Things I´ve Done At School Recently

Baked cornbread with first and second graders. They split into two teams, one with 3 boys and one with 4 girls. The boys were actually much better at it, more efficient and cooperative, while the girls would argue over who got to do what and got mixed up, putting in too much baking powder. It came out beautifully, and some of the kids were really sweet with how eager they were to help out and compensate for the other children who left early without doing much.
I was surprised/enttäuscht that about a third of the class decided they didn´t want to try the cornbread at all =(. Also we had pieces of toast and crackers w/ peanut butter on them, and there was so much left over. I know it´s a time of picky eaters, but there were plenty of kids exclaiming over how yummy everything was, and the cornbread smelled really good... Everyone was baffled that the "bread" looked so much like cake. S was kind of annoyed about that I think, as it was crumblier than bread usually is.

Last night I used one of the Ghirardelli brownie mixes I brought from home to bring to a tea party today in a 9th grade English class. Our school is generally an elementary school, but the hearing impaired students can stay all the way till graduation, so this was a hearing impaired class. The teacher wanted me to pretend not to speak any German (I often have to pretend this, it´s kind of annoying) and answer questions the students asked. At first the questions were slow to come, so I told them the story of how brownies were invented. Eventually this one student got really into asking me questions and it was pretty fun. (The only ones I didn´t like: do you do martial arts? Do you like Jackie Chan?). I wish I could come work with them again, esp. as apparently one of the more engaged students was absent today, but next week they are going on a class retreat.

In the "Bee" class (classes are named after animals; there are the Bienen/Bees, Schmetterlinge/Butterflies, Geparden/Cheetahs, Pumas, Fledermäuser/bats, Hasen/hares, etc--S is the assistant teacher for the Bees) today while some students worked on reading and others worked on math, I went through the books about Chicago my mom bought with 3 little girls. I had to explain everything in German since they were first and second graders, and sometimes even when I knew the right word they didn´t know the concept yet. But it was fun. One of the youngest was best at helping me finish my sentences or come up with the right name for things. I went through the "W is for Windy City" picturebook, and whenever we came across something I had a photo for in the Chicago book I would show it to them. They seemed to like seeing the city, and relating the places and events I described to their own experiences. =)