After many weeks of forming groups, rehearsing, creating props and rehearsing some more, the Year 4/5s have filmed their final Regenbogenfisch plays!

All of the groups put in a lot of effort and this was reflected in their presentations. They have all come so far in developing both their pronunciation of German language and their expression and should be proud of what they have achieved.

Here is a the final performance of a group of Year 4s from Frau Humphrys class. See how well they did!

Amelia,Mia,Carrie from Carly Smith on Vimeo.

After weeks of forming groups, allocating roles, learning lines, practising, creating props and practising some more, the Year 4/5 students are nearly ready to film their ‘Regenbogenfisch’ plays!

The students have been very enthusiastic and creative about the task and are all looking forward to celebrating the final product.

Here are some more photos of the rehearsal process:

This week the Year 4/5 students started rehearsing their Regenbogenfisch plays together.

Firstly, each group of 3 (or in some cases 2) sat together and read through the play.

Then students broke into ‘like’ groups – for example, all of the blauer fisch together, all of the Regenbogenfisch together and so on. Frau Smith sat with each group and helped with pronunciation.

Lastly, groups continued creating their props. Even the glitter glue was pulled out!

Reading through the script together

Prop creating – on goes the glitter!

Carefully sketching a fish

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The Year 4/5 inquiry into symbols was wrapped up at the end of term 2.

The last task of the inquiry was to create a symbol which combined both German and Australian elements.

We had a LOT of creative symbols created and I was very impressed with the deeper thinking many students put into their work.

Here are a few examples of finished products:

 This symbol was created by Bethany in Frau Grant’s class. She wrote: “In this symbol the G logo represents German and Australia and if you look closely there is an ‘a’ and ‘g.’ The lines behind it represent the three colours of the German flag, red, yellow and black. On the other side of the flag it is sort of representing the Australian flag with all of the stars and the colours.”

This symbol was created by Brydee in Frau Freebairn’s class. She wrote: “My symbol is the Brandenburg Gate with a koala riding the chariot pulled by a kangaroo. On the top of the symbol on the edges are the two flags. On the left side is the Australian flag and the words ‘Australia’ and ‘Germany’ written in English. On the right hand side there is a German flag and the words ‘Australien’ and ‘Deutschland’ in German. Hanging in the middle are the two Freedom Bells.”

Oakly from Mr Steven’s class created this symbol. He created this version on the computer. He wrote: “I did the German flag but I used a picture of Uluru instead of the red part. I did this on the computer and I used Powerpoint. First I got a picture of plain black then a picture of Uluru. Then I got a picture of plain yellow and put it all together.”

Lucas from Mr. Stevens class created this symbol. He wrote: “Half of the shield is the Australian Coat of Arms and the other half is the German Coat of Arms. The animals on the shield are the eagle and the emu. The emu side also has a native Australian tree.”

These 4 examples are only a snapshot of the fantastic creativity shown by the Year 4/5 classes.

This term the Year 4/5 students are working in small groups to produce their very own play – Der Regenbogenfisch! Der Regenbogenfisch is a play based  on the book by Marcus Pfister, ‘The Rainbow Fish.’

First of all we read the story in English. This was to remind us of what the story was about and to introduce the story to people who hadn’t read it before.

Next, we received a copy of the play in German and the English translation all mixed up! We had to reorder the English lines so that it translated the play for us.

Then we formed random groups of 3 people. Each person in the play has two parts to play. We’re now onto making our props!

We’ve had a lot of fun with this task already!

The Year 2/3 students have been learning how to describe themselves and others. First we needed to review how to say the colours, numbers and names of the parts of the body. Students enjoyed playing the ‘Swat’ game to do this. The interactive site Languages Online also help students with listening to, and understanding descriptions of people.

In the activity ‘Hor zu und mahl an’ students read as well as listened to, short descriptions of people and then added the missing features on to the people.

Students then created their own character portraits and wrote sentences to describe each character with a focus on using Er (he) or Sie (she).

The elimination card game ‘Who am I’ also helped us to practise asking simple questions in German. 

This term the Year 4/5s have been focussing on an inquiry into symbols. We started by looking at common symbols we see around our community:

Students then worked in teams to try and uncover what each of the symbols meant.

Next, we all looked at six symbols or icons that represent Germany. This is what we first saw:

We discussed what we already knew about each symbol and then looked at them one by one and in a little more detail. In small groups, students then chose one of these symbols to research further.

We used iPads, computers and books to help us organise our facts into a concept map. Then, we had to complete a second mind map with information about the Australian equivalent of our chosen symbol. For example, if we chose to research the German Coat of Arms in the first task, we researched the Australian Coat of Arms in the second task.

Our inquiry is still continuing and we are learning lots of interesting and new things about how symbols can depict countries!

During Term 1 the Year 4/5 students worked through a unit focussing on how to describe other people or creatures. To show their understanding they then created their very own German jigsaw, where they were able to create a person/creature/monster and write a series of short sentences describing them.

The students did a fantastic job on their creations. There are some on display in the German room if you would like to see how creative the Year 4/5 students are!

The students had the opportunity to solve each other’s puzzles before some were displayed in the German room.

For the last couple of lessons the Year 4/5 students have participated in a team game called ‘Beschreibe diese Person!’ This is an interactive game on the Languages Online website where, in 3 different teams, students compete to correctly answer all of the questions in the shortest amount of time.

The students are learning to quickly scan the questions for key words that they understand. We often talk about how you don’t need to always know EVERY word in a sentence but how you can often find meaning if you pick out familiar key words.

Languages Online is a fantastic website with HEAPS of games and other interactive activities on it to help you with your German. Share the website with your family!