Friday Fun: Speed Dating, 4 in a Row, and Quizizz

We're really into the semester now, and both German 1 and 2 have some big quizzes and tests coming up, so Friday was dedicated to fun ways to get students reviewing and practicing.

German 2 tried Past Participles Speed Dating for the first time  

and played 4 in a Row

Both activities got thumbs up from students and got them actively practicing past participles, kennen, and wissen.

German 1 has their next unit test coming up, and we played Quizizz to review:

All in all, it was a good Friday.

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Backe, backe Kuchen

I love to bake!  And I really enjoy doing it with my students when we have the chance.

This year one of my sections of German 2 is Block 3 with C lunch, which means that class is from 11:35 - 12:55 with lunch at 12:55.  Which means that we are all hungry during class.  Which means that we talk about food a lot!

I promised this class that sometime soon I would schedule a baking tutorial so that we could bake in tutorial and eat in class. (Tutorial is our intervention/enrichment period, which meets right before Block 3 for 40 minutes.)  Naturally, they were all in.  

Of course we had to sing "Backe, back Kuchen" for the students who hadn't learned it last year.

Most of the students who participated were from the section of German 2 which meets right after tutorial and before lunch, but it was open to everyone, and some German 1 students and students from other sections attended.  

Since the cake wouldn't be done until after tutorial, I promised students who weren't in my Block 3 class that we would save them a piece of Kuchen that they could pick up before Block 4.

We used a very simple recipe for Apple Streusel Cake, which I found online: https://platedcravings.com/wprm_print/4265 

I divided the students into three groups: one for the dough (it was Throwback Thursday for Homecoming week)

one for the apple filling

and one for the crumble topping. 

And they really took it from there - I didn't have to do much more!  

I even had two very enthusiastic dish washers!  

The cake was done baking during Block 3 and cool enough to eat by the end of class.  Delicious!

It was a definite success, and not especially stressful or tiring for me - also a plus.  

Students asked to do this every week.  I don't think I'll be able to pull that off, but we definitely will do it again!

Clothing, Nouns and Cases

German 2 finished up their first unit, Feste Feiern, and took their test on Wednesday.  Results were fantastic - 88% average across my three classes.  I'm proud of their hard work!

Now we're on to Kleidung (clothing).  Students started the day on Friday with coloring.  

Life is good when you get to color in German class on a Friday.  One of my students told me, "I love you, Frau Swank!"  I warned her that she might not love me as much by the end of class...  

Some of my students wanted to color for the whole class, but I was not going to pass up an opportunity like this to talk about article and adjective endings!

We looked at the sentences in detail, observing how the article and adjective endings changed in the accusative case depending on the gender and number of the clothing item.  

Then, students had the information they needed to describe one item of clothing they were wearing, such as

If they struggled, they just needed to look at the sentences below.  I love it!

Now it was time to flip over to the back and really review cases with my favorite example:

First we analyzed the English sentence, 

and reviewed how to figure out what's what in a sentence.  I emphasized that there aren't shortcuts - they have to understand the sentence and do the thinking.  (My student didn't love me quite as much at this point.)

We reviewed our articles charts

and finally wrote the sentence in German.

That was the end of our notes, and it was time to practice.  I've noticed that students are more willing to try difficult things with dry erase markers instead of pencil and paper, so I created 4 practice sentences that fit in page protectors for table group practice.

I heard some great conversations among students using words like direct object, indirect object, accusative case, and dative case.  It made my German teacher heart sing!

For some groups, those 4 sentences were enough of a challenge, and I didn't want to overwhelm them.  Other groups wanted to try level 2:

and even level 3:

This structure really let me differentiate and individualize.  (It is also wonderful that none of my German 2 classes has more than 24 students this year, so I can work with groups more individually without other groups getting off track and on to their cell phones!)

Students finished up with work time for their assignment:

with one of these two pictures on the back:

Here are my files:

     Nouns and Cases Review Notizen

     Cases Review for Dry Erase Pockets

     Nouns and Cases Review Worksheet 

Past Participle Practice with Leo sagt

A huge part of German 2 is learning the past tense.  The Perfekt, or conversational past, is formed using a helping verb and past participle.  Many verbs have a regular past participle which is formed following a rule.  

But of course there are exceptions.  And the tough truth is that students have to memorize the past participles of irregular verbs.  It's not always exciting, but it is essential for future success.

To try to make it a little more fun, we've played 4 in a Row and done past participles speed dating in the past.  This year, I tried a new game, Leo sagt (Leo says).

Like so many other good ideas I get, it comes from the #MtBoS (Math Teacher Blogosphere).  Sarah Carter at Math = Love has blogged about playing Slope Dude Says with her algebra students.  It's Simon says, but for math and about slope.  

Translated to German class, it becomes Leo sagt.  Leo is our beloved German online dictionary dict.leo.org.  It is our go-to source for looking up all things German, including plural forms of nouns and past participles of verbs.  Here's how it works:

Leo (me) says a verb, and students move their arms to indicate what category of past participle the verb has.

And, of course, if Leo doesn't say it, we don't do it.  

The first class I tried it in was very enthusiastic, which helped since I tend to be a bit nervous when trying new/silly things, and it went great in all 3 classes!  We did a few practice rounds and then the competition began.  If a student got it wrong, s/he sat down.  They were very good about being honest and policing themselves.  Eventually we got down to one person left, who received a German flag temporary tattoo as a prize.  

Definitely a winner.  Now we just have to see how the Perfekt quiz goes next week...