Handball instead of class...

Ok, so I showed up this afternoon to teach my usual Wednesday afternoon 9th grade bilingual history class and was greeted by a few of my students in the hallway. They asked if they could all watch their friends play handball instead of having class (their class is 7th period which is an extra class - students are only required to be there through 6th). I told them I couldn't make this decision, and they would have to find Monika. Unfortunately, we couldn't find her, so we asked another teacher, Herr Koettel, who gave us the ok. So, I went with the kids to the gym where I watched my first handball game. It's a great game! It's like a mixture of soccer (same idea of scoring - get the ball in the net), basketball (use your hands, they also dribble, and similar defensive strategies like zone and man to man), and hockey (similar penalties, players can be taken out of the game for a period of time). It's a really exciting game to watch and looks like fun to play. I missed the game that Gross-Bieberau played in, but watched Gross Zimmern play Babenhausen.

Another quick, interesting story: On Monday, one of the 5th graders still had a question when class ended, so I went up to talk to him. He asked me about how the US justifies the totale Verschendung der Papier (total waste of paper) that is dollar bills. I found it funny, I mean of all the wasteful things the US does, I don't really think dollar bills is the worst!

Thanksgiving Picture

Here's a picture of the Waldsee second half people who were at Thanksgiving (thanks to manfred)!

Thanksgiving and a Great Monday

So as is becoming my habit, I have not posted in quite a while. I've been meaning to, but haven't. Things are going pretty well. I just got home for the day, and it was a great day. Today I went to a 5th grade class. They first asked me questions in English, but they were pretty limited since they've only been learning English for about 8 weeks. At the end they were able to ask me in German. At the end of the class, 2 girls came up and give me pictures they had drawn. It was so sweet! I'm going to hang up the pictures in my apartment. Today I also did a Thanksgiving lesson for the 6th graders. It was really fun. They drew turkeys from tracing their hands and we listened and sang to Over the River and Through the Wood. I think they all liked it (and they were all very interested in my ipod!)

Thursday evening Emily and I flew to Vienna for a Waldsee Thanksgiving weekend. It was a fabulous weekend! We stayed with my friend Lynn from Notre Dame. She has a great apartment and it was so fun to see her! My friend, Liz, organized Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. We had everything - turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, cornbreak, and more! I made stuffing for the first time ever, so that was exciting. There were 16 of us at Thanksgiving dinner. It was so great to see so many Waldsee people! In addition to celebrathing Thanksgiving we spent the weekend hanging out and staying up way too late talking at night, and on Friday night we went to see the new Bond movie. I didn't really take any pictures this weekend, but will hopefully get some from people soon!

I fly home for Christmas in less than 4 weeks, which I am very excited about! In the meantime I will be visiting lots of Weihnachtsmärkte (Christmas markets)! Also, I've talked to some various teachers about bringing in American Christmas carols when Christmas gets close, so that should be fun. This evening I am planning to meet Emily at the Weihnachtsmarkt in Darmstadt.

Auslaender does not equal outlandish

So, I really haven't updated in a long time, but I definitely have been meaning to. Things are going pretty well at this point. I've been teaching some classes regularily, visiting some classes regularily, and then randomly going to a couple classes. I've started working with the 6th graders every week, which I am very excited about.

Over the weekend, I read the essays the 9th graders wrote about Napolean and how he influenced France. Overall the essays were really good. But a few of the girls must have used some translator. I believe they were trying to get the word "foreigner", which in German is "Auslaender" (directly translates to outlander). They ended up using the word "outlandish", which made no sense in the context and definitely confused me. It's really interesting to see some of the words that the kids come up with!

This week classes will be pretty normal. Today I finished a lesson with the 10th graders on The New Deal. Wednesday I will continue with the 9th graders on The American Revolution.

I know I haven't posted in a while....

So, I definitely have been meaning to update my blog for a while. I even started a post about Poland, but haven't finished it! Things have been kind of busy lately. This post will just be a quick update.

After returning from Poland, my friend, Liz, from camp came up to visit Emily and me. She has been here since Thursday and is heading on to Freiburg today. It was so great to have her here! Having visitors is always fun!

I have been working on lesson plans and what not. Right now I really need to get back to finishing up my lesson on the American Revolution (I will be teaching the 9th grade bilingual History class on Wednesdays by myself every week, and until shortly before Christmas, I will be teaching about the Revolution).

One quick interesting story though: yesterday I was observing 9th grade History, and the students were presenting posters about Napolean that they had made. One student, Jan, had a very interesting project. He explained Napolean's life as a metaphor. Instead of presenting him as a military and political leader, he explained him as a soccer star! It was a really neat project. I was totally impressed by his creativity.

Hopefully I will get some updates about Poland and what not up here soon!