The Kinder lernen Deutsch Committee (KLD) is a standing committee of the AATG that has existed since 1987 and that was originally charged to support the advocacy of German in grades K-8. With generous funding by the Standige Arbeitsgruppe Deutsch als Fremdsprache (StADaF) from the German government and the Goethe-Institut, the Kinder lernen Deutsch (KLD) Steering Committee has made great progress in many directions. The contribution here represents an initiative by a writing team of the committee to provide two curricular proposals to address the glaring omission of usable and useful classroom materials for middle school learners of German. The writing team applied the concepts reflected by Wiggins and McTighe in "Understanding by Design" as well as the thematic planning framework of Helena Curtain and Carol Ann Dahlberg. The thematic units entitled "Die Umwelt und ich" and "Oma Annas Schatzkoffer: ein neues Leben in Amerika" provide a design template that can be used for developing additional thematic units for middle school learners.