International Night!

This week was all things Germany!  On Monday, we took our field trip with Mr. Kelly's class to Metzger's restaurant.  We tried Knackwurst, Bratwurst, Sauerbraten, Sauerkraut, Spaetzle, Schnitzel, German Potato Pancakes, German Potato Salad, and Apple Strudel.  Everything was delicious! Huge thanks to Stefanie Thomann for joining us on this trip, as well as lending us several items to add to our display for International Night!

2nd and 3rd grade buddies preparing our Germany display:

On Tuesday, we visited the First Presbyterian Church across the street to learn all about the pipe organ. This was the same instrument played by Bach, who the children have been studying in Music class as a part of our exploration of Germany.  We heard two pipe organs, learned how they worked, and got a chance to play a few notes ourselves.

This week we played a traditional German game called "Katz and Maus" (Cat and Mouse).  It is a simple but very fun game:

The children enjoyed learning about Germany and worked so hard on our display with their buddies. Here are some photos of our display, for those who could not make it to International Night:

January 27 - 31st

The children are immersed in our study on Germany!  This week Mrs. Thomann came in for two additional German language lessons.  She is an amazing teacher, by the way!

The children played "I Spy" using the German words for the colors:

 The children learned the days of the week in German and words for describing the weather.  Using the two, they became weather reporters!

Reviewing numbers:

German animal names:

This week we paired up with our 3rd grade buddies from Mr. Kelly's class who read the Grimm's Brothers fairy tales to their parners, as part of our study on Germany.

This week Anna's mom, Cosima, came in to teach the children how to make the traditional German dish, Schnitzel! It was a huge hit with all the children.  Thank you so much, Cosima!!

This week we learned a new game called "Pin the Number on the Number Grid", which follows the idea of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey".  Children are blindfolded and given a number on a sticky note.  They then have to estimate where they think the correct placement is, based on what they know about the patterns on the number grid.  

 

This week the children got to try out our new rock climbing wall in the Gym!

Pattern block creations!

The temperature was finally high enough to have some outdoor recess again this week!