Category Archives: Story hour

Der gute Martin

Posted in Books, Crafty Projects, Holidays, Pre-K & K Class, Story hour, Uncategorized by

Next week marks the celebration of St. Martin’s Day. I have to admit, while I lived in Germany, I never actually witnessed the children walking through the streets with their homemade lanterns on November 11th. I didn’t know about the special day until I was teaching in the States at a German Saturday School. It’s such a sweet celebration, though! Now I love to share it with the children at Story Hour and in Preschool.

To go along with the celebration, I have created a very simple lantern for the children to make. You can print it out, let them color the paper if they like, and then cut along the dotted lines and assemble it. You can download the template and instructions in PDF format here: martinstag-laterne

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A finished lantern from Story Hour

The songs that go with Martinstag are also very important. We always sing two of the most popular ones at Story Hour: “Laterne, Laterne” and “Ich geh’ mit meiner Laterne.” When I teach Preschool, I often just do the first two lines of “Laterne, Laterne,” since it is easy to learn and helps the children learn some of the more important vocabulary words: Laterne, Sonne, Mond, and Sterne. To teach the songs, I made up some vocabulary posters of these four words, a coloring page, and a sheet with the lyrics. You can download all of them in PDF format here:

 

Here’s an idea of what they look like:

When I teach Martinstag at Story Hour, I include several books. I have a few about Martinstag itself. This year, we’ll be reading Laterne, Laterne, da oben leuchten die Sterne by Dagmar Geisler and Rosemarie Künzler-Behncke (Ravensburger, 2009). I also like to read the fairy tale “Sterntaler” about the little girl who gives away all her earthly possessions to others in need and is rewarded in the end with a shower of coins that fall from the stars to last her the rest of her life. (I actually made my own book of this fairy tale, so I don’t have one to recommend here.) This year, I’m adding a beautiful new book (well, new to me!) called Der rote Faden by Anne-Gaëlle Balpe and illustrated by Eve Tharlet (Minedition, 2014). In this story, little Oli finds a red thread and by passing it on, he learns how little it takes to help others.

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Der Herbst ist da!

Posted in Book Materials, Numbers, Story hour, Uncategorized by

With Columbus Day coming up, we were going to miss our first October meeting of Story Hour. So we snuck in an extra session on the last Friday of September. Perfect timing, since fall has just begun!

We started out by reviewing numbers. I just grabbed the blocks from the play area to go over numbers 1-10. For the first book (Zehn Blätter fliegen davon), I had put sticky notes on each page to count the leaves that had flown from the tree. That way, the children had the chance to review the numbers again. At the end of the story hour, we did two activities to practice numbers.

Books:

  • Zehn Blätter fliegen davon by Anne Möller (2008)
  • Manuel & Didi. Das zweite große Buch der kleinen Mäuseabenteuer (“Der Apfel”) by Erwin Moser (2009)
  • Der Herbst steht auf der Leiter by Peter Hacks (2012)

Songs:

  • “Bunt sind schon die Wälder” (Here, you can find lyrics and music.)
  • “Der Apfelbaum” (Die 30 Besten Spiel- und Bewegungslieder) Click for youtube video
  • “Der Herbst steht auf der Leiter”

All of these songs are available to download through Amazon.de!

Activities:

1. Klebe das Blatt mit der passenden Zahl an den Baum. In addition to the handout, I used foam leaf stickers. I wrote a number on each one (1 – 10), and the children had to match the leaf sticker to the number on the tree. Download the PDF here: zehn-blatter-arbeitsblatt-gita

zehn-blatter-arbeitsblatt-gita-page-001

2. Malen nach Zahlen Download the PDF here: malen-nach-zahlen-herbstblatt-gita

malen-nach-zahlen-herbstblatt-gita-page-001

Alles über mich!

Posted in Story hour, Uncategorized by

For our first session of Lesestunde (Story Hour), I like to do a topic that is all about “ME!” So we read books and sing songs about the body and feelings. For the end of the session, I prepared a few variations of activities, so the children could also report on themselves.

Download the PDF file here: das-lied-uber-mich

Here are the books we read:

  • Heute bin ich by Mies van Hout (2015)
  • Das bin ich by Heinz Janisch & Birgit Antoni (2014)
  • Von Kopf bis Fuß by Eric Carle (2011)

And here are the songs we sang:

  • “Wenn du glücklich bist”
  • “Meine Finger, Meine Finger” (Die 30 Besten Spiel- und Bewegungslieder, Vol. 3)
  • “Kopf und Schulter, Knie und Fuß”
  • “Das Lied über mich” (Volker Rosin)

You can download all the lyrics here: lieder-16-sept-2016 (PDF)

Let’s Go to the Zoo!

Posted in Story hour, Uncategorized by

Okay, we didn’t really go to the zoo. (Although we’re talking about it, and I have a few ideas for including some German on the trip … so stay tuned for that!)

Today in Story Hour, we talked about zoo animals. We read books:

  • Hör mal im Zoo  by Anne Möller (Carlsen, 2012) – The children really enjoyed hearing the animal sounds!
  • Wo ist Mami?  by Axel Scheffler & Julia Donaldson (Beltz & Gelberg, 2016)
  • Von Kopf bis Fuß  by Eric Carle (Gerstenberg, 2011)
  • 1, 2, 3 ein Zug zum Zoo   by Eric Carle (Gerstenberg, 2015)

We sang songs:

  • “Ich bin ein dicker Tanzbär”
  • “Ein Elefant ging ohnt Hetz”
  • “Unser kleiner Bär im Zoo”

Finally, the children each got to plan out their own zoo! I gave them a blank map and some animal stickers. They placed their animals and then colored the map as they chose.

Click here for the PDF map: Zoo Karte PDF

I just bought some stickers and cut them up, so that each child received the same six animals:

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Here’s my example:

Zoo Karte Kate GitA

Here are some samples of the children’s work from story hour:

2016-05-21 02.22.06Zoo Karte KMR GitA

VARIATION:

You can also do a larger version of this project using a roll of butcher paper (which you can also get at Ikea). It works best with one-on-one, as opposed to in a group. Cut off a long section and secure it to the floor with painter’s tape. Let your child help decide where the different animals live and where the paths should be. Use multiple stickers of the animals. And once your zoo is complete, add small toy animals. Use small figures to walk through the zoo. Have fun and be creative!