Help with school project in Germany

[finknottle]

Ds1's new secondary school has a project week in mid-Feb and I've volunteered to do something wrt English.

It's only 4 half-mornings, well, 3 really and then a presentation on the Open Day on the Sat.

Ds1 is so happy there and the teachers are v good. It's a small village school, quite new and while they've been renovating work-shops & labs etc, they've few resources for English.

As the children only really started learning English at the start of the school year they won't be up to much language-wise but need to be involved, i.e. we need to do something they can present.

I thought I'd do a British Isles display:

England
Wales
Scotland
Ireland

We can paint flags,
have posters/maps showing capitals etc
typical food, maybe write out short descriptions
sport (rugby, hurling, football, cricket)

So I need material. Have a couple of magazines I can cut a few pics out of.
Thought I'd contact the embassies in Berlin but the project starts on Feb 13th and don't have much time.

Help! Ideas, old mags you don't need - anything, please

[finknottle]

And despite his SEN, he brought home his first report last week and had 1s for the first time ever. Is dead chuffed with himself and it's lovely to see.

Also as the snotty mums here look down on the school, I want to do my bit to help the Open Day.

Power of Mumsnet - varoom

[admylin]

You could get lucky if you contact the tourist office. I know it worked the other way around for my sister. She wrote to the German embassy in London asking for information on visiting Germany and they forwarded the mail to the German tourist office and they sent her loads of stuff including maps, brochures etc. You could try by email, pretend to be a German wanting to plan a visit to the UK maybe!

[admylin]

Well done for the report too, 1's are great for boosting confidence, wish dd could get a few in her coming report, 3's just get her down and make her want to give up

[berolina]

I'll look through and see what I've got. Can you CAT me?

Haupt/Gesamtschule by any chance? (re snotty mums looking down)

[finknottle]

Am scouting the websites atm - would love to brighten up the classrooms too with a few posters.

3s are so crap - ds1 got one 2,5 which was a real achievement for him but of course it's rounded down to a 3 and that's what counts and stands.

Ds2's report was rotten, to my surprise. I feel another talk with his teacher coming up... God I hate Y3

[finknottle]

Hi berolina - Gesamtschule 'tis, and worse, till the summer it's only Real/Haupt then being upgraded to include the Gymnasium stream. One of the mums from primary taught there for a while and I was horrified by her attitude.

How did you guess? I am a big fan and already eyeing it for ds2 and dd. ONLY schools to have an anti-bullying policy and even mention social skills at all - er, back to the point now...

Don't/can't CAT - how do I do that?

g u s s i e a t l i n u x - b o x p u n k t d e

If anyone wants to e-mail me.

Just seen the British Embassy has stuff you can download but it'd only be A4 size.

[berolina]

Anti-bullying policy? Social skills? I want to send dses to that school! I think it's quite typical of a Gesamtschule to go 'new' (for Germany) ways - and sadly the snobbery is typical too

I'll email you. Picking up ds1 afterwards so might not have chance today.

[admylin]

www.visitbritain.de/ have you tried here? They could send some information with brochures etc.maybe a map or something like that?

[finknottle]

Thanks admylin, looks good.

I'm going to send off for as much as I can.

Quite a change to feel I'm "working" on the computer

[admylin]

Will be waiting for your report back on how it went and step by step instructions on how to repeat the same if I get asked, I have been avoiding it up to now but if we're still here ds's class teacher next year is also the head of English so she'll catch me eventually!

[finknottle]

Thanks bero, when you get a minute.



Admylin, I do feel rather virtuous Last year in primary I avoided offering my services as I knew I'd be stuck with snotty teacher and superior mums and I couldn't be doing with that. Waited till the thing got underway then jumped in and did loads in ds1's project and earned big brownie points.

But now I feel this school has so little support from parents as most of them work and I should do what I can.

[finknottle]

bumping for Sandy's attention and any other advice.

Thought if we can get the school kitchen on the last morning, we could make something and then display a foody thing at the Open Day:

flapjacks?
scones?
toast & jam?

So hard to know how much the pupils can do - 3 mornings of 7.40 - 12.45.
Plus breaks

Reassure me someone

[ConfusedMover]

Try the Britsih Council www.britishcouncil.de/e/science/index.htm

[ConfusedMover]

ah, did't mean to bring up a science link www.britishcouncil.de/e/index.htm

[finknottle]

Thanks for that ConfusedMover.

Some good links there.

[SSSandy2]

OMG Fink , you'Re going great guns at the new school! I haven't been bothering much with MN , you know how it is - one of those phases, but admylin told me about your project yesterday so I came to have a nosey.

See you don't have much time left. How are you going on your preparation?

[SSSandy2]

so you have 3 x 1 1/2 hours and then you present it all another morning.

[SSSandy2]

oh no, should read the whole thread first -always too lazy to do things properly! Yikes 3 full mornings...

Scones are good, easy to make really, hard to mess up. How about fudge? Do they make fudge here at all?

Let me just have a look around the bookshelves and see if I can find anything useful.

How about Harry Potter? If you have the books in English, you could put them on the display. I read an article somewhere about the building that was used for Hogwarts. If I can find it, I can send it to you, if that's any good. It's in German.

[finknottle]

Thanks
Thing is, I don't know yet if enough will sign up for it. There are stacks of really interesting projects - and ds1 loyally put mine as his 1st choice though I know there are others he'd love to do.
It is so hard to know how much we'll get through and it's only next week
I'm torn between telling myself to calm down, a couple of hours planning will be fine and if I start now it may well be wasted if the project doesn't go ahead...
and getting in a panic about these stooopid flapjacks
Was thinking, how long would it take to make a couple of trays? Er, not a whole morning. So, thought of bringing in toast bread and my Marmite & marmalade & tea and having the "typical foods" part actually in the kitchen.

Not knowing if it goes ahead has stopped me asking friends/family (mind you all mine on hols atm in foreign climes) to send me e.g. pics of Guinness/daffodils/Big Ben/rugby players etc for a display.

[SSSandy2]

Be prepared!

How about this bbc history for kids site on the Anglo-Saxons? I'm always doing these history pages with dd and she loves them. She loved the children in WW2 one but obviously I wouldn't choose that one for your project! They might like the Anglo-Saxon bit (close to home-ish) and/or Vikings?

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/anglosaxons/invasion/index.shtml

On the left are printable activity sheets so they could write a message scroll using the Anglo-Saxon runes for instance and put them up on a poster display,
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/anglosaxons/activities/ws_runes.shtml

more history than English lang but there is still some connection and they might enjoy doing it. Or would they find that too babyish?

[SSSandy2]

www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe&Rootmap=grbrit&Mode=b

printable maps. You can enlarge them first.

[finknottle]

brill Sandy - never occurred to me to use BBC Schools. The boys haven't used it for ages.

or not at WWII - shades of Basil Fawlty.
Printable stuff is great - just what I need. I reckon also that even if the project doesn't take place I'll give it to the head anyway and he can put stuff on the walls.

You're good at this
My main fear is not having enough so loads of activities are vital.

[finknottle]

forgot to say thanks.
That Nat Geo site is great.
I thank you

[SSSandy2]

It would be nice to have some English magazines for dc to flick through, sort of Bravo type stuff or comics. If you had Irish music on in the background and a pot of tea with some biscuits on a tartan shawl for them to help themselves, I think they'd like that. It would feel very British and a bit grown up without it having to be too full-on stressful.

Shortbread is easy to make and no difficult ingredients to hunt down. I wouldn't bother making petticoat tails with the crimped edges and everything but I've never met anyone who hasn't liked the taste of shortbread. They could just do fingers, pricked down with a fork. And they can copy down the recipe to take home. That kills a bit of time too.

[finknottle]

see here
Having enough trouble with flapjacks!
My shortbread always burns - or could be used to re-surface roads.

You've inspired me to start planning properly - have been putting it off rather but this prob won't be the last project the children will be doing so no ideas wasted.

Good idea re comics - boys have some Simpsons ones which should go down well. Would be handy standby.
Also got a great Doctor Who travel activity pack at the airport - loads of easy puzzles with aliens etc, could copy some.