Category Archives: Taking German with You

Wir fahren mit dem Zug!

Posted in Games, Taking German with You, Travel, Uncategorized by

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:

  • one with words and images
  • one with just images
  • one with just words

Some of the new vocabulary include:

  • die Baustelle
  • die Kirche
  • die Fabrik
  • der Bahnhof
  • der Fluss
  • der Wolkenkratzer
  • der Kran
  • das Schloss
  • der Tunnel

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

Gute Reise!

A Trip to the Philadelphia Zoo

Posted in Games, Language Themes, Taking German with You, Uncategorized, Word Posters by

Last summer, we finally took the boys to the Philadelphia Zoo. Of course, I had to work in a German lesson!

So I made up word posters for 16 of the animals that can be found there. Hopefully your local zoo has similar animals! There are three sets of cards:

  • pictures with words
  • just pictures
  • just words.

You can print them in full 8½ x11 or print more to a page for smaller versions. I like to print 6-to-a-page, laminate them, and cut them down to 3×4 cards. Then we use them to play memory, go fish, or other games! If you’ll be using them for memory, be sure to print on thick card stock or paper with a patterned back! The animals included are:

  • der Bär – bear
  • der Eisbär – polar bear
  • das Erdmännchen – meerkat
  • die Gazelle – gazelle
  • die Giraffe – giraffe
  • der Gorilla – gorilla
  • das Känguru – kangaroo
  • der Lemur – lemur
  • der Leopard – leopard
  • der Löwe – lion
  • das Nashorn – rhinoceros
  • das Nilpferd – hippopotamus
  • der Orang-Utan – orangutan
  • der Penguin – penguin
  • der Tiger – tiger
  • das Zebra – zebra

Here’s a sample of what they look like:

Download all the posters as a PDF here: Zootiere Posters Phila Zoo GitA

On the day of our outing to the zoo, I gave the boys a scavenger hunt. It looks like this:

Auf der Suche im Zoo GitA-page-002

Included in this PDF document is a worksheet to keep track of the animal name, the color of the animal, and its climate. Download it here: Auf der Suche im Zoo GitA

Viel Spaß im Zoo!

Farbensuche – Color Search

Posted in Games, Taking German with You, Uncategorized by

Now that the holidays are behind us and the New Year has begun, it’s time to get back to business! The business of learning, speaking, and practicing German!

I’m preparing a lesson on colors for the preschoolers. As I was doing so, I came across a fun activity I created a couple of years ago. It’s a color search for when you’re out and about. A good activity to keep a little one engaged, so you might actually get a bit of shopping done! Of course, your little one will need some help.

farbensuche-im-geschaft-gita-jpg

Just print out the Farbensuche page (below) – preferably on cardstock – and head off to the store! As your little one sees objects in each color he or she can check them off the list!

If you’d like to add another step, you can take pictures of the objects, too. Bring a set of colors – paint chips from the hardware store work great for this, especially the extra large ones! Write the names of the colors on the paint chips in big letters. When you take the picture of the object, place the color swatch next to the object. Print out the pictures when you get home and put them in a little album. Poof! You have your very own color book!

Here is the download: Farbensuche im Geschaft GitA PDF

Happy hunting!!

Scavenger Hunt at Longwood Gardens

Posted in Taking German with You, Uncategorized by

We are back from our travels and finally settling back into our regular routine. I have a number of things to post … once I finish cleaning them up 🙂

For now, I have a scavenger hunt. It is specific to Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA.

But it was easy to make. The last time we were at the gardens, I took close-up pictures of about 25 things in the indoor Children’s Garden located in the Conservatory. Then I picked out 12 of them and made up a sheet with the images and the words in German.

Hippo (age 3 /12) needed some guidance to find everything, but he did it! And it was a fun way to spend our morning. We of course got distracted, chasing the leaping water up and down along the wall. And he explored the many other water features. (I often bring a change of clothes, just in case!) We also got to sit in the little red chairs to read a book that one of the volunteers lent to us.

 

If you happen to be in southeastern PA or want a daytrip from Philadelphia, Longwood Gardens is a beautiful destination. The property is so vast with so many different things to see! And there are a number of fun things for the children to find, such as the indoor and outdoor children’s gardens and several huge treehouses!

To download the scavenger hunt, click here: Longwood Gardens Suche im Kinder-Garten (PDF)

Some of the images on the scavenger hunt:

And here we are on the hunt:

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