As Froggy gets ready for 3rd grade (what?!!), he has been asked by his teachers to keep a log of the books he reads over the summer. I thought it would be fun if he helped me create one for him. So he chose the frame and the font.
I’ve created the log in English and in German. You choose!
Download the PDF file for FREE here: !Sommerleseliste 2018 GitA
What books will your children read over the summer? And in what language will they read??
We’re doing a little review today in pre-K/kindergarten. It’s hard to believe it’s almost the end of the year! The children have learned so much! And I’m so inspired to do even more with them next year!!
One of the things we will review today is the weather. We’ll look out the window to see what the weather is like and what we see: die Sonne, der Wind, die Wolke. It’s a beautiful day today 🙂
And we’ll read Elmar mag jedes Wetter again.
I prepared a coloring page for them as well. There are two versions. In the first version, the children can trace the weather words under the pictures. In the second version, I’ve given them a bit of a challenge. There is a word bank (Wortschatz), and they will have to choose the appropriate word to write under the image. I have plenty of each, so the children can choose what they would like to do.
You can download the PDF version here for FREE: Wetter Malvorlage GitA
Check out these other weather materials to go along with Elmar! And for other weather work, just click on the “weather” tag at the right!
I can’t believe the summer is almost upon us! We’ll be heading back to the Netherlands and Germany for a few weeks. I will certainly be posting about our travels!
This year, we’re doing something completely new! Well, at least new to the kids! We will be taking the train from the Netherlands to Germany! I am SO excited! I just love the train 🙂 We’ll leave from Amsterdam, change in Utrecht, and arrive in Frankfurt. I just can’t wait for the boys to experience train travel in Europe!
Of course, I have to come up with some activities to keep them occupied on the long train ride. As much as I love to look out the window, I don’t think they will be doing that for the entire trip!
I started looking around for some train ride scavenger hunts. There are tons of them out there for car rides, so I figured it should be easy, right? Wrong. I could only find one so far! And it was for a trip in the US going up to Maine (click here to check it out). So while it was inspiring, it won’t exactly work for us.
So I went back to my travel scavenger hunt that I made for the car and updated it with new images for the train ride!
As you can see, there are two sets of things to search for. And for each set, there are three versions:
Some of the new vocabulary include:
Obviously, a lot of these things can also be seen from a car! So feel free to refresh your old version of this travel game, even if you are going on a road trip!
I am going to print out the copy with words and images, one for each of the boys, and put them in their travel binders to play a game of I Spy. They can mark off what they see with a square sticky note or a pencil or crayon. I’m trying to travel extra light this year! So I won’t bother to laminate them. If I want to use them again next year, I can either print out a fresh copy or laminate it then 🙂
I actually will print out a whole set to laminate, so we can start practicing vocabulary now. I’ll cut up the squares, so we can play games like Go Fish and Memory.
Download the PDF for FREE here: Travel Games on the Train GitA
Yesterday, I wrote about a nature scavenger hunt I’m preparing for the children in the pre-K/kindergarten class. I’m introducing the vocabulary, so they can go on the hunt at the class picnic and teach their parents the German words along the way!
The first part was about signs of nature. This second part is about “animals” in nature – well, animals and insects 🙂
We’re going to play a game of Simon sagt (Simon Says) to practice the words. I’ll teach the children a small motion to go with each word. Then we’ll all play at being the different animals and insects!
Here are the word posters:
And here is the coloring page:
You can download the PDF for free here: Tiere in der Natur GitA
The weather has finally warmed up here on the east coast! And the end of the school year is fast approaching. The pre-K/kindergarten class picnic is coming up next week. I volunteered to lead a scavenger hunt for the kiddos. Luckily, I already have something in my bag of tricks 😉
One of my go-to resources for creating my materials is a site called Teachers Pay Teachers. It’s where I get most of my clipart. But sometimes I get ready-made materials, too. A couple years ago, Froggy came home with a super cute Nature Walk scavenger hunt. I tracked down the seller and asked her if she could make it for me in German. She generously did! Unfortunately, I can’t find it on her TPT page, but I’ve asked her if she would post it, so I can share it here. Here’s a link to the English version.
In the meantime, I’ve created word posters and coloring pages to go along with the items on the scavenger hunt. I grouped them into two parts: Zeichen des Frühlings (Signs of Spring) and Tiere in der Natur (Animals in Nature).
Here’s what the first set looks like:
And here is the coloring page:
You can download the PDF for free here: Zeichen des Frühlings GitA
You could use the coloring page(s) as a scavenger hunt for now!
I’ll be teaching the words to the children in our next two classes. Then they can help their parents with the German when we’re all at the picnic!
UPDATE (29 May 2018): I found a spelling mistake in the files for the flower. I have since made the correction, both in the above example, and in the PDF file!
Today is the last day that we will be working on our farm unit in Pre-K/Kindergarten.
For four weeks, I have been reading different books about the farm. And we have been working on a song. At the end of each lesson, the children get a coloring sheet with four animals or other things found on the farm. See this post for the coloring sheets.
I’ve learned a couple of things while doing this project for the first time!
First, I love having a theme that goes on for a few weeks! I’ve been able to read a number of different books from my collection. And because we’ve been singing the same song each week, the children seem to be learning it well! It makes lesson planning that much easier, too 🙂
Second, making a book out of 4 coloring sheets – to equal 16 small pages of the book – is a LOT for little ones! So instead of having them cut out all 4 pages today, I have prepped the work by cutting the first three pages that they have already colored. Then they will only have to color and cut one page today, and we can staple the booklet together! Maybe next time I won’t be quite so ambitious 🙂 But we’ll have to see how today goes first.
So what books have we been reading? Here they are:
Four years ago, we took our first family road trip. We drove 6 hours to New England. I grew up on the water and it was important to me to take my boys to see the ocean.
But a drive that long, with kids ages 4 and 1? I knew I needed some strategy.
So I started collecting ideas for travel busy bags.
Thanks to all the fabulous mommy blogs out there, I had no shortage of inspiration. I started collecting them all on a Pinterest board. Over 50 sites with great ideas can be found here:
I bought a set of pencil cases to hold them. Sometimes the simplest things work the best: a set of dinosaurs, some Duplo Legos, lacing blocks, or craft sticks to practice making shapes. The first three were things we already had in the house. And the last activity was a simple one to make.
For more of my favorite ideas, check out my page on Travel Activities for Little Kids!
Let me know in the comments which ones you try out and what works for you!
