5000 DM.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Christmas ☃ E-twinning
So the nicest season of the year is over but I still haven't uploaded anything about it.
I did several projects and so here they are:
☆ Firstly we did an E-twinning project with Slovakia, Czech, Poland, Turkey and Estonia. I was called Christmas in our country and the main goal was to describe habits, food, traditions in our countries using German language.
We chose to make ppt presentations since the 8th class was about to practice making them. Here are some of them:
Ein Tag beim Blankenburger Weihnachtsmarkt
Das Essen bei Weihnachten
Weihnachtsmarkt
Adventskalender
Adventszeit
Weihnachtsbaum
The Estonians also made their own nice blog with a lot of info and nice videos. Here you can find it and learn about their Christmas. Slovaks also made a presentation about Christmas in the east and Polish made a nice one too.
What I learnt here is that your expectations and ideas may differ a lot from your students'. :) However I we all express ourselves in different ways, I hope you enjoy them!
☆ With the 6th graders I did something about Christmas too. The thing was that I contacted a Slovak school, actually a teacher of German language in Slovakia and I offered her to exchange some postcards and posters about Christmas. Again, typical food, habits etc.
I was unlucky because she got ill and despite sending her a lot of materials she sent me only one postcards. Tomorrow I'm going to be with my class and I bet they will ask about the postcards from Slovakia, well I will show them one I have and probably give them sweets. I know, it's quite unpedagogical, but kids know how much time they spent doing something and they expect what was promised. No excuses.
So here are just some pictures of posters and "postcards" from them:
So if this wasn't enough, I have some more Christmas presentations done in the computer classes :)
I did several projects and so here they are:
☆ Firstly we did an E-twinning project with Slovakia, Czech, Poland, Turkey and Estonia. I was called Christmas in our country and the main goal was to describe habits, food, traditions in our countries using German language.
We chose to make ppt presentations since the 8th class was about to practice making them. Here are some of them:
Ein Tag beim Blankenburger Weihnachtsmarkt
Das Essen bei Weihnachten
Weihnachtsmarkt
Adventskalender
Adventszeit
Weihnachtsbaum
The Estonians also made their own nice blog with a lot of info and nice videos. Here you can find it and learn about their Christmas. Slovaks also made a presentation about Christmas in the east and Polish made a nice one too.
What I learnt here is that your expectations and ideas may differ a lot from your students'. :) However I we all express ourselves in different ways, I hope you enjoy them!
☆ With the 6th graders I did something about Christmas too. The thing was that I contacted a Slovak school, actually a teacher of German language in Slovakia and I offered her to exchange some postcards and posters about Christmas. Again, typical food, habits etc.
I was unlucky because she got ill and despite sending her a lot of materials she sent me only one postcards. Tomorrow I'm going to be with my class and I bet they will ask about the postcards from Slovakia, well I will show them one I have and probably give them sweets. I know, it's quite unpedagogical, but kids know how much time they spent doing something and they expect what was promised. No excuses.
So here are just some pictures of posters and "postcards" from them:
And this is how my room at school looks right now :)
So if this wasn't enough, I have some more Christmas presentations done in the computer classes :)
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