fall school at Carl-Sonnenschein Elementary School

On October 11, the two-week fall school began at Carl Sonnenschein Elementary School.

The aim of the autumn school was to make up for the learning deficits caused by Corona and to regain the student's discipline.

The fall school programme was divided into two learning groups: 1st to 3rd grade classes were held in the morning, followed by 4th to 6th grade classes in the afternoon.

But before Autumn School could begin, a lot of planning and preparation had to be done. With the help of the teachers, individual teaching materials were prepared and, in order to make everything run smoothly, small activities as well as creative tasks and games were thought up. In order to structure the whole programme, we decided on a time frame before the start. However, we soon realised that the pupils preferred to work individually, so we only set times for breaks and playing together.

For the first learning group from first to third grade, the first day of holiday school started at nine o'clock in the morning on Monday 11 October. Because the Pandemic is still present, the first thing the children had to do was to take a test. The tests were carried out twice a week.

In addition, every morning we started with a circle of chairs and a game, which varied from day to day. Here the children always had a lot of fun and the experiences of the previous day were collected.

Afterwards, the first concentrated learning time of the day began and the students got busy with their homework. Here they worked on their individually prepared learning notebooks, which they received from their teachers. Sometimes our help was needed to solve certain tasks and on other days they all worked very independently. Then, we included a short breakfast break in the daily schedule after the first phase of learning and concentrated work. For this, we offered the children fresh fruit every day.

This was followed by a second period of quiet work before the long-awaited break in the playground.

At the end of the first learning group, we read a story or coloured mandalas every day. The children always looked forward to being read to. From time to time we prepared learning games in which all the pupils could learn something together. These games were always a lot of fun.

Every day the pupils from first to third grade worked more and more on their materials and therefore worked more and more on their learning deficits every day. Each additional worksheet completed filled them with pride and by the end of the Autumn School, each of the children could be very proud of themselves.

For the fourth to sixth graders, it also started on Monday at 13:00 with the Corona tests.  Afterwards, they worked on English worksheets they had received from the teacher. However, they only lasted two days, so we had to improvise a lot for the rest of the autumn school. Nevertheless, we managed to do it with complete success. First of all, the students had to prepare a presentation in pairs about the cities they found interesting. They chose the cities of Seoul and New York. In addition, we sometimes held small discussion groups in between, in which topics such as "School without homework", "School only starts at 10 o'clock in the morning" or "School uniforms" were discussed. 

Over the course of the two weeks, the upper grades also developed a routine. 

Starting with a game (e.g. Hangman), everyone did mental arithmetic. These tasks were reviewed together and we could see how they could respond better and faster to the tasks from one day to the next. So it was a success. Afterwards, several English vocabulary words were discussed. The topics were, for example, Halloween and parts of the body. The next day they consolidated and added new vocabulary. Afterwards, they had to find these words on a letter grid and form matching sentences. We continued with various tasks on German spelling, which were done on the smart board. 

The children enjoyed this more and more every day and it also had an effect. At the end, there was always a video on different topics, such as ancient Rome, the extinction of the tiger or the consumption of sugar. For this, we thought beforehand about the questions to be answered afterwards. Therefore, the students had to pay attention during the video and take notes. After the video, we discussed the answers together. This was always a good way to end the day. 

The fourth to sixth graders can also be proud, because during the two weeks of autumn school they have been able to catch up on their learning and improve their knowledge.   

The autumn school at Carl-Sonnenschein Primary School was a complete success for all participating children, but also for us, the "teachers".