Guten Tag!

We are learning about Oktoberfest during Social Studies this week. Yesterday, we made a huge German flag and marched around yelling, "Guten Tag! Guten Tag!" The kids got a kick out of that. This is our article about Oktoberfest. It is about 4 pages, but this is the front page just for you to get an idea of our adapted newspaper! (© News-2-You.com)

The kids have been really into learning about another country! On Monday, we learned the Chicken Dance (an "oom-pah" song) because we were hearing about Oktoberfest's oom-pah music. Not only did the kids love the dance, but they loved saying the word OOMPAH. It's their favorite! No, they can't remember the sight words consistently, but YES they can remember the word OOMPAH! One kid got off the bus this morning and responded to my "hello!" with "OOMPAH!" Haha.

Today's big excitement was our "cooking project." We made German Pretzels. The recipe is below. I modified the chocolate chip part to be a container of frosting, this was the next best thing to a microwave and chocolate chips.

The kids dipped the pretzel rods into the chocolate frosting, twirled them around in the sprinkles, and ta-dah - German Pretzels. They were a big hit!

Now for the fun part of the day. There are still a few people at the school that are "unsure" about us. They don't mean to, but they stare. Hard. They look at the kids like they're aliens. Nobody deserves that! I figured, what better of a way to lighten them up than to hand-deliver homemade German Pretzels! Mmmm. We picked a few starers and a few ASD supporters.

I made the kids be extra sanitary for our delivery goodies. They washed their hands and made up a nice big batch of German Pretzels for some different friends around school. We put each one in a cup for travel purposes. I wrote on each cup, "Happy Oktoberfest from Mrs. Smith's Oompah Band." I downloaded oompah music onto my iPhone and off we marched.

First stop, the technology guy who installs software onto the computer. He seems like a nice guy, but is never really smiling. Well, I saw our first smile today when we opened the door to his office, marching in, oompah music and all - with his very own German Pretzel. Friends with the tech guy, check.

Next stop, front office. We marched through and handed out the German Pretzels to the secretaries. They got such a kick out of it and cheered as we marched through. The kids were smiling and clapping with all of the excitement. They love making people happy!

We saw some big smiles today! Our last stop was the Child Study Team secretary. She wasn't there so we left her a note. We later received a very excited phone call letting us know that she thoroughly enjoyed her German Pretzel. She also left a thank you note in my box.

As we were finishing up our delivery route, I had the kids chicken dancing down the hallway back to class. A few boys walked past with puzzled looks. One of them said, "Wish I could do the chicken dance in school!"

We marched to the beat of our own drum today. Well, we do that every day. That's what helps us achieve success daily.

Ooompah!