After a two-week spring break, school resumed today with our first movie night (Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen). While it was odd to hear someone else’s voice come out Alan Rickman’s mouth, watching the movie in German gave our students the opportunity to pick up some slang expressions like “voll krass” (‘wicked’ in the movie).
Axel Junker is our new president! Axel has been with the German School of Madison since its inception and will continue our efforts to grow as a school and serve the individual needs of our families and the larger community.
We thank Catrin Weimbs, our outgoing president, for her extraordinary leadership through the past two years, in which our school gained recognition from the Central Agency for German Schools Abroad (ZfA), merged its first and second language acquisition branches, added a class for adults, and moved to our current location. Catrin spearheaded many of these developments and we are fortunate that she will remain on the Board of Directors.
Catrin Weimbs (on the left), Axel Junker (on the right)
Chris Tabisz, whom many of you know as a teacher for our school and who has led many of our outreach projects, will take on the role of administrator for the school next month. (He will continue teaching the Falken class until the end of the year.) Like Axel and Catrin, Chris has been with GSoM since the beginning and knows our programs inside out.
Chris Tabisz
With these developments, we feel we are in a good position to plan the next school year. But first, we’d like to share information about some special events we have planned for the remainder of the current school year:
After class, the whole GSoM community is invited to stay for a film evening with pizza in the LEUCC community room. The young kids will get to watch a children’s film during the 2nd and 3rd lessons for the older kids, and afterward, there will be a family film with pizza. The films are TBA.
The church building is not available that day. All classes (including preschool and adult classes) will meet at the Olbrich Gardens playground on the far side of the parking lot at 2 PM-4:45 PM. We will have mixed aged activities for the day’s class in and around the Olbrich Gardens.
All classes (including preschool and adult classes) will meet at LEUCC (normal time), and we will have mixed-aged activities for the day’s class in and around LEUCC and the elementary school across the street.
All of the GSoM community is invited to join in on the fun at the Monona Senior Center at 2:30 PM (1011 Nichols Road) for our graduation and end-of-school-year party. Note that this is a new location. Each class will present something that they have learned, and we will have activities for all ages before we all leave for the summer. Feel free to invite friends and family!
Sommerfest 2016
Our winter newsletter will catch you up with what we have been up to these past months. A big thank you to everyone who contributed.
What a busy day this was for us! From morning to afternoon, we represented our school at the Overture Center International Festival. This year, our table was right at the rotunda, which was great exposure for our school. We loved chatting with everyone who stopped by, including familiar faces (Schwalben/Swallows teacher Jo Drury) as well as unexpected visitors.
In the afternoon, we celebrated Karneval/Fasching with arts & crafts and a costume parade. Have a look at all the fabulous costumes! Robots, fairies, and several Triwizard Tournament Champions were in attendance, as were Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, Axl Rose, and one Top Chef.
What a great turnout! Special thanks go to Iris Hengst and Krista Bultmann-Spiro for organizing the event, as well as to everyone who helped with the setup and cleaning or who contributed treats.
A highlight was the announcement of the winners of our Waldsee scholarship essay contest. Herzlichen Glückwunsch to the 8 (!) students who won a scholarship of $400 each towards attending Waldsee, the German language immersion program in Bemidji, Minnesota, this summer. We are very grateful to Concordia Language Villages for providing this opportunity to our students.
Date: Saturday, February 25th, as an extension of our regular German school activities. (Please not that this is a change from the original plan to hold the party on Feb. 26. We made this change based on parent feedback.)
Location: Lake Edge United Church of Christ, 4200 Buckeye Rd. , Madison
Time: 3-5.15 p.m.
We are looking forward to celebrating with you!
New textbooks, maps, and posters for our students!
We thank the Zentralstelle für das deutsche Auslandsschulwesen (ZfA) for a book grant that allowed us to buy new textbooks for our classes.
Additionally, Falken teacher Catalina Thomsen on a recent visit to Berlin arranged for the Auswärtiges Amt to send us updated Landeskunde materials, via the German Embassy in Washington and the German Consulate in Chicago. Our students say “DANKE”!
Great opportunity for our students: Waldsee, the German language immersion program at Concordia Language Villages in Bemidji, Minnesota, is offering 5 scholarships of $400 each for our students to attend one of their German language summer camps in 2017. The camps are one, two and four weeks long. Current GSoM students who are 8 years or older can apply for the scholarships. Interested students must participate in our essay contest: Each student should write an essay of no longer than one page about their motivation to attend Waldsee (essay can be in German or in English). The deadline for essay submissions (germanschoolofmadison@gmail.com) is February 1st.
German School of Madison 
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