Project week - Ribe

On Monday a new project week started. Every grade works with a special theme and the normal lessons are cancelled.

On Monday I followed the first grade. They worked around healthy food and exercise. The first graders were divided into 4 groups and every teacher does a special activity with the pupils. There is one teacher in charge for cooking healthy food with the pupils and another one is in charge with healthy exercise. I followed Rikke today. She had to teach the pupils something about exercise.
First we went to the gym. Rikke had invited a football player from the local team here. Sonderjylland. The pupils were really enthousiastic. Then they got some information about the planning of today. They were going to do some exercises and they had to measure their pulse. Rikke had borrowed the equipment. a belt with a watch. I helped the pupils putting those things on. There was only one problem when we wanted to start the activity. the equipment didn't work. Rikke had tested it at home on Sunday and it worked then, but now it didn't, so we skipped that part. Pupils had to other activities like running and see how long they could keep doing it.
On Tuesday I followed the 5th grade. Their theme is the Middle Ages. Today we were cooking medieval food: soup and pancakes. We really did it like in the Middle Ages: outside on a big fire. I was in charge for the pupils who had to boil tea. The pupils had made ceramic pots and they were going to drink their soup out of these cups. But first we had to make the cups stronger and we had to boil water first to make tea which we could pour into the cups. this would make them stronger.
It were only boys and it took us quite a lot of time to make a big fire. But they managed ! After the tea we baked the pancakes on the fire. It wasn't such warm weather so the warm fire was more than welcome. Around 12h30,  we could drink the soup and eat the pancakes. The soup was really good, there were a lot of herbs in it. Then it was time to clean up. Some boys joined the girl's teams to play the medieval games. I helped the cleaning team. It was a really nice experience because I was alone with the pupils almost the whole morning and they had to speak English and I had to look after them and so on. During the break, one of the boys was kicked ( by accident, because they were playing football). I was the only teacher around and for me it felt like a big responsibility to be there and look after them. The boy appeared to be okay, he didn't want to come inside and after 1 minute he was running again after the ball.
In the afternoon, I went to Anke's place. There was an intercultural evening at the college and every country had to cook a special dish. There are a lot of Belgian Erasmus students and Anke had asked me if I wanted to join in. I helped her with making stoofvlees (stew) and baked potatoes shaped as French Fries. We had a lot of fun and it was a nice evening with delicious dishes.

On Wednesday I went on a field trip with the 5th grade. They were going to Ribe, the oldest town in Denmark. We left at 8h20. A bus was coming to pick us up. But apperently something went wrong in the communication. There was only one bus for over 80 pupils and their teachers. Pupils had to sit with 3. I also sat with 2 of my 5A class where I teach English. We talked the whole trip and I even taught them some Dutch. they wanted to know how to say: my name is ... and I like icecream. They also taught me Danish.
Tak = Thanks (I already knew this one ;) )
hest = horse
When we arrived in Ribe, the pupils were divided into 3 groups. Every group would visit the same things but just in a different order.
My group first went to the Sct. Katarina Kirke. A protestant church. It was built maby years ago but it started to bend over to one side. You can still find one of the screw jacks in the church. Then we went to the museum. I was really looking forward to this because it is a famous Viking museum. But actually I got a bit disappointed. I didn't see the museum, I only saw the children's museum. Still, it was interesting but it would have been nice also to see the real museum. The children's museum is really fun for children. They enter the world of Kristine and Rolf, 2 children who live during the Middle Ages. Rolf can go to school and Kristine can't. Pupils can dress up, play with the swords, go to the market. It's really fun. The pupils had to answer some questions. I walked around a bit and I noticed something. Every particular place had information in Danish, English, German and Dutch ! But when I started reading the Dutch version, I was shocked. There were spelling mistakes everywhere, the constructions made no sense and some words weren't translated. It was a Dutch sentence with Danish words in between with a lot of question marks next to it ! Apperently, they used google translator, but it was so funny and shocking at the same time. After the museum visit, my group got a tour in Ribe. The guided tour in the church and this one, were both in Danish. I can understand Danish now and then but I was happy that one of the teachers translated it all for me :).
Then it was time to head back home. Now there were 2 buses so there was room enough for everyone.

 

On Thursday I helped out in the 3th grade. They learnt to work with excel. the teacher had a meeting of an hour and then the pupils would be on their own so he was happy to have me around. Pupils start learning English in the 3th grade so it wasn't really easy to communicate with them. But thanks to my limited vocabulary Danish mixed with English, it worked out just fine. It was again a nice experience. This is a younger age and still with some Danish and just using my hands and feet to explain things, it worked out.

One of the teacher came to me afterwards and she told me that one of the pupils told her that she had tried to explain to me that she had to go to the dentist and she liked it that I understood here. It was so funny that the teacher came to tell me this. Although those pupils don't have me as a teacher, they really wanted to talk to me and it's nice if they are proud about it afterwards.
Thursdaynight, it was Eurovision Songcontest at the college. First we had a typical Danish dinner together: hot-dogs with chocolate milk and afterwards we had the songcontest. Every country had to prepare somenthing.
Here is a youtubefilm so you can see what the Belgian delegation did.  (This is just an example film and we used this to learn the dance ourself.) We didn't won but we had a lot of fun. First the Belgian delegation did the dance and then we all took one other person so everyone was dancing !! On Friday, I prepared the lessons for next week.