Ostern in Deutschland

This year as I continue to adjust to my new role as a middle school language teacher, I've been taking a cue from my department members and use holidays and crafts to engage student interest. The latest installment: Ostern!

I started with a bulletin board at the beginning of the month. I included some Easter egg decorations ad well as some facts about German traditions. And of course, all the decorations are "hanging" in an Osterbaum :)

As we got closer to the holiday, I had activities for both my 8th and 7th grade classes. I only did one day worth of activities for the 7th graders on our last day before break. For 8th graders, we did two days.

Eight graders learned about Easter traditions in more detail (using the bulletin board, a Kahoot, and a Deutsche Welle article), and then decorated some Ostereier.

Students then hung up their eggs around the classroom. I did initially give them relatively free reign, but that just lead to lone eggs, which doesn't really convey the whole Osterbaum idea. I ended up moving them to two main locations and in the future I would give students one specific area. My original plan was to have a tree made out of construction paper hanging on the wall outside my room, but I'd recently hung up some student work and didn't have the room. Next year!

All classes did an Easter egg hunt on the last day before our break. I broke students into groups, each with a color assigned. I bought about $4 worth of plastic eggs from Target to use - I think I ended up with six different colors, eight eggs each. Groups took turns looking for their color eggs around the room, collecting them at their desks.

Each egg had a slip (or a couple slips) of paper inside. For 7th grade, they had spring related vocabulary words - they had to match the vocabulary with pictures; for 8th grade, they had sentence fragments that they had to put together. When a group had found all their eggs and used all their words correctly, they brought up their finished work to trade in for candy.

I color coded student papers so each group a.) knew who was in the group and b.) knew what their color was. I didn't want any issues with students not

When students were done, they helped fill the eggs for the next class. They also got to hide them for the next class, a task which they very much enjoyed! Their only guidelines: the eggs had to be in plain sight, somewhere people could see them without having to touch anything, just by walking around the room (i.e. not under things or inside cabinets). I had my last class of the day hide them for the first class a day ahead of time so no group was left out.

I also like to have a Selfie Station for holidays. I have a holiday-related decoration up on my door window. Students stand inside the room and look outside, then someone outside the room takes their picture - this time students would look like the Osterhase in their pictures.

Note: I will have my materials available via Teachers Pay Teachers within a few days! I know that will be too late for this year, so I wanted to post early enough that anyone with classes later this week could try to incorporate some of these activities. I should also have more pictures up soon! (I also tend to post more pictures on our class Instagram account!)

What holiday celebrations do you bring into the classroom? Do you do anything for Ostern?

- Frau Leonard

Ampel Check-In

This is actually an extension of an earlier post I did on the same topic - using this Ampel / Stop Light system to have students check in mid-unit to self-assess their understanding.

I started using a more general check-in, no specific tasks listed. Just a quick self-reflection on how they're doing with the material and a short sentence completion to identify specific things they have issues with or think are easy. It's general enough that I can reuse the same slide for multiple topics.

I used large flashcards and gave one to each student with their name already on it. On their card, they identified where they were with the topic (Modal Verbs in this case) and wrote their sentence. I had three colored envelops on the board, and they put their flashcard in whichever color applied to them.

I then went through the cards and answered the questions students had in the Red section, helped clear up things/give tips for students in the Yellow section, and did a quick read through of the Green section to make sure they seemed to be on the right track. I then gave the cards back to students the next day (shuffling them first so no one would be able to tell what color they'd initially used).

I also used a highlighter to mark where they'd put their card, just for future reference. The plan is to use this system for the rest of the year as a check-in, using the same cards until they get filled up. It opens up communication with students and lets me keep track of students mid-way through a unit. It's also a good point of conversation for students who initially said they did understand but don't perform well on assessments - did they really not understand? what are their study methods? do they have anxiety during quizzes?

So far so good, though admittedly I've only used it once so far :)

- Frau Leonard

Things Every Teacher Needs in Their Desk

This isn't about teaching strategies or anything like that - this is way more practical. It's the type of thing you usually learn after years of experience, but it's something everyone needs to consider whenever they get a new classroom: what do you need to keep in your desk?

Obviously there are school supplies like pens, pencils, post-its, and all that. That's a completely different thing from what I'm talking about right now. I mean things that you personally might need during the school year for surprise or emergency situations.

So in no particular order, here are things I try to keep in my desk:

• Deodorant
• Brush/Comb
• Mirror
• Change of Clothes (I have spilled coffee on myself twice this year...)
• Cell Phone Charger
• Box of Bandaids (I have also cut my hand open twice from paper clips this year...)
• Non-perishable snack items (instant soup, chips, cliff bars, candy, etc)
• Water Bottles
• Gum/Breath mints
• Blanket/Sweater
• Advil (or equivalent)
• Cough Drops
• Chapstick
• Hair Ties
• Pads/Tampons
• Thumb Drive (kind of work related, but sometimes you need a way to transfer files/print things/whatever)

Are there any items you keep on hand just in case?

- Frau Leonard