Lara and Anna report on school

My First Week of School

by Anna

My first week of school was fun and not fun at the same time. It was not fun because I didn't know what to do at all and all the other kids knew exactly what they were doing. I was just kind of sitting there because I didn't understand what the teacher was saying.

It was fun because I made four new friends. Their names are Dana, Ara, Jessica (pronounced Yessica), and Nina. My teacher's name is Frau Drechsler. "Frau" means "Mrs." or "Miss" so her last name is Drechsler. She's very kind, but sometimes she gets frustrated with the rowdy boys in our class. I don't know one boy in my class who's not rowdy!

School in Germany is a lot different from America because all the teachers come into the classroom instead of the kids going into their rooms. The only things we go out of the classroom for are music, P.E. (called "Sport"), and swimming. For swimming we ride a really fancy bus with an upper deck to a swimming pool away from the school.

The name of my school is Lietzensee Schule. It's called Lietzensee Schule because there's a lake right nearby that's called the Lietzensee ("See" means "lake"). We usually walk to school through a churchyard behind our house and it takes about two minutes to get there.

The school building is a big reddish brick building. There are four stories and I’m on the very top floor so I have to walk up four flights of stairs every morning. During the morning we have a snack that we can eat anytime we want. There's a big recess courtyard and all the kids go to recess at the same time, from 1^st grade through 6^th grade. We have recess twice a day. At recess I usually play with Jessica. There's a big soccer field that the boys play soccer on. There are also two places for hopscotch.

We finish school at 1:30 and eat lunch at home. Mommy comes to pick me up. Then I do my homework. I'm working on learning cursive because all of my other classmates learned last year, so if I don't have other homework I practice in my cursive book. We also write with fountain pens, so I'm practicing that, too. Papa says that my handwriting has gotten much better from practicing.

And that's my first week of school!

Tschüs!

Die erste Schulwoche

von Lara

I just finished my first week of school yesterday. It was really hard to keep up with everyone else in my class because I had no idea where to go and what to do. Luckily, a few of the girls from the class helped me and showed me around the school. My main teacher is called Frau Otto, but I only have her for a few classes each day because each period a different teacher comes into the classroom to teach a different subject. Each day I get out of school at a different time, most days at 1:30, but depending on the day it sometimes goes later then that.

The only classes that I understand so far are math and English, so now I have a student teacher who translates everything that I do not understand into English. She will continue to help me until I feel more comfortable in the classroom and have learned more German. My other subjects are natural science, German, religion, music, art, P.E., and history/geography. It seems weird that a public school would teach religion but I really like the teacher so it’s a lot of fun for me.

Half the school was originally made for boys and half for girls. There are two front doors with stone carvings that say "GIRLS" over one and "BOYS" over the other. The school is really different than all our schools in Reedsport because it's over 100 hundred years old but on the inside it has been remodeled and looks really nice.

In all, the first week of school was hard but not too hard that I don't want to go back. The kids are nice and the teachers are helpful which helps a lot!!!

Editor's note: Hannes starts his new school this Monday. Stay tuned next week for his first impressions!