A Christmas story

I just got back from the school, where my group of kids told everyone about the project for Matopo Primary School, how they had collected materials, gone from class to class to collect even more materials, and then given them to my colleague, Cindy Hauert. Even better was the thanks we all received in the form of a large packet filled with letters in children's handwriting. This whole report was given during the annual Advents singing at the school, so we packed it into a Christmas story of gving.

Unfortunately, in the excitement no pictures were taken, so I hope to rectify that mistake soon and add them to the blog.

The next project is for the kids to write about it for the local paper. Okay, it's not English, but the kids are enjoying the seriousity of the whole process, and there's time enough for English again in the new year.

Now we can only hope and pray that the children of Matopo are being spared from the choloric catastrophy that is rushing up and down Zimbabwe.

Collecting for Zimbabwe

Last school year near the end I talked to my class about a school in Zimbabwe,
the Matopo Primary School,
and showed them the materials I had collected, 100.- worth, to send to Zimbabwe. They were so motivated that they decided they wanted to help collect materials for the school.

In the process the kids learned about geography - they can tell you in an instant where Zimbabwe is- and they also learned about the darker side of politics and power. The word corruption came up as well.

The kids went to each class in their school and expained the situation of the children there, that they were very poor, many were orphans or half-orphans and some families were even run by the oldest child in the family. My class then began bringing materials to me, school bags, notebooks and all other sorts of school materials, to send to Matopo. We labelled whom the school bags were from and they sorted out the the pencils etc that were too small or not in good enough condition to send.
This is what the pile looked like afterwards:

Just recently we received a huge pile of letters written by hand from the head of the school as well as from the children of Matopo. They are moving letters and full of thankfulness. The kids are excited to get these letters and I hope they are willing to write back to these lovely children . In any case, the next step is to share with all the children of Krauer who donated even the smallest of contributions, and who knows, maybe next time we can send school bags full of materials to every child in Matopo Primary School with the help of other schools!

What have we got?

Here is a rap my class performed. It practices the structure "I've got..."
We hope you enjoy it.

The Adventure

Here is a play my Primary English class made about friendship and adventures.

What to do with Easter eggs

This is what young and old enjoy doing with their Easter eggs. It's a fun game called Eiertütsche. Have a listen to the podcast on the side and you will hear the kids from Primary English describing the game.

Happy Easter to all!!!!

South Paris Language Channel

We just added German and Swiss German to the Language Channel.
It was great fun.
Thank you Mrs Parisi

First meetings with South Paris, NY

Here is the first podcast made by my class for the class in the US.
They are introducing themselves and asking questions


Hello. My name is ...

Then my class sang a Christmas song

Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer

And here was their answer!