Category Archives: Word Posters

Kleiner weißer Fisch / Little White Fish

Posted in Book Materials, Books, Games, Pre-K & K Class, Word Posters by

I often do a sea life theme with me pre-k/kinders in the fall. I use the books about Kleiner weißer Fisch (Little White Fish) by Guido van Genechten and have written about some of the things I do in the unit in this post.

To help introduce the sea animals in the books, I’ve made a set of posters. Here is a selection:

After I introduce the words that go along with a specific book, we play a game of Gefunden!

I love that the books introduce simple vocabulary in addition to the sea life … colors, games, and even saying “goodbye”. We read a different book each week for 3 – 5 weeks, depending on what else is on out schedule. The children enjoy the familiarity of the adorable Little White Fish 🙂

Here is the FREE PDF download for the posters:

seetiere-kleiner-weiser-fisch-posters-gitaDownload

Olympische Sommerspiele / Olympic Summer Games

Posted in Games, Uncategorized, Word Posters by

I’m finally coming out of my fog from the end of the school year. And I just realized that the Summer Olympic Games will be starting in a few weeks!

Four – make that five – years ago, I made some vocabulary cards for the Summer Olympics in Rio. I thought I would repost them here. You can read more about them in the original post.

There are 8 sports covered in this packet of materials. You can use them as flashcards, play games like Memory and Go Fish, and also solve some Purzelwörter – scrambled word puzzles.

Some of the words I chose are not the official names of the sports. As this is meant for an introduction to vocabulary, I went with simpler forms. For example, instead of Leichtathletik, I used Laufen. Clearly, Leichtathletik encompasses a whole lot more than just running, but for young children, it made sense to keep it simple!

Download the FREE PDF here:

olympische-sommerspiele-gitaDownload

Gefunden! A quick vocab game

Posted in Games, Pre-K & K Class, Uncategorized, Word Posters by

With new classroom rules in place for covid, we are all having to get creative! I recently came up with a little “Hide & Seek” game that I’ve been using with my pre-k/kindergartners.

I use a set of vocab posters I already have. For example, we’ve been working on the weather. So there are 8 – 10 words they are learning. After we review the words, I choose one to “seek”. For example, it’s been very gray and snowy here, so we’ve been looking for the sun a lot 🙂 I shuffle the vocab posters and then hold them in front of me, so I can’t see them. Then I start asking, “Ist das die Sonne?” They answer “Ja!” or “Nein!” And after they have found the sun and answered “Ja!” we then call out, “Gefunden!”

I made a little poster with the words “Gefunden” on it to help them learn it. Tomorrow when we play the game, I’ll hold up the sign after they find the word 🙂

You can download the poster here:

Gefunden GitADownload

Wetterkarten / Weather Cards

Posted in Coloring Pages, Games, Pre-K & K Class, Word Posters by

After updating the weather materials to include wintery words, I decided to make some bigger weather cards. Fitting all eight words on to one page seemed to be a bit of a squish, so I’ve spread them out over two pages. They work better for younger learners.

I’ve made them in color and black & white, in case the children prefer to color the cards themselves. They can be used as flashcards or print two sets and use them to play memory.

Wetterkarten GitADownload

Read previous posts on weather here and here.

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!

Was für Wetter haben wir heute?

Posted in Pre-K & K Class, Uncategorized, Videos, Word Posters, Writing by

For this week’s remote lesson for my preschoolers & kindergartners, I wanted to review the weather. We had been working on it for several weeks before school closed. After our Hello song, we would review the words and record the weather in our chart.

Today I made a video to review the words:

You can download the weather vocabulary posters I use in the video here: Wetter Wortschatz Posters GitA

I created a weekly chart for recording the weather. It looks like this:

Wetterbericht Woche PKK 2020 GitA-page-001

I also made a page of cards in color or black & white. They can be used as a whole sheet to review the words. Or they can be cut up into flashcards. If you print two sets, you can use them to play Memo!

All three of these pages are included in this Wetterbericht (weather report) PDF: Wetterbericht Woche GitA

When I first talk to my young students about the weather, I ask them: “Was für Wetter haben wir heute?” (What kind of weather do we have today?) This question prompts them to answer with the noun form: Sonne – Wind – Regen (sun, wind, rain, etc.). It keeps things simple at first.

Later we can get into the question: “Wie ist das Wetter heute?” (How is the weather today?). Those answers can vary: “Die Sonne scheint.” – “Es ist winding.” – “Es regnet.” (The sun is shining. – It is windy. – It’s raining.)

If you want to practice writing some of the words, I made some worksheets a couple of years ago that work nicely with these materials. Click on over to this post about weather to find those!

Farbenlied – Color Song

Posted in Coloring Pages, Pre-K & K Class, Songs, Uncategorized, Word Posters by

Since I started teaching German to children, I have been looking for an easy color song. So far I haven’t found one that is just right. So I’ve been using my own.

It’s very simple – to the tune of Ten Little Indians. It goes like this:

Rot, orange, gelb, grün, blau, lila
Rot, orange, gelb, grün, blau, lila
Rot, orange, gelb, grün, blau, lila
in dem Regenbogen!

Just make sure you sing the word “orange” on two notes (one for each syllable). It’s a simple song, but we make it lots of fun by starting slowing and then going schneller!!! (faster) I always have to remind the kids to stay with me, and I tap the colors to the beat as we sing them. It can quickly get out of hand! But the kids love it 🙂

I made this video for my young students while we sare having to do remote learning, so you can sing along:

 

In the video, I show some word posters to refresh the vocabulary.

Regenbogen-page-001

I also made the comparative posters – schneller & langsamer – since we always say “schneller!!” at the end of the song before we sing it again. Here are the PDF files:

I’ll also send along a coloring sheet for the children. I made one in color and one in black & white, since I don’t know what kind of printer they’ll have.

Here is the PDF for the coloring page: Farbenlied Malvorlage 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!

Grün, grün, grün – Halloween Style

Posted in Holidays, Songs, Uncategorized, Word Posters by

My 1st and 2nd graders are so squirrely! It is hard to get through a Story Listening lesson. So I have decided to try to keep the stories short (still rich with content) and sing songs for the second part of our class.

I came across the song “Grün, grün, grün” again recently. It’s such a great song for colors. But at the same time, I find some of the verses to be a bit cumbersome. I mean, “Schornsteinfeger”?! That’s something of a tongue-twister!

Then I found some super cute Halloween kids clipart and thought that would work really well for adapting the song. It would be even better if the kids’ costumes were truly monochromatic, but I think it’s close enough 😉

Of course, I made some word posters to help teach the song. There is a set with the color words and a set without them – your choice!

I came up with the following characters:

  • red – Rotkäppchen (Red Riding Hood)
  • orange – Kürbis (pumpkin)
  • yellow – Biene (bee)
  • green – Fee (fairy)
  • blue – Cowboy
  • purple – Hexe (witch)
  • pink – Hase (rabbit)
  • black – Katze (cat)
  • white – Geist (ghost)

Check them out:

You can download them all for FREE here: Grün, grün, grün Plakate GitA

Just take the original song and change the lyrics:

Grün, grün, grün sind alle meine Kleider
Grün, grün, grün ist alles, was ich habe
Darum liebe ich alles, was grün ist
Weil mein Schatz ein Jäger ist

I’d love to hear from you! How are you using these materials? And how did it go??

Viel Spaß!

Mein Hut, der hat drei Ecken – Follow-up

Posted in Songs, Uncategorized, Word Posters by

Earlier this week, I wrote this post with materials to help teach the song, “Mein Hut, der hat drei Ecken.”

My club kids had SO much fun with this silly song! They are my oldest group (4th & 5th graders), so they caught on to the vocab very quickly. Having the pages with the text and the words replaced by pictures helped us all through the repetitions of the song.

 

We still got the motions mixed up and sang words where they didn’t belong! There were a lot of giggles 🙂 But I always say that you remember things better when you are having fun with them!

I know we will sing the song again next week. I think we might take the final page – the one with the most images – and practice just the words that are left before we tackle the song again.

Go back to the original post to download all the materials for FREE 🙂