1st Graders visit Havenwood State Forest

On Thursday May 13th, I had the opportunity to accompany Herr Haase's class to Havenwood State Forest. It was a wet day, but the less than ideal weather did not discourage the children one bit. I started the day in Herr Haase's classroom where I sat and watched the class complete sentences in German. As I myself do not speak German, I watched in amazement as the students interacted with Herr Haase in complete confidence.


As we embarked on our trip to Havenwoods the weather started to break. When we first arrived we split up into two groups. Frau Mattke and Herr Haase's classes started outside with a teacher led hike while Frau Heck and Frau Slightam's classes went in to work with the rangers.

On our teacher hike, I was impressed as Herr Haase handed out a scavenger hunt listing for the children that was entirely in German.
As we walked I had to ask the children what we were looking for next. Something man made, something hard, etc. They had a great time looking for these items all the while trudging through the wet grass.

We walked by a retention pond and saw a muskrat floating along. The kids were truly excited.
The swimming muskrat.

We returned to the visitor center and Herr Haase read a book before lunch. He translated it to German which was impressive. The kids intently listened to the story laughing at things I could not understand.

The class played a game together before we broke off into small groups after lunch. In the game, something gets hidden in a child's hand and another child needs to guess who got the item. It kind of reminded me of heads up 7-up but I could be way off as everything was said in German.

Finally, we broke into smaller groups and went with our ranger for a guided hike. She explained to us in English (yes!) what we were looking for. The ranger was great at engaging the children and pointing out things that would catch their interest.
We turned over logs and played the scat game. This is where you identify what animal left these droppings. Sounds like fun.

A highlight for the children were some of the live animals they were able to see and touch such as this snake and turtle.

All in all a good and tiring day. It is always amazing and encouraging to see how seamlessly the children are able to make the transition between German and English in and out of the classroom. Thanks, Herr Haase for inviting me on this field trip.