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 :)

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

Wizer Me vs Google Classroom

Towards the end of the year, I started using Wizer Me to make digital worksheets for students. I work in a district that is 1:1 and had been previously been using Google Classroom and Google Docs to assign similar types of assignments. I think next year I will use a mix of both, as they each have their strengths and weaknesses. Here's what I've found out so far :)

Wizer Me vs Google Docs

Wizer Me: Pros Gives instant feedback to students for most question types Has a variety of question types (matching, sorting, tables, multiple choice, etc) Allows me to add videos into the worksheet Easy to see how well students did - I can see a list of names and their scores on the worksheet, then go into individual worksheets and see a specific student's work if necessary. There are questions that allow for more variation than just right/wrong - they have short answer questions and drawing questions! The drawing questions especially can be fun :) (Keep in mind, for these questions, students do not receive points until you manually go in and score it.) You can leave feedback on each individual activity. Looks great! They are visually very appealing. There's a Wizer Me community, so you can easily share your worksheets with other teachers AND find ones that others are using!

Google Classroom: Pros I can easily see who did/did not turn in the assignment I get notifications via email when students turn in assignments late Students can view their work, missing work, and deadlines easily and in one place You can view student work even if they don't turn it in I'm already using Google Classroom and the students are as well for all of their other classes - it's familiar, it's expected. Adding outside things (like Wizer Me) makes it harder for both me and students to keep track of.

Wizer Me: Cons Although it looks pretty, it's not always easy to find the worksheets I want. Lots of scrolling, lots of clicking. From my limited experience, the student side is even worse, with just a list of all their assigned worksheets with no real way to organize them. Connecting to your Google Classroom requires a paid account (along with other features). Some of the question items are difficult to figure out how to incorporate. Tables, for example - I tried to find examples of this in their online tutorials but never could figure out how it was supposed to be used. Since then, I've tried it out and played around with it and found a way to make it work for me. To see an example, click here - the first exercise uses a table. I have to manually go in and check for student responses... no big deal if students complete their work on time, but checking for late submissions can be tedious. If you don't have a paid account, your worksheets are automatically made public to everyone once you assign them to teachers. Keep track of your copyrights!

Google Classroom: Cons I have to load each student's assignment individually to see how they did. It's either that or assume they did the work because they turned it in. No automatic feedback - to give students answer keys, I leave notes in the comments... But I find students don't go back to actually look at the comments. Very limiting in the types of questions/activities. It has to be something students can type answers to, and often requires me formatting it in a way that makes it a.) easy for students to type their answers (i.e. lots of tables where on a traditional worksheet I could put a __________) and b.) obvious when students have put in an answer (so again, using tables or already setting the font to be bold, italics, a different color, etc.) If I notice a typo/mistake in a file but have already posted the file to the class, too late - even if I fix the file, students will automatically have the old version unless I take the file down and attach it again.  If you assign a PDF, prepare for the struggle of "It won't let me edit it" and "How do I attach a Kami file" etc.

Please do not look at this table and assume because the Wizer Me side is longer that I automatically like/dislike it more! As I said, both have their uses - it's just that since Wizer Me is newer to me and might be less familiar to readers, I have longer explanations. 

If you're on Wizer Me or are thinking about it, feel free to take a look through my worksheets. Not everything I've made is there (they will be... but it's hard to post things to your profile if haven't assigned it to students yet), but it can give you an idea of how I'm using it and what worksheets look like when they're completed.

If you use Wizer Me, how have you incorporated it into your classroom? What do your students think of it. If you haven't, do you think it's something you would consider doing?

- Frau Leonard

German Club: Club Activities

German Club didn't get to meet as often as we'd initially hoped to (thanks to snow days, midterms, HSA's, AP exams, and other scheduling problems).  We did, however, manage to throw some pretty awesome events that we'll hopefully get to do again next year.  

Deutschklub 2013-2014

Games

After our election and at another meeting later in the year we played some German games.  I have a couple board games from Germany (Monopoly and Scrabble), plus we sometimes play Settlers of Catan.  And there's always Skat and Mau Mau if you're looking for a card game.

Pfefferkuchenhaus

During our December meeting, students build Ginger Bread Houses.  I'm no ginger bread marvel, so we didn't bake anything ourselves - we purchased kits and students could use the kit to build a house.  There was an activity fee associated with it just to cover the cost of purchasing the kits.  Students had to pay ahead of time so that I knew how many kits to pick up.

We then had some teachers rate the houses based on stability, appearance and overall creativity, then awarded a winner for each category plus overall best.  The students had a lot of fun, but we did have some issues (one of the ginger bread kits had cracked pieces, the that group had to use what was left to make what they could).

Next year I think we might try a different tactic - instead of using the kits, we'll build them out of Graham crackers, honey, frosting, and candy.  Although not as culturally authentic, I think it'll take care of some of the problems we had this year.  It'll also be a bit more of a challenge and give the kids an opportunity to show off their creative side.

Fliegenklappe Tournament

Students love playing Fliegenklappe and the officers decided it'd be a fun club activity.  I created three Fliegenklappe boards, each with a large number of cognates.  We decided to go with cognates because we wanted the tournament to be open to students who maybe had never taken German before and we didn't want to discriminate against students in lower levels of German.  

We created a bracket based on how many students showed up.  Each round was best out of three - one word was called per board.  I tried to randomize the words as much as possible (both location on the boards and the words themselves) to keep it fair. 

I decided to buy a prize for the first and second place winners - an "engraved" fly swatter (I painted "Deutschklub 2013-2014" on it) and a toy pig (I'm big on pigs) for first place, and a toy pig for second place.  Our German Club president also donated a bag of gummy bears as part of our first place prize.

Students had a lot of fun with this one.  It's definitely a keeper for next year - not only is it easy to set up and fun for the kids, but it's also a free activity (this was right after the Pfefferkuchenhaus club meeting, which had a fee).

Musical Chairs

The students wanted to do something music related, but I told them just sitting around listening to music didn't count as a club meeting.  The officers decided that they would play musical chairs using German music. 

We had to move back all the desks to make room, and eventually I had to institute a "hands over your head" rule to avoid pushing.  You'd be surprised how rowdy high schoolers can get (I had no idea they'd be so in to musical chairs).  We did a few rounds and the winners got candy (as donated, once again, by our German club President).  

Brezeln

Because activities that involve food is what drives German club, the officers planned a pretzel baking day.  We reserved our school's Food and Culinary Sciences room and got some Auntie Em's pretzel baking kits.  

There was an activity fee of I believe $3 for a fair share of the pretzels.  We got two boxes of pretzel mix and made all of it - we divided the dough between the students who showed up.  Each student then made a pretzel with whoever much dough they had - some did small ones, others did one massive one.  

I would've loved to actually bake them, but because of time constraints we opted for the kits.  Timing wise it actually worked out quite well.

Spaghetti Eis

Another food activity with an activity fee.  We got big containers of vanilla ice cream, some strawberry sauce, and of course some sprinkles and tried to make Spaghetti Eis.  This was my first time trying to do this, so we weren't quite sure how to get the shape.  We used a potato masher I borrowed from a colleague.  I'm not sure if it's because the potato masher was on the older side, the ice cream was too cold or if it's just not the right tool for the job, but it was a bit difficult to get the ice cream into a spaghetti form.  Delicious, but we'll have to work on the execution (and maybe pair it with another activity).

Tie Dye

This one didn't have much of a connection to German culture, but the kids wanted to do it and put the event together.  We used the revenue from pretzels (there was a small profit margin, really just enough to fund this activity) to get a tie-dying kit.  Students had to bring in their own shirts, but we also had some extras students could be if they forgot theirs.  

A fun, messy activity but I don't know if I would do it again.  A shirt-decorating activity might work, but I think we'd have to use fabric paint and we'd put on German-related designs.  The tie-dye didn't really scream "Deutsch!"

Fussballspiel

As our final activity of the year, the German Club challenged the French and Spanish Clubs to a friendly soccer match.  With the World Cup starting, this seemed like a fun cultural connection for all three clubs.  Unfortunately, French Club declined the invitation, but Spanish Club was up for the challenge.

We reserved one of the gyms after school and one of the German club members brought in a couple soccer balls.  Because of the size of the gym and the number of students on each team, we played 5x5 plus a goalie.  The kids did a great job of reffing themselves - I was really just there to keep track of the time and score (and to make sure the kids were subbing out and staying hydrated - it was quite hot and humid in the gym).  

This was a lot of fun (and not just because German Club won) - the kids are already talking about next year's match up and getting French Club involved.  One of the Spanish teachers said we should have some sort of Field Day for the languages.  There'd be multiple activities and/or races and students could compete for their "country."  Basically, a mini-Olympics.

Other Activities

Here are some other activities that we didn't do this year but that we might try to do in the future.  

• Movie Night: We were hoping to do a movie event that's like an outdoor movie theater.  We were going to project the movie onto the side of the school and have a picnic as we watched.  The only real problem we had in setting this up was coming up with an appropriate German movie that could a.) could be viewed by all age groups and b.) would be of interest to the school population in general (instead of just German students).
• Schuhplattler: At some point I hope to have the students learn a basic slap dance that we could then perform at a school event.
• Oktoberfest: We always want to do an Oktoberfest related event, but we still haven't pinned down exactly what we want to do.  We might move the Brezel cooking to Oktoberfest or try the Schuhplattler then.
• Wurst and Kaese Tasting: French Club does cheese tasting, so this seems like a great opportunity for our students to come together for a joint activity.  This is something I think students will like - food and culture are usually a great mix.
• Schultüten: Because we started the club so late in the school year, we missed the chance to do this.  I found some Schultüten available on Teacher's Discovery.  I got a set of 24, perfect as a first meeting activity at the beginning of next school year.

Deutschklub: End of the Year Gift

As a special thanks to the members of German Club, I made copies of the club picture and gave one to each of them.  It was just a little something to show I appreciated their participation and energy in making this year's German Club a success.  Students seemed to like them - it was a nice treat to end the year right :)

I'm always interested in suggestions for other activities - if there are any events that you do with your German Club, please share!

- Frau Leonard