Accusative Prepositions

German 1 is learning Accusative Prepositions this unit.  We started with some guided notes reviewing the accusative case in general:  (Yay for Color with Purpose here!)

And then moved on to the 7 accusative prepositions and their meanings:

To help students remember these prepositions, I offered two options:  a song, to the tune of Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head, which I learned this year from my student teacher, Matthew Hurley.  Matthew is much more musically talented than I am and kindly offered to sing the song for students in all three of my German 1 classes.

The other option is a mnemonic device: FUDOG, which according to Herr Antrim, is a Chinese mythical being which is half dog and half lion:

Click here to get a copy of the Guided Notes.

Accusative Pronouns Foldable

Our current unit in German 1 has a lot of important grammar structures in it:  We've already learned modal (helping verbs) and the imperative (command) form, and the topic for this week was accusative prepositions and pronouns.  

We learned the seven accusative pronouns on Tuesday (I should probably write a separate blog post on that...) and on Thursday I wanted students to review and practice those as well as learn the accusative pronouns.  

Whenever we're doing something with pronouns, my go-to foldable is a Shutterfold 6 flap because it works so well for first, second, and third person singular and plural.

As their Macht jetzt (Do Now/Bell Work), students cut out their foldable and wrote the nominative personal pronouns on the outside of the flaps:

We've been working with these most of the year, so this went smoothly, and we were ready to review to the uses of the accusative case in guided notes.

Then, we opened up the flaps and added in the accusative forms of the pronouns:

One the back sides of their notes, students completed some examples of accusative case with nouns and with pronouns.  We did the first few examples together, and then students worked on the rest independently.

Click here for a copy of the notes and foldable.

4 in a Row for Adjective Ending Practice

Overheard in my classroom today while doing practice exercises on adjective endings:

• "If I win, I'm going to take this game board home and frame it."

• "I like this game!  I really like this game!"

• "No, we both got it wrong because it's the genitive case..."

• "Nooooooooooooo!"

• "I'm pretty sure I know how to do this because I'm winning."

• "Be a man and write down an answer."

• "We gotta use some strategy here."

Adjective Endings is one of the really difficult grammar topics in German for English speakers.  My third year students were introduced to the topic last year but are reviewing it now.  It's the kind of thing they need to practice, practice, practice, but there are only so many times I can give them a worksheet on it before there's a revolt.

So, today, I suggested to my student teacher that we try Sarah's Four in a Row Review Game (which was inspired by Fawn Nguyen).  It took a little time to explain the process since it was the first time we'd done it, but once students understood how the game worked, they were off and running and having a great time playing and working through challenging practice exercises.  

Any time I can get students excited about practicing adjective endings, it's a win.  Thank you, Sarah, Fawn, and #MTBoS for the idea!  

It went so well in German 3/4 that I'm going to try it tomorrow with German 1 to practice imperatives (commands).  We'll see how it goes with them...

UPDATE: I'm happy to report that the game was a success also in my German 1 classes on a Friday afternoon!  The biggest challenge with German 1 was that some groups finished quite quickly, so I put a second game board on the back of their paper and encouraged them to do a second round.  Also, I had a few partnerships of two very strong students, and no one ever got a question wrong, so it ended in a draw.  They seemed fine with that outcome, though.  

Getting Ready for Fasching

Next Tuesday, February 9 is Faschingsdienstag (Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday) is German-speaking countries.  We took some time in all of my German classes this week to learn more about it and make plans to celebrate it on Tuesday during Tutorial (our remediation/enrichment period).

I was not at school on Thursday, so I used EDpuzzle to add questions to an English video about Fasching and Karneval traditions from Deutsche Welle for two of my German 1 classes.  Students watched the video on their own computers at their own pace and completed a worksheet with the questions.  

I was back at school on Friday, so I watched the original video (without the question pauses) and discussed it with my other German 1 class.  We then completed some guided notes about Fasching.

We made plans to celebrate with doughnuts, mask making, and a parade to the other world languages tutorials on Tuesday.  One of my students asked if she could bring her trumpet and play the school fight song for the parade.  She couldn't believe it when I said yes!

In German 3/4, we watched the video in German and completed basically the same guided notes.  

On my to do list between now and Tuesday: buy jelly doughnuts and gummy bears for the people in the parade to throw to the audience.  It should be fun!