Bittersweet Goodbye

This Thursday will be my last teaching day. I have tears in my eyes as I write this post and wonder where the years went. Living and teaching overseas has been an incredible journey for me. The memories, both happy and sad, the traveling, the German community and military families have enriched my life in so many ways.

Germany has been home and the children I teach; their families and my friends and co-workers have been my “family” for so many years. The many people I have met and worked with have left a positive mark on my life and I hope I have done the same for them, especially the many young children who have entered my classroom. Teaching overseas has been challenging at times and adapting to these challenges has helped me to grow to be a better teacher and person. I have learned that people are the same everywhere and our fears, hopes, happiness and tears connect us all.

As I reflect on my experiences, I am so thankful for the opportunities to travel and see the rich history and cultural experiences Europe offers and have never regretted my decision to live and work overseas. It has been a wonderful life that many may say they never had. I may be retiring as a teacher, but I will carry these countless adventures and experiences with me as I begin the next journey in my life. And although I will miss living in Germany…it is time to come home.

Lions, Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

We are going to the zoo! What an enriching experience this is for children!  Zoos are one of the best ways to make classroom connections to the real world and our classrooms are already abuzz with activities and research about animals that live in the zoo.  The zoo we will be visiting is in our local area and has a limited number of animals, so we have narrowed the research to those animals that we will actually see in the zoo, but what fun we are having. We’ll get to learn the names of the animals in German too! Here are some of the activities that went on this week starting with a web quest.  Because there is so much to share, the zoo PBL (project based learning) project will be posted next week.

The children paired off in groups and researched animals, wrote a report, and created the animal. In addition to their web quest animal project, they had fun solving animal riddles, creating Chatter pix of their animal and were introduced to a new app called Thinglink.

 Research:  

Animal Riddles:  

simplebooklet.com

ChatterKids: 

 

A fun iPad App - Thinglink &

Art Activities:                  

Kindness Book of the Week: A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Phillip C Stead.

This is a beautiful story about friendship.  Amos McGee is a friend to all and his friends come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and species.  He spends time with each of his friends and when he become sick, his friends return the favor and come to see him and help him.  Now that’s the meaning of true friendship!     

More ChatterPix Kids: 

   

Animal Pinterest Board: 

San Diego Zoo

May Mayhem!

March Madness is nothing compared to May Mayhem! Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day, Teacher Appreciation Week, retirement parties, end-of-the –year activities, final assessments, and just the general craziness of the end of the year! This is the time of the year we all need that extra push to make it to the end. J So, take a deep breath and smile. Here are some fun facts about upcoming celebrations in May.

May Day (German holiday): The first of May in Germany is what we celebrate as Labor Day in September. The first of May also celebrates the welcoming of spring. Many villages put up maypoles to celebrate and usually the whole village joins in the raising of the maypole and the celebration afterwards. The night between April 30^th and May 1^st is called witches night.

Cinco de Mayo: This holiday celebrates Mexico’s victory over France in 1862. It is celebrated on a bigger scale in the United States than in Mexico with lots of traditional fiestas!

Mother’s Day: Not all countries celebrate Mother’s Day on the same day, but Germany and the United States are two countries that celebrate it on the second Sunday in May. This year marks the 100^th anniversary of Mother’s Day.  Anna Jarvis is considered the originator of Mother’s Day, but later regretted the fact that Mother’s Day became a national holiday because of all the commercialism. (Isn’t that the truth!) But we definitely want to remember our mother’s and all they do for us. So look to see what we did to let our mother’s know how much we love them!

Pixie 3 + Educreations=Fun Tech Tools!

(check it out)

Tagxedo Word Splash:

The students brainstormed and came up with many words to describe their mothers and developed a word splash using Tagxedo!

Simplebooklet of Love!

simplebooklet.com

More Mamma Love Activities!

A Simple but Beautiful Tribute to Our Moms!

A slideshow by Smilebox ChatterPix for Kids: This new iPAD App allows your students' drawings to talk! Check it out!

Kindness Books on Mother’s Day:
You can't go wrong on any of these choices! Love all of them - but then who doesn't love and appreciate a book about a special person in our lives!

Pinterest Board:

Mothers of the World Product:

Disney Mothers – A Mother’s Love Video