Sandra H. from Germany, in Stephanie Harris’s central Massachusetts cluster spent one afternoon a week, for 4 weeks teaching about Germany in the Sutton Early Learning Center and Elementary School. Sandra shares her experience about her class, Passport Around the World: Germany.
In my class there were eight children from kindergarten to second grade. It was a nice group with four girls and four boys. On the first day we started with an introduction game. After that we looked at the world map to see where Germany is and compared the size to the US. I told them about the biggest cities in Germany. Then I showed them pictures of Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich with their famous sights and activities. Like visiting the world’s biggest miniature wonderland. We also talked about famous sports teams and the wild animals which live in Germany.
The second afternoon we had a vocabulary lesson. The children learned numbers, colors, animals, weather and seasons. With these new words we played games. Like a vocabulary memory. In the end I read them a German folktale: The Pied Piper of Hamelin.
On the third afternoon we had a baking day. Together we made Spekulatius Cookies. I also brought fresh baked Bretzeln (Pretzel). While the cookies were baking we talked about typical German food.
The last afternoon was all about crafts. We did cuckoo clocks out of popsicle sticks and the Berlin Buddy Bear out of construction paper. Everyone could do theirs individually with stickers, crayons, and pompoms. During these wonderful four weeks I could teach and tell the children about my home country. The children were very interested and active in this class, that made everything easier and even more fun. I was able to extend my teaching experience with the children. I could use the skills I learned and expand them. And I could learn new techniques how to teach kids. Like using games to make it easier to learn new words. All in all it was a very good experience for me.