Stem-Changing Verb Posters

I bought a poster from Teacher's Discovery last year for the Hunger Games.  I love the books and movies, and I know my students are fans too, so it seemed like a cut poster to have in class.  Aside from having the German movie title, it also has three verbs conjugated in the present tense: gewinnen, leben, essen.  Overall, great poster that I've proudly had on display.

It took a year of this poster staring me in the face, though, for me to get a project idea.  I decided to have students come up with their own posters in the same style - picture, title and three verbs conjugated.

The first thing I had students do, before I even introduced the project, was answer the following questions:
* Was sind deine Lieblingsbücher?
* Was sind deine Lieblingsfernsehprogramme?
* Was sind deine Lieblingsfilme?
Students enjoyed sharing out their answers and comparing with classmates, and it was a great transition into the project.

Basically, for this project students had to create a "poster" for one of their favorite books, TV shows or movies.  Their poster had to have the name of the movie (bonus if they found the German version!), a picture from the movie AND three verbs related to the movie, fully conjugated.  Since we were working on Stem-Changing Verbs (and it is in the original poster, after all!), I required students to pick two regular verbs and one stem-changing verbs.

To give some variety, I had students pick different books, TV shows and movies - NO repeats within the class!  I then gave students time to work in the computer lab.  It was a good opportunity for students to use leo.org or beolingus to look up new verbs.

Obviously I had the poster hanging in my room as an example, but to further illustrate what I wanted students to be able to produce I made a few other examples:

Check out some of the projects students came up with!

  

  

 

Quick, in class project that was fun for students - they got some verb practice while getting to talk about their favorite movie.

- Frau Leonard

Product Review: Colors Bulletin Board Set

PRODUCT REVIEW: Food Colors German Bulletin Board Set (Teacher's Discovery)

Product Description: Blueberries, black olives, brown bread, green grapes, orange carrots, violet eggplants, red bell peppers, yellow bananas, white rice: it's all here in mouth-watering full color! Hit two major vocabulary topics when you talk about food and colors with your class. Hang this bulletin board set to reinforce color vocabulary and healthy eating! Nine 8 x 11-inch glossy pieces, heavy cardstock, not laminated. 

Cost: $19.95

Our county curriculum for German is based on Deutsch Aktuell 1.  The way it was laid out, we were teaching colors to level 1 at the END of the school year.  Can you imagine waiting four quarters and then, as the LAST unit, starting colors?  I saw these in the Teacher's Discovery catalog and thought it would be a great reference for students throughout the year before we actually got to the unit.  

I love them!  The pictures are great and they add a bit of color (duh!) to the classroom.  Since they don't come laminated, make sure you get that done before hanging them up!  I've found the students like having them as a reference before we cover colors.  

They're a little small (only the size of a regular piece of paper) - they're not necessarily easy to read on the opposite side of the classroom - but I like the size because it makes them less obtrusive and gives you more options in where to put them up.

My only complaint is that pink and grey are missing.  I like having the posters, so I ended up making my own food-related posters for them (see above).

Practicality: 4.5/5

Great as a tool for students before they learn the vocab, and great as a quick reference for after (especially with spelling).  Only took off some points because it's only really practical for level 1 - upper levels don't need to refer to them.

Accuracy: 4/5

Only taking off because they're missing colors I wish were included.  Everything that's there is accurate (though students do sometimes complain that there's green in the white picture...).

Fun: 5/5

I love the pictures and color.  Great classroom decoration!

Overall: 13.5 / 15 (90%)

I would *highly* recommend this product if you teach elementary or middle school, or if you teach lower levels of German in high school.  Definitely worth it!

If you're looking for other color-related displays that might be a little cheaper, here are two others:

- Colors Skinny Poster (see left): Teacher's Discovery has a poster that shows all the colors (even pink and grey which are missing in the set above).  Looks good, but my concern is that it might be too small.  I like the look but didn't purchase it because I already own the item above.  Cost of this poster would be $12.00

- Color Their World: This blog post at the Creative Language Class talks about how to make super easy (and cheap!) signs for colors by going to Home Depot or Loews and getting paint strips.  Liked this idea and shared it with some of the other teachers at my school.  Very creative!

- Frau Leonard

The Many Faces of Finn

Here is a huge chunk of how I spent my day today.  In between copies and meetings, you can't blame me for wanting to have some fun :)

This came about completely by accident.  I was on Facebook (because I'm productive like that) when I saw some Finn Your Face pictures.  I followed the Cartoon Network link to the pdf file that included all 24 faces that are part of their Finn Your Face campaign.  Admittedly, I saved the pdf and sort of forgot about it.

I happened to see the file again this week and got thinking... there are a lot of great expressions in here.  I tried to match up as many of them as I could with emotions like traurig, froh or böse.  I printed them out, made labels with both the German word (big, bold and center) and English word (small and to the side).  After backing them with construction paper and laminating them, I hung them up and made use of some otherwise awkward board space.

Overall, I'm happy with how it turned out.  It gives the room some color, provides vocab for a topic that never comes up in any of the units we cover, and is totally adorable.

The pdf for Finn Your Face is available for free online from Cartoon Network.  Finn and Adventure Time are copyright of Cartoon Network.

- Frau Leonard

Der Treueschwur

A printable display for your German classroom - the Pledge of Allegiance in German.  My students ask me for this every year if they have German during morning announcements.  Have this up as a reference and print make copies for your students to put in their binders.

There's a PDF version available for free on my Teacherspayteachers account - Der Treueschwur: The Pledge of Allegiance in German.

- Frau Leonard