Pitch-in German Breakfast

Our current unit in German 1 is all about food.  Everyone likes talking about food, and of course high school students like to eat food even more!

My students had been asking to have German food in class, and I decided the two days before spring break would be a good time to do it.  

I'm pretty big on having activities like this be things that students plan and contribute to rather than something that I do for them.  So, about a week and a half before spring break, we watched this video for inspiration:

Then, I asked students

It gave us a chance to practice both "möchten" (would like), which we had just learned, and food vocabulary.  

We came up with this list in my M3 class

I explained to students that I would provide Brötchen and Nutella and they could sign up for things they wanted to bring.  Students who didn't want to/couldn't bring anything would be able to help out by washing some of the dishes afterwards.

I gave the M4 class, which meets after lunch, the option of having Kaffee and Kuchen instead of breakfast, but they opted for breakfast too.

All three classes ended up having a good variety of foods, and almost everyone remembered to bring things in on the day.  We ate and watched part of the Sound of Music, since we're talking about Austria right now.  

When students had finished eating, I asked one student from each table group of four who had not brought anything in to clear the dishes and trash from his or her table and follow me to the world languages office, where we have a sink for washing dishes.  I showed them the supplies and let them do the washing.  No one had to do very much, and everything was cleaned up by the end of class.  And I wasn't exhausted by the end of the day - I'd call that a win!