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 :)
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Friday's photo club
I'm glad to have some photo fans at school, who love to meet me once a week, learn something new and make pictures, pitures & pictures!
I'm no photographer or proffessional, but this passion for taking pictures, evaluating them and looking at the good ones are common features that my students and I have. And if there are only a few tricks I can teach them, than I'm happy to do so.
So far we haven't done much, our topic for the beginning is composition. Yes, it's not only important to make pictures and pusch the button at the right time, but also find the best place to place youself or make as many shoots as possible. The first two topics for shooting were 'Christmas' and 'colorful'... And I still don't have much pictures to show, but I can do it with some :)
In the future I'd like to go through basic settings for camera, play with shutter, apperture, ISO and so. As well some basics of street photography, lomography, B&W, macro... and we'll see what else and to what extend.
I love this picture - it's Annica feeding animals and trying to get them out of their shelter and Rike making the best shot possible. As I can see, we can also learn to cooperate and help each other during these lessons...
AND you wouldn't believe how passionate can pupils be about learning when it's something different from everyday, when it's about themselves...EVEN AFTER THE NORMAL SCHOOL LESSONS.
These are pictures by Rike, who had in her mind "I have to follow the rule of the thirds, I have to think of composition, middle is not interesting in this case" :)
And I think she did well. Remember, these pictures are not ment to win shooting competition, they are not post processed and they are made by 14-year-olds.
Here, again, very nice pic of a typical German (also Scandinavian) Christmas decoration - the Herrnhuter Stern...
Happy to have managed to take a pic of some animals. Not straight but I think very nice job!
Right, I should capture the posters hanging at school, saying 'come to our photo club'... Even the head teacher was asking whether I or my mentor mad it. Well none of us. Kids who are interested. And who, again can become very passionate if you give them the idea and the chance to do what they like.
I'm no photographer or proffessional, but this passion for taking pictures, evaluating them and looking at the good ones are common features that my students and I have. And if there are only a few tricks I can teach them, than I'm happy to do so.
So far we haven't done much, our topic for the beginning is composition. Yes, it's not only important to make pictures and pusch the button at the right time, but also find the best place to place youself or make as many shoots as possible. The first two topics for shooting were 'Christmas' and 'colorful'... And I still don't have much pictures to show, but I can do it with some :)
In the future I'd like to go through basic settings for camera, play with shutter, apperture, ISO and so. As well some basics of street photography, lomography, B&W, macro... and we'll see what else and to what extend.
I love this picture - it's Annica feeding animals and trying to get them out of their shelter and Rike making the best shot possible. As I can see, we can also learn to cooperate and help each other during these lessons...
AND you wouldn't believe how passionate can pupils be about learning when it's something different from everyday, when it's about themselves...EVEN AFTER THE NORMAL SCHOOL LESSONS.
These are pictures by Rike, who had in her mind "I have to follow the rule of the thirds, I have to think of composition, middle is not interesting in this case" :)
And I think she did well. Remember, these pictures are not ment to win shooting competition, they are not post processed and they are made by 14-year-olds.
Here, again, very nice pic of a typical German (also Scandinavian) Christmas decoration - the Herrnhuter Stern...
Happy to have managed to take a pic of some animals. Not straight but I think very nice job!
Right, I should capture the posters hanging at school, saying 'come to our photo club'... Even the head teacher was asking whether I or my mentor mad it. Well none of us. Kids who are interested. And who, again can become very passionate if you give them the idea and the chance to do what they like.
Friday, December 9, 2011
cooking ♨ believe it?
An interesting and important part of the school's life here, are cookery classes. Well yes, you're not misreading!
Sometimes I walk in the corridors and I can smell beautiful sweet smell of Christmas cookies (Plätzchen). That's when one can't resist and must knock on the door and out of curiousity "check" what's happening. So in the same way I'm about to bake Slovak Christmas cookies with some classes next week - again, great way how to bring one's culture to the pupils.
However, that will not be the first time me cooking at school! The 10th class wanted me to cook some typical Slovak food with them... So out of time and ingredient availability I decided for "harula" - Slovak potato pancakes with cream, cheese and cucumber :)
Sometimes I walk in the corridors and I can smell beautiful sweet smell of Christmas cookies (Plätzchen). That's when one can't resist and must knock on the door and out of curiousity "check" what's happening. So in the same way I'm about to bake Slovak Christmas cookies with some classes next week - again, great way how to bring one's culture to the pupils.
However, that will not be the first time me cooking at school! The 10th class wanted me to cook some typical Slovak food with them... So out of time and ingredient availability I decided for "harula" - Slovak potato pancakes with cream, cheese and cucumber :)
My students had to do everything from peeling the potatoes, through grating them, adding all the ingredients, cutting onions, to frying in the pan. And then cleaning the place and washing the dishes. And of course, eating the food :)
I consider this subject amazing. Not only many of the children learn basic cooking tricks, but also many of them learn, there actually IS real cooking. And finaly they have to clean everything, so I think it's just great learning for life!
BTW, this is a great opportunity for those who just aren't that great with other subject. I had there one boy, who's terrible at maths, languages and so, but he loves cookery classes and he was cutting onion like a wizard!
Yep, I'm looking forward to the next week and baking with the 8th class!
Vianoce ☃ Zima ☃ Snehuliak ☃ Mikuláš
Unfortunatelly I've seen snow here only for about 10 minutes since I came here. Like all over Europe, in northern Germany too, there's autum weather. However the calender shows 9th December and it means winter season!! The Christmas is coming, I'm listening to Christmas songs, we're doing a Chritmas e-twinning project and I'm sooooo looking forward to going home and enjoying the best time of year :)
Inbetween we've done some Christmas or Nicolaus things with my pupils in many classes:
So for example, my Slovak class learned how the Slovak Mikuláš looks like, and that he comes on the 6th together with Čert (devil) and Anjel (angel) and they either give sweets to nice kids or some potato or coal to the naughty ones.
Here, my pupils drawing and learning about the Slovak trio:
They also learned two lines from a famous song about the Nicolaus:
Pred oknom, za oknom, stojí Mikuláš,
povedz nám deduško, čo v tom koši máš?
Other classes learned a song about a snowman, despite having no snow to play with... And some of the pupils were really good at guessing the meaning of words. Anyway, Slovak is such a difficult language for Germans even to read, so I was happy when they rememberd how to say snowman, cap, friend and pipe. The last word only because of it's resemblance to German word Pfeife - Slovak fajka :)
However they were having fun and I learned that I have to speak everything out loud before anybody's able to read anything in my language.
Here some pictures of snowman song class with some Christmas motives:
The song:
Kde sa vzal, tu sa vzal,pri záhrade ráno stál,
čiapku sivú, hlavu krivú
a fajku vám v ústach mal.
Ref.:
V košieľke, neborák,
čože je to za panák?
Zasmiala sa mladá chasa,
jaj, veď je to snehuliak.
Hopsasa, kamarát,
poďže sa ty s nami hrať,
hádzať sniežkom,
dolu briežkom
veselo sa sánkovať.
Ref.
Without any doubt were the most popular parts of the song "hopsasa kamarát" and "jaaaaaaj, veď je to snehuliak" :)
Inbetween we've done some Christmas or Nicolaus things with my pupils in many classes:
So for example, my Slovak class learned how the Slovak Mikuláš looks like, and that he comes on the 6th together with Čert (devil) and Anjel (angel) and they either give sweets to nice kids or some potato or coal to the naughty ones.
Here, my pupils drawing and learning about the Slovak trio:
Pred oknom, za oknom, stojí Mikuláš,
povedz nám deduško, čo v tom koši máš?
Other classes learned a song about a snowman, despite having no snow to play with... And some of the pupils were really good at guessing the meaning of words. Anyway, Slovak is such a difficult language for Germans even to read, so I was happy when they rememberd how to say snowman, cap, friend and pipe. The last word only because of it's resemblance to German word Pfeife - Slovak fajka :)
However they were having fun and I learned that I have to speak everything out loud before anybody's able to read anything in my language.
Here some pictures of snowman song class with some Christmas motives:
The song:Kde sa vzal, tu sa vzal,pri záhrade ráno stál,
čiapku sivú, hlavu krivú
a fajku vám v ústach mal.
Ref.:
V košieľke, neborák,
čože je to za panák?
Zasmiala sa mladá chasa,
jaj, veď je to snehuliak.
Hopsasa, kamarát,
poďže sa ty s nami hrať,
hádzať sniežkom,
dolu briežkom
veselo sa sánkovať.
Ref.
Without any doubt were the most popular parts of the song "hopsasa kamarát" and "jaaaaaaj, veď je to snehuliak" :)
E-twinning "Christmas at us"
It's the beginning of December and our e-twinning project is luckily coming to it's end.
We were asked to prepare presentations about Christmas in our countries. There are 6 countries taking part in it: Slovakia, Czech rep., Poland, Estonia, Turkey and Germany. Obviously, I'm responsible for the German part, despite being Slovak :) However, this is also a way how to bring my culture to my German pupils.
So my puils have worked hard to describe their food, customs, markets and much more. I think they have a great advantage of speaking the project language as natives, since all schools participating, must make their presentations in German.
Here's a picture from how we estimated the topics and decided who would do what:
We've decided to do this project with the 8th class, since they are at the age closest to the other countries, and at the same time, they should learn about making resentations.
The pupils are paired into groups of two and are given interesting topics. Pity is, that we can only work on this project once a week for 45min., but the kids are doing their (almost - as usual) best and some are already done! Next week we should complete the unfinished ones and also make a selection of our favourite Christmas songs. I'll upload some presentation or the link to the web site where they'll be stored.
Looking forward to that :)
We were asked to prepare presentations about Christmas in our countries. There are 6 countries taking part in it: Slovakia, Czech rep., Poland, Estonia, Turkey and Germany. Obviously, I'm responsible for the German part, despite being Slovak :) However, this is also a way how to bring my culture to my German pupils.
So my puils have worked hard to describe their food, customs, markets and much more. I think they have a great advantage of speaking the project language as natives, since all schools participating, must make their presentations in German.
Here's a picture from how we estimated the topics and decided who would do what:
We've decided to do this project with the 8th class, since they are at the age closest to the other countries, and at the same time, they should learn about making resentations.
The pupils are paired into groups of two and are given interesting topics. Pity is, that we can only work on this project once a week for 45min., but the kids are doing their (almost - as usual) best and some are already done! Next week we should complete the unfinished ones and also make a selection of our favourite Christmas songs. I'll upload some presentation or the link to the web site where they'll be stored.
Looking forward to that :)
Monday, November 21, 2011
Prehistoric day ❉ Urmenschentag
Only two days after my arrival in Blankenburg I took part on a trip to sand caves, where kids form the 5th classes acted like prehistoric people, since this is the historic era they are dealing with this school year.
Many of them were wearing prehistoric costumes with fur and funny things.
We built around 6 groups and they then walked from place to place doing like prehistoric people did. So, real learning by doing took place in here.
On one place they painted the "caves", on the others they made their own accessories, or weapons and tools.
They also tried to build a "house" using only wood and string, we also prepared ourselves for hunting and made simple bread using our hands, water and flour. Finally all were rewarded with a bun and sausage and went home happily :)
This week I managed to work with some of the fifth graders and summarize all we did on that day together with means of pictures, writing and memories. Here you can see some of the posters they made... I say: nice!
The actually teachers played their roles really great! And since it was cold like hell, we were all delighted to stay near the fire and to warm up our frozen hands.
I really really loved those costumes the kids had!!! And no wonder they looked that good when the reward for the best ones was a 1 grade from history ;)
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