Summer Camp 2020 – Elementary School children
“The Forest and its Inhabitants”
On the first day of Summer Camp, children introduced themselves in German and learned about the other children in the group.
As we decided to run the Summer Camp as Immersion German, we talked about everyday things so that the children gained confidence with their teacher.
The forest animals were introduced, using flashcards, and it was really fun for the children as they knew some of the animals or were familiar with.
We talked about the appearance and habitat of the respective animals:
“das Eichhörnchen, das Reh, das Wildschwein, der Dachs, der Fuchs, die Ameise, der Vogel.” The pupils could already recognize or imitate some of the bird – or animal calls.
Under guidance, students created a small forest animal booklet, which will be used for all classes.
The development of learning techniques and strategies was to implement the metric system. Various tools such as a tape measure were used to measure the size of the animal.
We used worksheets with material for structuring to promote motor skills such as cutting out forest animals with pictures and glue them on paper with the German word next to it. It was discussed whether the forest animal is below or above, left or right, crawling, hopping, or flying.
For this purpose, the students are provided with a small vocabulary list to learn the most important words of the respective week.
It was amazing that the students could, later on, differentiate between mammals, birds, insects, and learned about the food chain.
It was a week-long homework handicraft project, to finish one animal like a squirrel.
They will go out and look for some leaves and pine cones to bring to class on Monday.
At the end of the course, students will be present their forest as they have learned about different animals and trees and fruits from the forest. This is a valuable activity and promotes creativity as well as fine motor skills and the ability to concentrate.