Today, I’ll be teaching a lesson based on Eric Carle’s book, Die kleine Spinne spinnt und schweigt.

First, we will review the five farm animals they learned when we read Klingelingeling:

• die Katze
• der Hund,
• das Schwein
• die Ente
• das Pferd

Then I’ll use more images to introduce the other animals (and insect!) in the story:

• die Kuh
• das Schaf
• die Ziege
• der Hahn
• die Eule
• die Spinne

For the images, I found Eric Carle’s images in a bulletin board set on Amazon. (Nope, I don’t get compensation for mentioning this product! 🙂 )

We will also talk about the different sounds the animals make in German.

Next we sing “Die winzig kleine Spinne.” There are several German versions, including one called “Imse Bimse Spinne.” But this is the one that I know:

Die winzig kleine Spinne
kroch auf den Wasserhahn.
Dann kam der Regen
und ward sie aus der Bahn!
Dann kam die Sonne
und trocknet wieder auf.
Und die winzig kleine Spinne
kroch wiederum hinauf!

Finally, I will read the book to the children. I love to be dramatic when reading books to children 🙂  So I exaggerate the animal sounds and read in voices that sound like the various animals.

I always try to bring a craft or a coloring page for the children. This week, I’ll bring a coloring page with the six new animals on one side and the words to the song on the other. Here you can download a copy of the coloring sheet, which includes an extra page with the first five animals as well: Malvorlage kleine Spinne (PDF)