Welcome to the Middle Group 2! Here, you will find information about homework, classroom rules and materials, and other current information. About the format: on most Sundays, we will spend about one third of the time on vocabulary, one third on grammar, and one third on literature, songs, news, current events, and text translations, which will strengthen both vocabulary and grammar, and give us a feel for how German is used.
1) Binder or Folder: Please oganize worksheets and other materials used in class in a folder or binder.
2) Pen or pencil/letter-sized writing pads: Please make sure that you have something to write with and on when you come to class.
3) Book: This year's book is Der grüne Max 2. Although there is a link to the website of the publisher, this book is not the one we use in class. As many students still use last year's edition, we have ordered this older edition directly from the publisher, via phone/e-mail. If you didn't order through us and want to order this older version, you may try a used version via Amazon or another online store.
Our snack schedules (click link or scroll below) are generally appreciated by students as a welcome break and refreshment. Every student takes turns every once in a while and provides a snack for the whole class. This year, we have one student who is allergic to citrus fruits. We ask you not to bring any, or to bring one non-citrus item in case you decide to bring citrus-fruit containing food.
| Month | Due Date | Homework(s) | Solution(s) |
| October 2013 |
Oct 13/ Oct 20 |
The first homework list is quite loaded. Therefore, you have until
Oct 20 to complete it.
VOCABULARY: For this year's homework, I will incorporate Online Resources to a higher degree than before, assuming that it will add an element of fun and interactivity. Some people had very positive and addictive experiences with the individual progress tracking sites that are now available. To start venturing into this, please check out our updated Online Resources page and use one of the resources under either "Interactive Language Websites with or without Individual Progress Tracking" or under "Interactive Language Websites with Targeted Practice Areas". Tinker with a site you like and bring results (try to print something out). Together with your parents, write a commentary on the printout: what did you like, what did you not like about the resource you played with. GRAMMAR: 1) Use a der-die-das rules "cheat sheet" I handed out in class, and do the homework on page 2 WATCH OUT, the due date is Oct 13/20, not Oct 30 as on the page - I am just using an old sheet here. (If you did this in 2011, you can skip this part.) 2) Review the article exersise we did in class. Use Google Translate or a dictionary to translate each word. POEM: Review Das ästhetische Wiesel by Christian Morgenstern. Cut and paste it into Google Translate if you like, and see how it fails in translating "ihr" correctly (it's a 2nd person plural "you" in 1st case, not a 3rd case of "she", as Google "thinks") |
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| Oct 27 | VOCABULARY: Carry-over from last week - most students did not do this: find an Online Resource from our website and play with it. Write a short paragraph in which you tell me the resource you used, how you liked it, and what you didn't like. Turn in the paragraph. You may use the resources you need for the grammar part below (Digital Dialects, Deutschakademie) for this. Review the subjects (Fächer) we learned about in class - there will be a short test on this new vocabulary. Review numbers and ordinal numbers up until 100 on LanguageGuide or on Digital Dialects. No test on the numbers. GRAMMAR: Review the conjugation of verbs in present at Digital Dialects for warm-up (this part can be skiped, but it may be fun because it has little games). Then, go to Deutschakademie, tab for Practice German, --> practice grammar topics, tab for letters T-Z, then find "VERB: Präsens der starken und schwachen Verben sowie Mischverben (ich gehe, du arbeitest,…)" in the list and click on it; pick an exercise with at least 10 practice sentences. Try out until all your 10 practice sentences are correct, write them down in both German and English and turn them in. NOTE: This is a random problem generator - siblings should not turn in the exact same 10 sentences. CULTURE: Most likely pumpkin carving. |
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| November 2013 | Nov 3 | VOCABULARY:
Review how to tell time in German. Then try out your first steps in this online quiz from About.com. GRAMMAR: Carry-over from last week: if you have not yet practiced and written up verbs in present (see Oct 27, Grammar section), please do so by Sunday. |
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| Nov 10 | Heads up for the upcoming two weeks: At the moment, we heavily wading into grammar territory, which may seem a bit much, but fear not! This will all be applied soon, and the application should be easier than the dry theory. There are two areas we will cover: (1) Simple Past and Present Perfect in German, and (2) the split of the English Objective Case in two different German Cases (Dativ and Akkusativ), along with which prepositions require us to use these cases. These two areas will be needed when we go through the upcoming parts of "Der grüne Max 2". Below, I have entered a lot of things to review with respect to the tenses. Most of this will be coming back several times. But if you want to "know what you are doing" while learning the German irregular verbs, you can review this material now. If not, just start studying the irregular verbs by heart and we will go into the why and how later. In the latter case, just focus on the bold parts in the grammar section. VOCABULARY: Complete the homework on telling time from last week (due Nov 10 or 17). Print out the tables and fill out the sheets, or just turn in a sheet that you wrote up yourself. GRAMMAR: Review the comparison of Infinitiv - Präteritum - Partizip Perfekt in English and German we discussed in class last Sunday (10-15 min). Study the first four verbs (Infinitiv, Präteritum, and Partizip Perfekt of: beginnen, bitten, bleiben, bringen) from the bag of irregular German verbs we made in class - this will be tested (10-20 min). Review how Simple Past and Present Perfect work in English on the englishpage.com (10-15 min). Then try out Verb Tense Exercises 5 & 6 (10-20min) on that page. The German tenses can be browsed at Lingolia, here - you can have a preview of what we are going to talk about soon. We will focus on the Präteritum (Simple Past) and the Perfekt (Present Perfect) only. Carry-over from Oct 27: if you have not yet practiced and written up verbs in present (see Oct 27, Grammar section), please do so by Sunday. |
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| Nov 17 | |||
| Nov 24 | VOCABULARY/GRAMMAR:
Complete the homework given out in class by Monika. CULTURE: Look at this year's choices on our Songs page. There are four songs listed - two under Choice 1 and two under Choice 2. We will vote in class which of the two songs in each Choice we will sing; so we will end up singing one song each from each Choice. Some in the class already know the songs under Choice 2 as we have sung them before. These are a little calmer and quieter. I added the songs under Choice 1 to have two more lively choices. |
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| December 2013 | Dec 1 | CULTURE:
We voted on our Christmas Songs for the Weihnachtsfeier. Learn these songs. For "Morgen, Kinder wird's was geben", there are variouse versions on the web. If we make it to the 3rd stanza, we will use the original text by Hoffmann von Fallersleben, which I have linked on the Songs page. |
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| Dec 8 | CULTURE:
Learn this year's Christmal songs for the Weihnachtsfeier. Dec 8 is our last day of practice! |
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| Dec 15 | Weihnachtsfeier | Weihnachtsfeier | |
| January 2014 | Jan 5
Jan 12 Jan 19 Jan 26 |
No School
complete HW given in class complete HW given in class complete HW given in class |
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| February 2014 | Feb 2 | complete Perfekt tense exercise given in class | Perfekt tense solution |
| Feb 9 | VOCABULARY & GRAMMAR: Cumulatively study the next four verbs (Infinitiv, Präteritum, and Partizip Perfekt of: denken, dürfen, essen, fahren) from the bag of irregular German verbs we made in class - this might be tested (10-20 min). Cumulatively means that you make sure you know ALL the irregular verbs studied so far, that is, you are expected to know the ones you studied before as well! So, you should now know all 24 forms of eight irregular verbs: beginnen, bitten, bleiben, bringen, denken, dürfen, essen, fahren. | ||
| Feb 16 | VOCABULARY & GRAMMAR: Cumulatively study the next four verbs (Infinitiv, Präteritum, and Partizip Perfekt of: fallen, fangen, finden, fliegen) from the bag of irregular German verbs we made in class - this might be tested (10-20 min). Make sure you know ALL the irregular verbs studied so far, that is, you are expected to know the ones you studied before as well. So, you should now know all 36 forms of 12 irregular verbs: beginnen, bitten, bleiben, bringen, denken, dürfen, essen, fahren, fallen, fangen, finden, fliegen. | ||
| Feb 23 | VOCABULARY & GRAMMAR I: complete worksheet on
family and possessive
pronouns given in class.
VOCABULARY & GRAMMAR II: Cumulatively study the
next four verbs (Infinitiv, Präteritum, and Partizip Perfekt of: geben,
gehen, geschehen, haben) from the bag of irregular German verbs
we made in class - this might be tested (10-20 min). Make sure
you know ALL the irregular verbs studied so far, that is, you
are expected to know the ones you studied before as well. So, you
should now know all 48 forms of 16 irregular verbs:
beginnen, bitten, bleiben, bringen, denken, dürfen, essen, fahren,
fallen, fangen, finden, fliegen, geben, gehen, geschehen, haben. |
Solution possessive pronouns (pg. 2 only) | |
| March 2014 | March 2 | VOCABULARY & GRAMMAR: Cumulatively study the next four verbs (Infinitiv, Präteritum, and Partizip Perfekt of: halten, heißen, helfen, kennen) from the bag of irregular German verbs we made in class - this might be tested (10-20 min). Make sure you know ALL the irregular verbs studied so far, that is, you are expected to know the ones you studied before as well. So, you should now know all 60 forms of 20 irregular verbs: beginnen, bitten, bleiben, bringen, denken, dürfen, essen, fahren, fallen, fangen, finden, fliegen, geben, gehen, geschehen, haben, halten, heißen, helfen, kennen. | |
| March 9 | VOCABULARY & GRAMMAR: Cumulatively study the next four verbs (Infinitiv, Präteritum, and Partizip Perfekt of: können, kommen, lassen, mögen) from the bag of irregular German verbs we made in class - this might be tested (10-20 min). Make sure you know ALL the irregular verbs studied so far, that is, you are expected to know the ones you studied before as well. So, you should now know all 72 forms of 24 irregular verbs: beginnen, bitten, bleiben, bringen, denken, dürfen, essen, fahren, fallen, fangen, finden, fliegen, geben, gehen, geschehen, haben, halten, heißen, helfen, kennen, können, kommen, lassen, mögen. | ||
| March 16 | VOCABULARY & GRAMMAR: Cumulatively study the next four verbs (Infinitiv, Präteritum, and Partizip Perfekt of: müssen, nehmen, rufen, scheinen) from the bag of irregular German verbs we made in class - this might be tested (10-20 min). Make sure you know ALL the irregular verbs studied so far, that is, you are expected to know the ones you studied before as well. So, you should now know all 84 forms of 28 irregular verbs: beginnen, bitten, bleiben, bringen, denken, dürfen, essen, fahren, fallen, fangen, finden, fliegen, geben, gehen, geschehen, haben, halten, heißen, helfen, kennen, können, kommen, lassen, mögen, müssen, nehmen, rufen, scheinen. | ||
| March 23 | VOCABULARY & GRAMMAR: Cumulatively study the next four verbs (Infinitiv, Präteritum, and Partizip Perfekt of: schlafen, schlagen, schließen, schwimmen) from the bag of irregular German verbs we made in class - this might be tested (10-20 min). Make sure you know ALL the irregular verbs studied so far, that is, you are expected to know the ones you studied before as well. So, you should now know all 96 forms of 32 irregular verbs: beginnen, bitten, bleiben, bringen, denken, dürfen, essen, fahren, fallen, fangen, finden, fliegen, geben, gehen, geschehen, haben, halten, heißen, helfen, kennen, können, kommen, lassen, mögen, müssen, nehmen, rufen, scheinen, schlafen, schlagen, schließen, schwimmen. |
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| March 30 | VOCABULARY & GRAMMAR: Cumulatively study the next four verbs (Infinitiv, Präteritum, and Partizip Perfekt of: schwingen, sehen, sein, singen) from the bag of irregular German verbs we made in class - this might be tested (10-20 min). Make sure you know ALL the irregular verbs studied so far, that is, you are expected to know the ones you studied before as well. So, you should now know all 108 forms of 36 irregular verbs: beginnen, bitten, bleiben, bringen, denken, dürfen, essen, fahren, fallen, fangen, finden, fliegen, geben, gehen, geschehen, haben, halten, heißen, helfen, kennen, können, kommen, lassen, mögen, müssen, nehmen, rufen, scheinen, schlafen, schlagen, schließen, schwimmen, schwingen, sehen, sein, singen. | ||
| April 2014 | April 6 | VOCABULARY & GRAMMAR: Cumulatively study the next four verbs (Infinitiv, Präteritum, and Partizip Perfekt of: sinken, sitzen, sprechen, springen) from the bag of irregular German verbs we made in class - this might be tested (10-20 min). Make sure you know ALL the irregular verbs studied so far, that is, you are expected to know the ones you studied before as well. So, you should now know all 120 forms of 40 irregular verbs: beginnen, bitten, bleiben, bringen, denken, dürfen, essen, fahren, fallen, fangen, finden, fliegen, geben, gehen, geschehen, haben, halten, heißen, helfen, kennen, können, kommen, lassen, mögen, müssen, nehmen, rufen, scheinen, schlafen, schlagen, schließen, schwimmen, schwingen, sehen, sein, singen, sinken, sitzen, sprechen, springen. | |
| April 13 | VOCABULARY & GRAMMAR: Cumulatively study the next four verbs (Infinitiv, Präteritum, and Partizip Perfekt of: stehen, stehlen, steigen, sterben) from the bag of irregular German verbs we made in class - this might be tested (10-20 min). Make sure you know ALL the irregular verbs studied so far, that is, you are expected to know the ones you studied before as well. So, you should now know all 132 forms of 44 irregular verbs: beginnen, bitten, bleiben, bringen, denken, dürfen, essen, fahren, fallen, fangen, finden, fliegen, geben, gehen, geschehen, haben, halten, heißen, helfen, kennen, können, kommen, lassen, mögen, müssen, nehmen, rufen, scheinen, schlafen, schlagen, schließen, schwimmen, schwingen, sehen, sein, singen, sinken, sitzen, sprechen, springen, stehen, stehlen, steigen, sterben. | ||
| April 20 | VOCABULARY & GRAMMAR: Cumulatively study the next four verbs (Infinitiv, Präteritum, and Partizip Perfekt of: stinken, tragen, treffen, trinken) from the bag of irregular German verbs we made in class - this might be tested (10-20 min). Make sure you know ALL the irregular verbs studied so far, that is, you are expected to know the ones you studied before as well. So, you should now know all 144 forms of 48 irregular verbs: beginnen, bitten, bleiben, bringen, denken, dürfen, essen, fahren, fallen, fangen, finden, fliegen, geben, gehen, geschehen, haben, halten, heißen, helfen, kennen, können, kommen, lassen, mögen, müssen, nehmen, rufen, scheinen, schlafen, schlagen, schließen, schwimmen, schwingen, sehen, sein, singen, sinken, sitzen, sprechen, springen, stehen, stehlen, steigen, sterben, stinken, tragen, treffen, trinken. | ||
| April 27 | VOCABULARY & GRAMMAR: Cumulatively study the
next four verbs (Infinitiv, Präteritum, and Partizip Perfekt of: tun,
vergessen, verlieren, waschen) from the bag of irregular German verbs
we made in class - this might be tested (10-20 min). Make sure
you know ALL the irregular verbs studied so far, that is, you
are expected to know the ones you studied before as well. So, you
should now know all 156 forms of 52 irregular verbs:
beginnen, bitten, bleiben, bringen, denken, dürfen, essen, fahren,
fallen, fangen, finden, fliegen, geben, gehen, geschehen, haben,
halten, heißen, helfen, kennen, können, kommen, lassen, mögen, müssen,
nehmen, rufen, scheinen, schlafen, schlagen, schließen, schwimmen,
schwingen, sehen, sein, singen, sinken, sitzen, sprechen, springen,
stehen, stehlen, steigen, sterben, stinken, tragen, treffen, trinken,
tun, vergessen, verlieren, waschen. |
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| May 2014 | May 4 | VOCABULARY & GRAMMAR: Cumulatively study the next four verbs (Infinitiv, Präteritum, and Partizip Perfekt of: werden, wissen, ziehen, zwingen) from the bag of irregular German verbs we made in class - this might be tested (10-20 min). Make sure you know ALL the irregular verbs studied so far, that is, you are expected to know the ones you studied before as well. So, you should now know all 168 forms of 56 irregular verbs: beginnen, bitten, bleiben, bringen, denken, dürfen, essen, fahren, fallen, fangen, finden, fliegen, geben, gehen, geschehen, haben, halten, heißen, helfen, kennen, können, kommen, lassen, mögen, müssen, nehmen, rufen, scheinen, schlafen, schlagen, schließen, schwimmen, schwingen, sehen, sein, singen, sinken, sitzen, sprechen, springen, stehen, stehlen, steigen, sterben, stinken, tragen, treffen, trinken, tun, vergessen, verlieren, waschen, werden, wissen, ziehen, zwingen. | |
| May 11 | |||
| May 18 | Abschlussfeier | Abschlussfeier |
| Month | Due Date | Snack provided by |
| September 2013 | Sept 29 | Heike |
| October 2013 | Oct 6
Oct 13 Oct 20 Oct 27 |
Jona
Amelia Caroline Prisca |
| November 2013 | Nov 3
Nov 10 Nov 17 Nov 24 |
Phoebe
Abigail Ana Blake |
| December 2013 | Dec 1
Dec 8 Dec 15 |
Heike
Emily N/A |
| January 2014 | Jan 5
Jan 12 Jan 19 Jan 26 |
Amelia
Caroline Ana Phoebe |
| February 2014 | Feb 2
Feb 9 Feb 16 Feb 23 |
Abigail
Nicholas Jona Blake |
| March 2014 | March
2
March 9 March 16 March 23 March 30 |
Prisca
Nicholas Emily Amelia Caroline |
| April 2014 | April
6
April 13 April 20 April 27 |
Prisca
Phoebe Abigail Ana |
| May 2014 | May 4
May 11 May 18 |
Jona
Blake N/A |