Saturday, October 26, 2019

Math Puzzles for my German Students

Because why not?

I love logic puzzles and think they are great for students to promote playful, logical thinking and problem solving.

The amazing Sarah Carter of Math = Love very generously shares puzzles that she uses in her classroom on her blog, and I've found time to print out two so far and put them in my room for students when they have a spare minute or two.

The first one is the A+ puzzle, which can be really tricky unless you approach it in the right way.


Then I added in the 1-4-5 Square Challenge.


Of course, I put it right by my Deutsch macht Spaß sign!

I think it's about time to rotate out the A+ puzzle and bring in a new one - as soon as I find the time!

Saturday, October 12, 2019

Weltschul Maus - Kleidung enrichment for Deutsch 2... and a request


As promised last week, here is the Enrichment activity for Deutsch 2 focusing on the topic of clothing in the Sendung mit der Maus Welt-Schul video. 




This time I focused in more detail on the first 10 minutes.  Students need to write complete sentences describing the different school uniforms worn by the children in different countries.  My students worked on it yesterday, and the level seemed good for them.

This is such a great video!  There are so many things you can pull out of it - clothing, languages, weather, transportation to school - and it's really accessible even at the beginning levels.

And, readers, now a request from you:  Could you please leave a note in the comments about which German textbook you use in your school?  We are entering textbook adoption season and embarking on the eternal quest for the perfect German textbook.  What do you recommend or not recommend?  Danke im Voraus!

Saturday, October 5, 2019

Weltschul Maus - Enrichment for Deutsch 1

Die Sendung mit der Maus had a great new episode recently which works perfectly for enrichment for my German 1 Schule unit.  (Have a I mentioned lately how much I love Die Sendung mit der Maus?)


It's a fairly long video  - 23 minutes - for German 1 in the target language at the beginning of the year, but so much of it is understandable from the videos that I feel like they can handle it.  I also have a strong German 1 class this year, and I really want to challenge the students who are doing well.

Ralph visits schools in 10 other countries and spends a day with a student in school in each one.  There are so many great topics you could focus on, but I was mainly trying to get my strong students to try watching a show in the target language and realize how much they are able to understand.  I created a short worksheet to go along with the video, mainly just to hold the students accountable for watching all of it:




I plan to use this same video as enrichment for German 2 at the end of their Kleidung unit, focusing on the uniforms worn by many of the children.  I'll post it to my blog once I make it!