International Week: Hallo Deutschland (Hello GERMANY)

Last week was international week at my school. For those of you that don't know international week is when you take your class on an international trip to other countries around the world. At my school the country was picked by my director and randomly assigned. I was given Germany. I have nothing against Germany BUT I was a bit disappointed only because I was thinking "What am I going to do?!" The minute I received that email with my country I started searching and unfortunately I BARELY found anything.  At least not nothing to my liking (there was only like 3 crafts for Germany) UNTIL I realized that we are focusing on a ball unit with Creative Curriculum and that's when my brain started thinking. Not only will I talk about German culture but I will make a BIG hype about their FOOTBALL! Overall it was a great country to work on I must admit it was a challenge but the turn out was great and the children had lots of fun!

Here is what my week looked like:

 Monday Day 1

Focus Vocabulary:

Similar
Difference

I introduced the country and the vocabulary words to the children. They were very excited about learning about a new country. I also previously had a talk with them in the beginning of the New Year explaining that now they are BIG boys and girls and they will be learning a lot more new and exciting things. I spoke about the flag and they were able to tell me the colors and the shapes they found in the flag. We also did a comparison of Germany's flag and the United States flag. The responses were GREAT!

Responses:

* "They both have 3 colors." (Germany black, red, and yellow U.S. red, white, and blue)
* "They are not the same. They only have red the same."
* "The (United States) of Amenica (America) has a lot of stars. Germ (Germany) doesn't."
* "They are similar because they are both a flag for a country." (I really loved this response)
* "The United States America got more shapes on it. It got three. Three shapes square, stars, and rectangles." (This was a great observation too)

For a craft:

I had each table create the German flag with paint and their hand-prints. In Pre-K sequencing is very important. So I made things a little tricky for them I placed one plate on each table (table 1 black, table 2 red, table 3 yellow). I wanted to see if the children would be able to work as a team and go to the right table and put the colors in order the way they saw it on the flag. I didn't have no display flag that was also done purposefully. It was great to see the team work and the debates going on in each table on which color comes next. Each table did great and was able to work together and figure out the correct order of the German flag. I will post pictures soon!

Of course the children LOVED getting dirty with the paint although I do have some that want to wash their hands the minute they see the paint on their hands lol (yup, these are girls). That's my lovely assistant working with table 3.

Tuesday Day 2

Today I went over facts about Germany with the children. They were amazed by these facts:

• In Germany they speak German.
• Germany is one of the wealthiest countries.
• Football (soccer) is the most popular sport in Germany.
• 99% of Germans know how to read.
• The population of Germany is about 82 million.

Then I proceeded to show the children this short but great video on Germany.

They were amazed that by the architecture of Germany. A lot of the girls loved that Germany has castles. They also loved the mountains and beautiful green grass. Of course, the boys loved the part with the trains, jets and the factory building the cars. This was a great visual for the children and they loved the music too!


Wednesday Day 3

Today I spoke a lot about the sports in Germany.  I chose to talk about the sports today because I wanted to tie it into the ball study so we spoke about Germany's popular sport football (soccer). We went over the differences even though the name is similar to our football.  The children responded, "that's not football Mrs. Ginnie that's soccer" so I explained it to them. I also showed them pictures.  They also compared the the two sports our football vs. their football.  This was a lot of fun!

Thursday Day 4

Today we went over the taste of Germany.  We spoke about all the delicious foods and German culture (clothes, beliefs, and traditions). I also showed them pictures.  The children were shocked that pretzels are from Germany.  One of my students said, "but Mrs. Ginnie how can pretzel be from Germany when my mommy bought it at the zoo!"  I thought this was a super cute response because he was amazed that the zoo had pretzels and that mommy got it from Germany lol.  I explained to the children that we have a lot of foods that was originally made in another country and its either shipped here or we make a similar recipe for it. Yup, this conversation on pretzels was the main topic of the children's conversation all day lol.

Friday Day 5

Today was the last day of our trip to Germany.  We ended our trip with a BANG!  First I spoke to the children about the sounds of Germany.  We listened to German music and they saw the dance and attire. I also taught them how to say hello and have a good day in German.

Since the school was going to have a parade we made mini German flags.  Then I gave a the children a BIG surprise by telling them we are going to make PRETZELS (cooking activity)!  They were so excited. This was also a great sensory tool they had fun molding the dough and making the shape of the pretzel. I used this great recipe the only thing is I substituted the sugar for honey buttery soft pretzel recipe it was quick and easy. They ate their pretzel with applesauce.  They loved this combo.  I decided might as well dip it in something since some people eat it with a mustard sauce but I know the children will not want that because let's be honest what kid really likes mustard?!

For the parade we marched up and down the halls and the children were greeting everyone in German.  We was also chanting "Ger-ma-ny, Ger-ma-ny is the country to be! Ger-ma-ny, Ger-ma-ny, Ger-ma-ny!"  We even had other children especially toddlers that were doing other countries chanting Ger-ma-ny with us it was so cute!