Roman Clothing & Paper Dolls

Throughout our main Latin topics where we build vocabulary, learn grammar, and read Latin texts, I frequently bring in different mythological and history topics to help students get a better understanding of the Ancient Romans. Aside from taking notes, I also try to build in something more interactive where students get to interact with the history/culture so it feels more relevant to them. 

One of the recent historical topics we've done is Roman Clothing (you can find my presentation on my TpT account). While we've occasionally done toga parties where we dress up in Roman clothing, recently I started using these paper dolls with students.

Students decorate a femina and vir using the cutouts. While I loved paper dolls as a kid and these drawings are absolutely fantastic, I made a digital version of this activity to avoid cutting out all the pieces. Students can click/drag the items they need onto the people, then I print out a copy that they can decorate. 

And then we tie in Latin! Students write Latin sentences that describe their people. I use this with my 8th grade Latin 1 students, so our sentences stick to present tense, third person, and we use Nominative & Accusative cases. I also give a lot of help with the word order/structures - you'd be able to adjust as needed for your students.

If you're interested in doing these activities with your students, click here for a copy of the digital paper dolls with directions and click here for a copy of the sentence worksheet I give students. 

How do you try to incorporate Roman history into your Latin classes? Do you also tie in Latin writing?

- Magistra Leonard

Cultural Maker Spaces

I was planning out some blog posts on a couple end of year units I do with my seventh graders. They're awesome units (imho) that the students really enjoy and that I look forward to all year... but as I started writing those blog entries for our Cultural Maker Spaces program, I realized... I never explained what this unique program is that we run in our Middle School Exploratory program.

I actually presented this program at the 2023 Fall MFLA conference - you can view the presentation here. It links some activities we do in our German, Latin, and Spanish Maker Space units :)

What is Cultural Maker Spaces? 

Think of Maker Spaces that you've seen in your school or district: a place for students to collaborate, to build things, to explore and investigate real world problems. That's what we do, but with a focus on tying in language and culture. Students are given an issue that relates heavily to the target culture, learn more about that topic along with new vocabulary, and then at the end they show their knowledge by designing and creating... something. That something depends on the specific project we do.

What are the units?

We have time for two projects!

All three languages do one identical project: water. We each take a different spin on it - for French, they look at access to water in French-speaking African countries, for Spanish they look at Mexico City and how it's sinking, for German it's about Umweltschutz - but we all look at water usage and conservation. We explore our own water consumption and access, making comparisons to the people in the TL culture. At the end, we investigate household and natural items that could be used to filter water collected from rivers, lakes, etc. Students 

For our second project, we all do something different that's focused more on that language. I can't speak to what the French or Spanish classes do, but I do something crazy - I do a Latin project :) It helps expose the students to another language during their exploratory year, 

How are the units structured? 

Phase One: General Intro. We learn vocabulary and do a general look at the culture. For example, in the water unit we learn about bodies of water in German-speaking countries and start our vocab list. anchoring it within a familiar framework"

Phase Two: The Issue. We look into the cultural/historical aspects for the specific issue the project is based around. For Latin, we look at the Roman Military. contextualizing the unit

Phase Three: Construction. Students learn specifics about the final project. We incorporate necessary STEAM skills (sometimes this is engineering principals, math knowledge, etc).

Why do we do Maker Spaces?

I currently work at a district that runs an Exploratory Language program in 7th grade. Students rotate through three languages - currently French, Spanish, and Latin - so they can get a taste for the language and culture before deciding which language they would like to continue in 8th grade. It's a great program for a lot of reasons I won't get into, but we were having an issue a few years ago. 

Three rotations means dividing the year into three, which is messy for a school year already divided into quarters. Because of the timing, students would typically only get to sample two of the three languages before deciding on their schedules for the next year. That meant that third language, whichever it was, never got a fair chance. Students were unengaged when they arrived at that third language because they'd already picked something else. They were mentally checked out, at a time of year that's already challenging to keep seventh graders focused. 

So the World Language Department came up with a plan: we would do four rotations to align with the four quarters. The first three rotations would be their usual Exploratory program - intro to each of the three languages - but in the fourth one, we would do Maker Spaces. This way students would still get to sample all three languages (with the added benefit of doing so BEFORE scheduling), and then during that end of the year stage where students get squirrely, we'd have fun, engaging projects to dive deeper into language and culture. And voila! Cultural Maker Spaces was born :)

Gap Speaking Activities

One of my favorite activities to do with students early in a unit are Gap Speaking Activities. There are a lot of ways to do Gap exercises - exercises where students are missing a piece of information and have to communicate with a partner to fill in those gaps - but I like to throw in some visuals when we do these. This gives students the information they need to help their partner without giving them the specific language/words - instead of blindly reading out what their paper says, potentially without knowing what it means, they have to process the information in the TL first before they can convey it. I always have the listener completing a task as well, so there's accountability and a specific goal to focus on as they work.

Set-Up: 

1. Divide students into pairs. One partner faces the front of the room where the board is, the other faces the back of the room. The student facing the front of the room will be answering questions based on what they see on the board; the student facing the back will ask questions and complete their worksheet based on what their partner says. 
   
   
2. Once students are set up, display the information on the board and let students work through the activity. Walk around to assist with vocab/language structures and to monitor how much time students need. Don't wait until all groups are done, wait until most have finished.
   
   
3. Let students turn around to view the material on the board. Groups that didn't finish can quickly get the material they need. Groups that did finish can discuss other ways to express the information on the board.
   
   
4. Students switch seats. Students now complete the same activity but with different information on the board, letting them practice both roles.

It can take a little time to explain the setup to students the first time, but as they do more of these throughout the year, they fall into the rhythm easily. These activities are quick ways to work in some speaking/listening practice on a variety of topics, and depending on how structured your worksheets for students are, it's a good scaffolding technique to build practice with basic sentence structure.

Example Topics/Activities: 

• Verbs/Hobbies: There are pictures of different hobbies on the board. Students ask what each person is doing and their partner answers based on what they see. Students record the information by writing in complete sentences, practicing basic word order.
  
  
  
  
  
• Faces/Physical Descriptions: There are pictures of faces on the board that students describe to their partner (eye color, hair color/length, big/small nose, scars, tattoos, etc). Their partners draw the faces based on the descriptions.
  
  
• Clothes: There are pictures of different outfits on the board. Students ask what each person is wearing and draw the outfit based on the description (which articles of clothing, colors and patterns).
  
  
  
  
  
• Cities/Giving Directions: Both students have a copy of a map. The student facing the board can see a path leading to a specific spot in town, and they give directions to their partner to help them reach that spot. The partner who's listening can trace the path along their copy of the map.

What type of Gap Activities do you do with your students? How do you think you could incorporate more visuals into your speaking activities?

- Frau Leonard

The Euro System

The Euro System is something I got from another German teacher in the Pittsburgh area. It's a system to encourage participation and student engagement, and here's my spin on it!

The gist of it: Students earn Euros throughout the school year. Each month they have a certain amount they have to collect and turn in. They can also save up extra Euros and use those for bonus points, homework passes, or bathroom passes. 

How they earn Euros: Volunteering in class, winning games like Gimkit or Kahoot, completing additional culturally themed assignments, working on Duolingo assignments, etc. I give activities like Cultural Themed Drills, give Wizer Me's that take a cultural topic we briefly touch on in class and allow them to investigate it deeper, extra language drills for the grammar focused kiddos, attending community events like Oktoberfest at a local restaurant, or maybe have them post German-related memes they've created to their social media. 

Why I do it: It helps hold students accountable for their learning. They're more engaged with participation, with seeking out the language and culture outside of what we do in class. All of these activities are otherwise optional, but the Euros help encourage students to become engaged and pursue their interests outside of class (or to participate in class).

How many Euros: This fluctuates from month to month. I start them at €35 in September when we start school and slowly increase it each month. By the time we hit may, it's up to €60 (and then back down to €20 in June). The amounts you collect might change because of snow days or because of the dynamics of your class. I know the teacher I got the idea from had her students earning somewhere near €75 by the end of the year, but I found that quota too high for the groups I work with. 

What do they look like: I printed a bunch of colorful Euros. I didn't do a good job matching them with the actual colors of Euros - it was more what colors I had handy when I made them. I started with a whole bunch of €5 notes that I used when I started, which was perfect for that particular class, but then the next year I had to create the larger notes because I had some students who went above and beyond and wanted to trade in for larger bills.

How can I start: Here are some links to some of the resources I use for myself and students...

• Five Euro Notes
• Larger Euro Notes
• Das Euro System: reference for students and letter home

How do you motivate students to participate in class? How do you get them motivated to engage with the language and culture outside of school?

- Frau Leonard

Themed Cultural Drills

For our level 1 students, my department does daily drills that each focus on a different theme. This is something they started doing last year and I loved the chance it gives me to tie in things that we normally wouldn't get to address because of time constraints. We get a quick look at cultural topics like food and music that can spark student interest so they can investigate further on their own. 

My themes are: 

• Musik Montag: Students listen to a German song and look at the lyrics
• Denkmal Dienstag: Students learn about a monument or building in a German-speaking country
• Mensch Mittwoch: Students learn about a famous German-speaker
• Kunst Donnerstag: Students look at a famous painting
• Essen Freitag (Food Friday): Students learn about a German dish and look at the recipe 

Each day has specific questions related to that topic, as well as links and resources for students to investigate on their own. 

The questions and resources are in English. These are my Level 1 students and I want this to encourage them to investigate the culture vs find the language as a barrier to their interests. My hope is that it will get students engaged based on their own interests and that will get them engaged with the language. I've always noticed that students who have a personal interest in a city, the history, the food are more likely to continue on with the language - they have that travel bug growing inside them that will motivate them :)

I have these as an optional activity for students, something they can do for Euros (I don't think I've written a post about the Euro System I use for participation yet - I'll have to do that next!). This gives students even more freedom to pursue the topics they like while giving them just enough of a nudge to do it. I find some students do all five every week because they want the Euros, and I have others who will only do their preferred topic of music, food, or whatever they like best. 

If you're interested in learning more, click here for a copy of the first week I did (and of course check out Slidesmania for the template I used to create these!) - you'll be able to see my questions and use this as a template if you'd like to use or modify the idea! 

How do you bring culture into the classroom? Do you feel that you do it enough?

- Frau Leonard

Cultural Maker Spaces: Medien in Deutschland

This year our department got the opportunity to revise our 7th Grade Flex curriculum. Instead of doing three 12 week rotations, we transitioned to four 9 week rotations. That means every students gets all three languages. (French, German, Spanish)... BUT we still had 9 weeks leftover at the end of the year to fill.

We decided to create three projects per language on the theme of Cultural Maker Spaces, one of them focusing on Media so that we could use our school's green screen and video/audio gear. While that didn't exactly pan out, we were still able to implement the project via distance learning and have students create some awesome projects while expanding their German vocab and cultural awareness.

Part One: Media Investigation
We started the project with a general look at media in German-speaking countries. I collected different examples of media - weather forecasts, news reports, gameshows, cooking shows, interviews, etc - for students to investigate. Here's the Padlet of the resources I collected for students!

They completed a Media Investigation Sheet to show what types of media they chose to look at, any major differences/similarities between German and American media, and they selected the topic they planned on pursuing for the rest of the project.

Part Two: Choice Board & Planning
Students now considered different media-related topics and decided which one they officially wanted to do for their project. They received a choice board with a variety of examples and decided on one that worked best for them.

Based on student confusion and questions that came up during our distance learning, I've added an additional part of this phase that I'll include next year. They'll at this point decide on their group members (3-5), their topic, AND what they think their final product might look like. I created this simple planning guide to help them make some of these decisions now so they could focus on that while moving forward.

(If you like this template, please check it out at SlidesMania and take a look at their other templates - they're really awesome and a great way to visually improve any activity!)

Part Three: Vocab Planning
We invested a lot of time in this next phase of the project. They know their topic and what they plan to create, and now they have to build their vocabulary to get them there. I had them brainstorm 15 new German words related to their topic that they thought would be useful. I also recommended they break those 15 words down into 5 nouns, 5 verbs, and 5 adjectives to make sure they'd have the right building blocks to create complete sentences and the type of descriptive details they'd need.

I also tried out a Jamboard to have students work together and help other classes brainstorm vocabulary for the same project topic. Unfortunately we had some issues with the actual Jamboard (we couldn't get the access working for students to add comments), so I had to the same idea but with Google Slides.

Here's a blank copy of the Slide Show. Each topic had its own slide and I tried to post some some images, links, and/or vocabulary phrases to help get them started. Students could post comments with additional resources and vocabulary they found to help support their classmates.

Part Four: Sentence Building
In previous units, we had worked on vocabulary but not a whole lot on the sentence building aspect. They had new words but what were they going to do with them? How were they going to tie it all together?

We did a NearPod lesson where we talked about creating basic sentences - the word order we'd use, the parts of speech we'd need (in direct relation to our vocab planner!), the verb endings, etc - and then practiced with familiar vocabulary. I did NOT do this (though I wish I had!) this time, but I also put in an activity where students write their 15 words on slips of paper and arrange those papers into sentences. This gives them a good visual on how to put things together, to double check that they're using all their words, and blank slips of paper give them the flexibility to add new words they discover they need!

Part Five: Project Time!
Students now had the tools they needed to create projects on their own or in groups. Because we were doing this via distance learning, I had check-ins every other day where students updated me on their progress and asked questions as needed. You can see some examples of student work on this Padlet!

When students submitted their final project, they also had to rate themselves in this rubric. They rated themselves in the Self-Evaluation portion and then I viewed their products and graded them in the Teacher Evaluation. Our scores combined to give them their final grade.

If we were in school doing this as a group project, there would have been a teamwork component to their grade or a separate rubric where they rated their team members. Since 95% of my students did NOT work with a partner, I didn't develop that rubric/rating sheet.

Step Six: Reflection
Their last piece was a Reflection where they considered what they learned and how they did with the project, as well as offering suggestions to me on how to improve it for future classes.

I wish I incorporated more reflection after projects and assessments in general, so it was a top priority to include it for this one! We've spent about four weeks working through the various steps, and it seems a fitting transition to consider their work on this unit before moving onto our next and final one this week.

Please note: I did not create the rubric or reflections from scratch. Our department head found them earlier this school year and I've since modified them for this project. If you know where they were posted please let me know so I can link back to the original!

How do you incorporate projects and student choice into your units? How often do you use choice boards for projects?

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! ❤️ Hope everyone's having a good end to this chaotic school year!

- Frau Leonard

Early Finishers Table

As is usually the case, I saw something on Twitter that I thought would be a great addition to my classroom!

I had an extra table in the back of my room that didn't get a lot of use, so I put out a bunch of German games and activities that we don't necessarily get to use in class. Any time a student finishes all of their work and there's still time in class, they can head over to play one of the games or do one of the activities.

I dug through my cabinets to find as much as I could to tempt students, including...

Uno! Complete with vocab help so they can play auf Deutsch.

 

Card games we sometimes use in class including: Pit, Apples to Apples (food vocab), Was memest du?, Trumpfspiel: German cities. The orange cards are a vocabulary game I got a while ago from Teacher's Discovery (on clearance, so no link).

Some authentic German games I have: German Scrabble, Black Stories, Werewolf. 

 

There was unfortunately some graffiti on my walls by this table which I couldn't remove, so I put up some construction paper where students can write on instead. 

German books that students can look or read through. 

I also found and printed out some German-themed coloring pages. 

Students also have access to Duolingo and Gimkit assignments if they would rather do a computer based game instead.

Do you have any activities in place for students who finish their work early? 

- Frau Leonard