SL: Klingelingeling – Take 3!

Posted in 1st - 4th Grade, Books, Story Listening, Uncategorized by

If you’ve read my posts from last year and the year before, you know that I LOVE this story! I love reading the book to my pre-k/kindergartners. And I love telling it to ALL my students as a Story Listening lesson 🙂

Upper Elementary:

Even though my 4th-graders have heard the story for the past two years, I thought it would be a great one to tell after winter break. The kids came back for just two days, and so I was in teaching German on Friday, January 3rd!

I decided to update it for the 4th-graders and added a few details and an extra paragraph. But for the 3rd-graders, I stuck to my original story. You can see the two boards here:

 

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4th Grade

2020-01-03 12.51.23 3rd

3rd Grade

So in 4th grade, the Schlitten was blue. And after crossing the fields, they went carefully through a forest (because really, what story of mine would be complete without mentioning a Wald?!)

In the top picture, you can also see that I was using the expressions that were created by my friend over at We Love Deutsch. The kids LOVE to say the phrases! I try to include a few in each story for them to use. Sometimes they are in the text of the story, and they repeat them. But sometimes I think about how you might react and make a little speech bubble in the margin of my prompter. Then I point to the expression, and they all say it. Now they often don’t even need any prompting!

Since it is a short story, I needed something to do to finish out our 30 minutes. So I taught them the song “Mein Hut, der hat drei Ecken.” See this post to read all about it!

Lower Elementary:

On the following Tuesday I had my first meeting with my 1st & 2nd graders. Again I told them Klingelingeling.

The 2nd-graders remembered it from last year and still enjoyed it. They get really excited by a familiar story.

The 1st-graders are new to Story Listening this year. However, most of them were here in kindergarten last year, and many of them were in pre-school before that. And so they have heard me read the book a number of times! They were also very excited to know the story!

I did not take pictures of my story boards in 1st & 2nd grade, but they were similar to the 3rd-grade board. However, I often do not write as many words for them.

I am working on creating video reviews of my stories. Stay tuned for the Klingelingeling video….

Baby Hai

Posted in Pre-K & K Class, Songs, Uncategorized by

As my own kids are a bit older now, I don’t always hear about what is popular with the younger children. But at their last piano recital, a little girl played “Baby Shark” on the piano and sang along. At first, I thought, “What is this?!!” But it was actually really cute.

I was recently talking with another language teacher who said she was using it in her Spanish class. So now that’s got me thinking. In the fall we regularly sang “Fünf kleine Fische” in the pre-k/kindergarten classes. I think “Baby Hai” would have been a great follow-up song. Maybe we will circle back to the fish song and introduce “Baby Hai” along with a book about family.

Meanwhile, here is a link to a video of “Baby Hai” in German:

 

My New Favorite Song for German Class!

Posted in 1st - 4th Grade, Songs, Uncategorized by

Last fall I wrote two posts about the song “Mein Hut, der hat drei Ecken” – this one and this one. It went really well with my after-school German club!

Well, today I did it in class with my 3rd and 4th graders. It was SUCH a hit!!! Even the kids who were kind of tuning out and not engaging suddenly perked up 🙂

It worked really well to teach the song step by step. As we went along, they got more and more into it. And there were more and more giggles – while still maintaining order in the classroom 😉

STEP 1: Introduce the 5 vocabulary words that you end up leaving out in the song:

STEP 2: Teach the first two lines by just saying the words and doing the actions that go with them. You can watch a video of how to do the actions here: (but don’t start singing yet!!)

STEP 3: Then practice the next two lines with the actions. And put all 4 lines together.

STEP 4: Now sing the whole song, using the actions. You can use my poster with the words, if it helps. But I kind of liked waiting to add that visual. With the singing and the actions, there is already enough for the kids to focus on!

Mein Hut Songtext-page-002

STEP 5: Continue singing as you practice leaving out one new word each time you sing it. The posters I made really come in handy here!

STEP 6: Finally, turn on the music from the song above. (It’s on YouTube, of course, but I played it from my phone using the Amazon music app. I expect you could find it on any music app.) And have fun trying to keep up as you leave out more and more of the words while doing the actions. And ENJOY THE GIGGLES! (Hmm, maybe I should have taught them the word kichern?!)

Download all the posters for FREE as a PDF here: Mein Hut Songtext (GitA)

Weihnachts-Bingo

Posted in Games, Holidays, Uncategorized, Word Posters by

Looking to practice some Christmas vocabulary? How about a fun game of bingo?! I made up 25 different cards. There is also a key for you to keep track of which items have been called already – just in case your students have other ideas 😉

When we play, I bring a die. Whatever number I roll is the column where they have to find the word. If I roll a 6, then it can be anywhere on the card.

Here is what the cards look like:

You can download the Bingo cards for FREE as a PDF file: Weihnacht Bingo GitA

The words are the same 24 that I used in my Vocabulary Advent Calendars.

If you would like to print out posters of the words, you can download this PDF: Weihnacht Posters GitA. I also print these 6 to a page to use a the cards that I draw for the Bingo words. Here is a sample of what they look like:

Here is a list of the 24 words that are included:

  1. der Adventskalender
  2. der Adventskranz
  3. die Geschenke (plural)
  4. die Glaskugel
  5. der Hampelmann
  6. die Kerze
  7. das Knusperhaus
  8. das Lebkuchenherz
  9. der Lebkuchenmann
  10. der Nikolaus
  11. der Nussknacker
  12. die Plätzchen (plural)
  13. die Pyramide
  14. das Räuchermännchen
  15. der Schlitten
  16. die Schneeflocke
  17. die Stiefel (plural)
  18. der Stollen
  19. die Tasse
  20. der Tannenbaum
  21. die Weihnachtskarte
  22. das Weihnachtslied
  23. der Weihnachtsmarkt
  24. die Zuckerstange

Frohe Weihnachten!

Nikolaus Story Listening Video

Posted in 1st - 4th Grade, Holidays, Story Listening, Uncategorized, Writing by

I am not going to be able to teach my next lesson on Nikolaus to the 3rd & 4th graders. The classroom teachers kindly agreed to work on it with the students while I’m away. They will review the Nikolaus legend I told them in the last lesson, but I needed a way for the kids to hear the German story. So my terrific tech-savvy husband helped me figure out a way to do just that!

I used a program called Explain Everything and was able to use a tablet to draw and record the story as a video that could be uploaded! Here it is….

 

While this method follows the guidelines for Story Listening, it is not at all meant to be a replacement. It does use a variety of aspects of Comprehension-Aiding Supplementation (CAS):

  • Drawings
  • Written Words
  • Synonyms
  • Antonyms
  • Word Families
  • Students’ First Language
  • Slow & Clear Speach

The main things that I am missing here are gestures (body movements) and mimic (facial expressions). However, I believe my tone of voice does also help slightly to make up for this lack.

Also, this story is already known to the students. Not only did I tell the story the week before my absence, but it is the 3rd year in a row that they have heard it! So I feel good about sending it in to help the students through this “substitute” lesson.

After they watch the video, students have two options:

  1. Draw a picture of their favorite scene and find a sentence in the text to use as a caption.
  2. Illustrate a booklet of the story (can also be done in partner work).

A variation for the second option would be to print out individual pages from the booklet and have each student illustrate one page to make a collaborative book.

You can download the text and illustration page as a PDF here: Nikolaus und die drei Töchter Text.  Download the booklet as a PDF here: Nikolaus booklet.

I hope to create more animated drawings like this for my students to use as review. In a pinch, they could also be used as a substitute lesson if I am absent at the last-minute. Stay tuned!

An Afternoon in the Netherlands

Posted in Travel, Uncategorized by

One of the things I love about coming to visit Oma & Opa in the Netherlands is simply … being in the Netherlands. I love soaking up the different culture. It’s great to do and see different things, but I often enjoy the simple things the most.

Now that the kids are getting older, we’re talking more about these differences together.

Today was a rather dreary day – overcast skies, light rain on and off. In other words, a typical late-fall day in the Netherlands!

But that didn’t stop us! We walked to the shops, about 1.5 miles away. Just bundled up a bit to keep warm and dry.

We went to a snack bar for lunch. While PER had a broodje kroket (Kroketten are made with meat ragu, breaded, and fried. And you eat them on a roll – broodje – with mustard.). Froggy went with what he knows: chicken nuggets (kip nuggets), fries, and a vanilla milkshake. Of course, they don’t taste exactly the same as they do back in the States!

After lunch, we had a wonderful holiday treat: oliebol! It’s basically a fried dough ball. I had a plain one with powdered sugar. PER went for apple. And Froggy? He went all out and had the one with Nutella! Heerlijk!

One the walk home it rained. But hey, that’s Dutch weather for you! Just put up your hood – or not! – and keep walking 🙂

Back in the Netherlands!

Posted in Travel, Uncategorized by

We’re back! It’s been well over a year since we last flew to the Netherlands. But this year we decided not to go in the summer, but to wait until the week of Thanksgiving … and the first week in December … to return to the Netherlands. It feels like a long time since we’ve been here, and it’s great to be back!

The flight over was uneventful, which is good! As usual, I only sleep for about an hour. But both kids did much better! It’s hard to sleep when the lights are on and food is being served. And then when they turn out the lights, there are so many screens flashing, I can’t keep my eyes closed. How do you avoid suffering from jetlag??

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Even with 6 hours of sleep, it’s hard to stay on your feet while waiting for the rental car!

Our flight left about three hours later than our summer flights usually do. Leaving after 9 pm meant the kids were up well past their bedtime, but maybe that helped them fall asleep? I liked landing later. We arrived around 11 am. So even though my head was nodding at times, I actually stayed up until after 8 pm! I’ve never made it through the first day without a nap!

We drove straight to Oma & Opa’s. We were all hungry, so Oma had some food ready for us. And what did Hippo get for his first meal?

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Chocolate “vlokken” – or flakes – of course! You put them on buttered bread (the butter makes them stick).

The rest of the day was rather uneventful. After visiting with Oma & Opa, we settled in to our rental house. It’s fun to live the way the Dutch do while we’re here!

The kids made it to their normal bedtime, around 8. They were up at 4 am until we told them to go back to sleep! Then Froggy slept until 9, but Hippo had to be woken up at 11!

Today has been a quiet day. We went to the shops and got some food to stock the kitchen. It was fun to see some of the things for Sinterklaas!

I’m so excited to be here during the holidays!! I’m not sure how much there will be to do, but I’ll post what I can here! I know that we will be seeing Sinterklaas at Muiderslot Castle. And we will go to a Christmas Market in Aachen. I can hardly wait!!