Monday, May 5, 2014

First Day at Elementary School

Heike has been organizing our trip to Germany, and she came to the elementary school today to help us begin our lessons.  She took some pictures and shared them with us.  Our school is in Herbern, closer to my host family.  Today we only had 2 classes.  It turns out that we will see all of the children at the school at least 2 times this week.  Three of us have been placed at this school and we were given our own classroom where the students will visit.  For the first time with each class, we are going to teach about the American Flag, as you can tell in the picture.  The students were able to count the stripes and color their own flag.
We have been trying to plan what to teach for the rest of the week.  We decided to focus on learning body parts, family vocabulary, and then an activity for Mother's Day.  It is a challenge to plan because the first grade students only know numbers, colors, and simple phrases in English.  Thankfully, their classroom teacher stays in the room to translate when necessary.  I know already that I will like this much better than the school in Werne.  We have a lot of independence and the three of us are putting our heads together to come up with ideas.
The weather was sunny and warm today, so I was able to go on a bike ride with my host family this afternoon.  We spent much longer on the bike than I expected, but I really enjoyed the ride.  They have been so nice.  Tonight I have had the most free time ever (hence three blog posts at once), but the rest of the week already looks busy.  The host families are constantly planning small trips to take after school.  They want to show us around and do a lot of things with us.  We also have group activities in Werne planned for Thursday and Friday.  Hopefully I will still have time to update you this week.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Emily, It's Aunt Tina. I just wanted to let you know that I'm reading your blog and sharing it with the family. I've enjoyed your stories and explanations about things you've seen. What an amazing experience for you! It sounds like you are surrounded by people who want to make your trip a memorable one. Can't wait to see your pictures when you return and hear about all the stories you haven't had time to post. We love you! See you in a couple weeks!

    ReplyDelete