1. Donnerstag

Fragen des Tages:

Was ist das? Das ist ein/e ________.

Was hast du? Ich habe ein/e/en_______.

Wo ist das Buch? Das Buch ist auf dem Tisch.

Welche Farbe hat das? Das ist ______.

Wie ist das Wetter?

Projekt des Tages:

Today the villagers will be creating their first reports, “die Nachrichten” und “der Wetterbericht.”

Up to this point, villagers have had little opportunity to creatively work with projects or sound editing. Today is the first day that the students begin to work on reporting. Each day there needs to be a weather report and a Waldsee news report produced. Different students should be responsible to produce a new one each day. These reports should be played throughout the day. These are the only two projects that need to be done each day.

Today’s curriculum puts emphasis on the acquisition of new vocabulary. The day will begin with the basic question, “Was ist das?” and later will move on to more complicated constructions using prepositions in the dative and accusative cases. Continue to constantly review the new and old language patterns while the villagers work on their projects later in the day. During project time is a great way for villagers to get one on one attention from a counselor since project groups will be smaller than the large group.

Der Plan fuer heute

1. Familie (45 minuten):

2 minutes: Group morning meeting.

3 minutes: With the villagers all sitting in a circle, go over a quick review of some of the patterns from the day before.

15 minutes: Begin with a review basic colors. Prepare note cards with a single color on one side. Show these cards to the villagers and ask them “Welche Farbe hat das?” The villagers should be able to answer these questions without much difficulty. Mix in light and dark colors. This will give the villagers an opportunity to practice using, “hell” and “dunkel.”

The next activity could potentially be messy so be sure to do this activity outside or some place that will be easy to clean up. This activity is called Muellsack. The primary goal of this activity is to teach new vocabulary and introduce the verb “haben.” This activity takes a little preparation, but is a fun way to teach new vocabulary.

Waldsee has a wide variety of little plastic fruits, vegetables, animals, and random toys that are perfect for practicing vocabulary. Collect 20 of these objects and put them in a plastic garbage bag. Boil a bag of spaghetti noodles and add them to the bag as well. Put other fun things in the bag such as pieces of paper, flowers, and anything else you think would be important for the villagers to learn. You’re trying to make the inside of the bag feel as disgusting as possible so the villagers are surprised when they have to put their hands in the “Muellsack!”

Before showing the bag to the villagers take an object in your hand and ask one of the villagers, “Was ist das?” If they don’t respond, tell them, “Das ist ein/e ____.” Repeat the question again. Pass the object around the circle until everyone has had a chance to practice using, “Das ist ein/e _____.” After villagers understand passing around the object and using “Das ist…,” introduce the verb “haben.” Give an example sentence by holding the object in your hand and stating, “Ich habe ein/e/en ____.” Pass it to a villager and ask them, “Was hast du?” Have them pass the object around the circle asking one another, “Was hast du?” and giving the correct answers using “haben.” You should explain to the villagers that the word “haben” takes the same endings for the different pronouns as the weak verbs you studied the day before. If villagers have a difficult time grasping the verb endings, show them a chart with the different conjugations of the verb “haben.”

Show the bag to the villagers and tell them that it is the garbage from one of the cabins. “Ich habe einen Muellsack.” Explain to the villagers that you want them to put their hands in the garbage bag and pull out an item. Do it once as an example. Pull out an object from the sack and state, “Ich habe ein/e/en _____.” Pass it to another villager and ask them, “Was hast du?” Have the villagers put their hands in the bag and pull out an object. After pulling out the object each villager should first ask you “Was ist das?” Tell them what the object is and then ask him/her, “Was hast du?” Wait for their answer. After this exchange has taken place, the next villager should get a chance to put his or her hand in the bag. Mix up the game by incorporating the different personal pronouns. Keep asking them questions. Always encourage villagers to ask the questions as well so they learn more than only the answering side of the dialogs.

15 minutes: Use these next fifteen minutes to introduce the two basic forms of reporting the villagers will be producing. The radio projects of the day are “die Nachrichten” (the news) and “der Wetterbericht” (the weather report). Begin the introduction to these reports with a review of the three parts of a report:

1. “die Anmoderation”

2. “die Mitte”

3. “die Abmoderation”

Ask the villagers what each of these consists of and ask them if they are pre-produced or read live on the air. It is important that villagers understand how to create a report before they start learning what different forms of reporting they will be doing.

News and weather reports are great beginning projects for all of the villagers to work on to practice editing their voice together with sounds or music. When doing the news or the weather report there is a strict outline for villagers to follow.

[SOMEWHERE HERE NEED REFERENCE TO INTEGRATING LANGUAGE PATTERNS]

Figure 3

The parts in between the “Anmoderation” and the “Abmoderation” are all pre-produced. The pre-produced middle is the actual news report. This consists of the villager’s recorded news “die Nachrichten,” mixed with standard news music that will be played each time a news report is played. This makes it easy for the listener to tell simply from the music being played, that the newest news is about to be played. Villagers should be properly taught that background music is intended to create an atmosphere and be a background to the actual report. The background music should not be too loud or else it may make it impossible to hear the actual report. As with the news report, a weather report follows the same guidelines.

Figure 4

The weather report music should be the same for each weather report, but different from the news report music.

As with all projects, villagers should first write out what they want to say in the report, practice it, then record. Everything written for a report should first be proof-read by a Waldsee Radio counselor before it is recorded.

You may want to make larger posters of Figures 3 and 4 to give the villagers a visual of what the report will look like.

10 minutes: [SOMEWHERE HERE REFERENCE TO INTEGRATING THE LANGUAGE PATTERNS, WITH FOCUS ON THE DAILY THEME] For the last ten minutes give each villager a chance to broadcast a pre-produced weather or news report. Present them with sheet of paper which looks something like Figure 5. This is the standard form for turning in a Waldsee Radio report. Don’t worry about teaching them how to fill one of these forms out yet. For now have them concentrate on how to understand such a sheet. The only part of this sheet which is read live on the air is the “Anmoderation” portion of the sheet. The rest is for his or her own information. Give the villagers experience in reading the “Anmoderation” off the sheet, then playing the clip. Have them end the “Wetterbericht” with the standard, “Das war ein Beitrag/Wetterbericht/ von (name). Sie hoeren Waldsee Radio 92,1.” This practice pre-produced “Anmoderationsblatt” should be one that you created ahead of time. Make it simple to understand and keep it short. Figure 5

1. Veranstaltungstunde (45 minuten):

5 minutes: Begin this meeting with a review of the phrases learned in the last meeting. Present objects to the group and practice using the phrases, “Was ist das?” and “Was hast du?” If they feel comfortable answering those questions, let them ask one another.

40 minutes: Break the villagers up into two different groups. One of the groups will work on a weather report and the other group will work on a news report. The more advanced villagers should be sent to work on the news report since it requires more skill in the language than the weather report.

Group 1: Die Nachrichten

[DAVID: SINCE WE ARE TRYING TO KEEP TO THE LANGUAGE LEARNED THUS FAR, AND REINFORCE THIS, WOULD BE BEST AT THIS STAGE TO FOCUS ON NEWS WITH PURE PRESENT TENSE, „HEUTE SPIELT WALDSEE FEUER GEGEN LAC DU BOIS....HEUTE ESSEN WIR ROULADEN ZUM MITTAGESSEN....HEUTE NACHMITTAG IN DER 2. VERANSTALTUNGSSTUNDE KANN MAN SKAT SPIELEN......THIS ALLOWS FOR PROGRESSIVE LEARNING BASED ON WHAT HAS BEEN LEARNED THUS FAR, NEWS WITH PRESENT PERFECT OR PAST CAN COME ON 2. MONDAY, THIS ALLOWS THEM TO BUILD UPON WHAT THEY KNOW] A news report CAN be written in the PRESENT TENSE, INTEGRATING THE LANGUAGE PATTERNS LEARNED THUS FAR. PRACTICING THE NEWS IN THE present perfect form WILL COME A BIT LATER…… The daily news report is an opportunity for villagers to practice their command over the past tense. Let the villagers brainstorm for a few minutes about what they want to put in their news report. Some suggestions to start off your news report are:

1. “Was haben wir heute gegessen?”

2. “Was gab es zu tun in der ersten/zweiten Veranstaltungstunde?”

3. “Welche Lieder haben wir heute gelernt?”

4. “Was ist in der Gesangsgeschichte geschehen?”

Villagers can also make up their own fake reports or get news from Germany. Together as a group write and record your first news report.

Group 2: Der Wetterbericht

While a news report puts emphasis on the past tense, the weather report will give villagers a chance to speak and write in the future tense. Introduce villagers to the auxiliary verb “werden.” Villagers may have a difficult time using the auxiliary verb “werden,” but what is most important is that they understand what it means, and that they are writing in the future tense. Along with the meaning of the auxiliary verb “werden” you should go over the basic conjugations for the different pronouns and also discuss the basic way to form a sentence using “werden.” The infinitive of the main verb in the sentence will be placed at the end when dealing with the future tense and “werden.” Here are some phrases to start your group off with:

1. “Morgen wird es Regen geben.”

2. “Morgen wird es eine Hochtemperatur von etwa ____Grad Celsius geben.”

3. “Morgen wird die Sonne scheinen.”

4. “Wir erwarten eine Tieftemperatur von etwa 11 Grad Celsius.”

5. “Die Tagestemperatur wird ein Hochtemperatur von etwa 29 Grad Celsisus sein.”

6. “Am Abend werden wir ein wolkenloese Himmel haben. Perfekt fuer eine Sternguckerei.”

Though these sentences should be given to the villagers, they should also be discussed. When writing these sentences, ask them to identify the verb and ask them why it comes at the end of the sentence.

You can explain this well by starting with the sentence, “Ich tanze.” Have the villagers make sentences such as those into future tense sentences using “werden.” Ask them for their ideas as well when it comes to what to write about in a weather report. Together as a group write and record your first weather report. If you have time at the end, practice sending broadcasting the report live over the radio.

2. Familie (45 minuten):

*It’s possible the news and weather reports may take longer than 40 minutes to put together. In that case, continue to finish the projects and push off the rest of the plan till later in the day.

5 minutes: Begin this session with a quick review of the newly learned vocabulary.

10 minutes: The purpose of this next exercise is to help the villagers begin to feel comfortable using location words answering the question “wo?”

Set up a table in the middle of the room. Set an orange in the middle of the table. Begin by asking the villagers, “was ist das?” After they give their answer ask them, “wo ist die Orange?” Before directly translating the phrase into English, attempt to describe to them what the meaning of the question is. Be creative!

Once the villagers understand the meaning of “wo ist die Orange?” teach them the different spatial prepositions: “vor,” “hinter,” “unter,” “auf,” “ueber,” “in,” “neben,” “an,” and “zwischen.” Place the orange in different places in relation to the table and ask for the appropriate answers.

For more advanced villagers, this is a great opportunity to introduce the dative case. Villagers should understand the many different ways to say “the’ in German. Each word in the nominative case can either be, “der,” “die,” or “das.” When answering the question “Wo ist das?” the noun following the spatial preposition will always take on the dative case for the definite article. (ex. “Das Buch ist auf dem Tisch.”) Have villagers practice by putting objects on top of other objects and saying where they are lying.

The main purpose of this exercise is for villagers to understand how to use the spatial prepositions. If they cannot grasp the concept of the dative case right away, it should not be forced upon them.

10 minutes: To further review the spatial prepositions, have the villagers play a game called Human Pyramid. Start by having all of the villagers sitting in front of you. Call up two villagers and have them kneel next to one another. Ask the larger group, “Wo ist Heinrich?” The group should then respond, “Heinrich ist neben Maria.” Call up another villager and have them kneel next to the original two villagers. Now you can practice the preposition, “zwischen.” Call up a fourth villager, have him or her kneel on the backs of two of the villagers. Now you can practice the preposition “auf.” Using all of the villagers and counselors see if you can build a gigantic human pyramid. When you have the pyramid formed, ask them “Wo ist _____.” They’ll find it amusing as they attempt to look where certain people are located and keep the pyramid together. Remember to put the lighter villagers on top and the larger villagers on the bottom. This makes for a lesser chance of an accident happening.

5 minutes: With the question “Was ist das?” still fresh in their minds, have the villagers stand in a circle and ask one of the villagers the name of a different villager, “Wer ist das?” The answer should then be “Das ist die Liese.” The answer to the question, “Wer ist das” is similar to the question “Was ist das.” Villagers should grasp this pattern fairly quickly. See if you can think up a fun and quick way to teach this concept. Otherwise, a quick five minute lesson where the villagers ask questions of one another is a good cool down exercise from the Human Pyramid game.

15 minutes: For the last fifteen minutes set up a game of Pictionary for the villagers. This game is simple to play and can be used to review many different things, radio vocabulary, spatial prepositions, and potentially the dative case. Bring five sheets of large paper. Hang one of them on the wall. Break the villagers up into two different teams. On little pieces of paper write sentences that indicate the location of something. For example:

“Der Computer ist auf dem Tisch.”

“Der Baer ist zwischen den Baeumen.”

“Das Mikrophon ist auf dem Boden.”

“Die Kinder sind in dem Studio.”

Come up with about ten to fifteen of these sentences. One of the villagers from Team A should come up and pick a piece of paper. He needs to draw the picture and have his or her team guess what the sentence is. The villager drawing is not allowed to use any words, but may use hand gestures and can draw anything that pertains to the sentence. If the team cannot guess the sentence in the allotted time frame, then the other team gets one collective guess to attempt to steal the point. A team receives a point for every correctly guessed sentence.

ADAPTATION?

3. Familie (60 minuten):

Use this fourth session to review all of the radio concepts and grammatical concepts the villagers have learned up till now. Break the villagers up into different groups and give them the opportunity to review different things. More practice on editing sound, being a DJ, or collecting “O-toene” is always useful.

For villagers that are completely comfortable with all the material covered up till now, they can make advertisements for the radio station. The radio station needs advertisement to let other villagers know they need to tune in. Use this time to let students be creative with advertising. They can come up with some of their own jingles to be played on the air, or make paper signs and design their own logos. The Waldsee Radio logo as it is on the “Presseausweis” was actually designed by a villager, but other logos were also developed and new logos can be created. Let them be creative!