Monthly Archives: November 2020

Zehn kleine Zappelfinger / Ten Little Fidgety Fingers

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

I am quickly trying to find some finger plays that I can do with the little ones, now that we can’t sing for a while. Although “Zehn kleine Zappelmänner” is usually a song, it can be done as a finger play, too! I looked at a number of variations on the old favorite and came up with a version of my own.

First, I went with Finger instead of Männer. Especially for my youngest students, it made more sense to use the word for fingers. And isn’t it often our fingers that get fidgety?!

I made a little handout with the words that I am using for the fingerplay. The children can also color in the hands when they bring the coloring page home.

Zehn kleine Zappelfinger GitADownload

I will try to get a video of the fingerplay posted soon!

Thanksgiving-Dinner Umfrage / Survey

Posted in 1st - 4th Grade, 5th - 6th Grade, Baking & Cooking, Holidays, Uncategorized by

As a follow-up to my post from last week introducing food items you would find at a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, I created a few more accompanying materials.

In my 1st & 2nd grade class, I thought I would do a survey of who likes which foods. I will ask: “Wer isst x gern?” If they like it, they can stand up, if they don’t they stay seated. We will then count – in German, of course! – the students who are standing. And I will record the number in the box next to the food.

Thanksgiving-Dinner Umfrage GitADownload

I made a similar sheet with smaller boxes as a handout, so the children can mark their own papers to show which foods they like to eat – Ich esse … gern!

Thanksgiving-Dinner Ich esse gern GitADownload

Guten Appetit!

Das Thanksgiving-Dinner

Posted in 1st - 4th Grade, 5th - 6th Grade, Baking & Cooking, Holidays, Uncategorized, Word Posters by

Thanksgiving is a truly American holiday. They obviously do not celebrate it in Germany! And yet, the Germans I know are all rather fascinated by the holiday.

With my 5th & 6th graders, we have been practicing how to talk about foods that you like and don’t like. So with Thanksgiving approaching, I thought it would be fun to hear which traditional foods the kids like and which ones they don’t.

To talk about foods they like (gern essen) and foods they don’t like (nicht gern essen), I made some posters to hang:

Included in the download is also a single poster which includes both sentences, as well as a poster for expressing a favorite food. You can download these here:

Ich esse gern GitADownload

Then I made a handout with 12 traditional Thanksgiving foods. I’m sure the kids will have ideas about what was left out! But I thought these covered the basics.

Thanksgiving-Dinner GitADownload

I also made individual posters that you can laminate to introduce the vocabulary. I have to say, I was surprised to find that pies are essentially called Kuchen. I always think of Kuchen as cake! But every source I checked used the same words. So Kürbiskuchen and Apfelkuchen it is!

Thanksgiving-Dinner Plakate GitADownload

Guten Appetit!

Zahlen / Numbers

Posted in Coloring Pages, Numbers, Pre-K & K Class, Uncategorized by

We practice counting right from the start in Pre-K/Kindergarten classes! I thought I would collect a number of resources that I hand out at the beginning of the year.

Here is a video I made for counting to 12. In the video, I count farm animals. However, we don’t start learning those words until the spring. So you might want to watch for just about 1 minute 20 seconds 🙂

I have a variety of coloring pages, including some color-by-number, and even tracing pages for early readers. Scroll through to see the selection! The PDF download links are below each image.

Counting fish, numbers 1-5:

Fünf kleine Fische – GitADownload

And here are 5 mice that go nicely with the finger play, Die Mausfamilie (The Mouse Family).

Zahlen 1-5 Mäuse – GitADownload

Or there are 10 mice!

Zahlen 1-10 Mäuse – GitADownload

Fall Color-by-number:

Malen nach Zahlen Herbstblatt – GitADownload

Tracing Number Words:

Trace number words in German 1-10 – GitADownload

That’s all for now! Check back for updates throughout the year!

Fünf kleine Fische / Five Little Fish

Posted in Book Materials, Books, Coloring Pages, Pre-K & K Class, Songs, Uncategorized by

In the fall, I love to read the books about Kleiner weißer Fisch (Little White Fish) by Guido van Genechten. They are sweet books that are perfect for early language learners. There is a whole series of the books, so we read 5 of them this year in Pre-k/Kindergarten.

To go along with the books, we also sing the song “Fünf kleine Fische”. The kids love it! They especially love the “blub blub blub” part. I have little hand motions that we do with the song, so the kids can play along, even before they have learned the words. Here is a video of how I sing the song with them:

Of course, we practice counting to 5 before we start singing! We count forward and backward, since the song starts with 5 fish and counts down to 1.

To go along with the song, I have a coloring page that also includes the lyrics to the song with an English translation:

You can download that PDF for FREE here:

Funf kleine Fische – Songtext GitADownload

I also have a simple coloring page of five fish. This coloring sheet includes the words to the song as well.

You can download the PDF for FREE here:

funf-kleine-fische-gitaDownload

Finally, if you are musically inclined and would like the sheet music for the song, you can find it here from Sing Kinderlieder (PDF).

Viel Spaß beim Singen!