Buchstabe der Woche: A

Posted in Alphabet, Buchstabe: A, Uncategorized by

While I was working with Hippo last week on the letter M, I realized that still does not know all of his lower case letters! He was spelling some of the words with alphabet stickers, but he couldn’t use the letter cards as a model, because he did not know the lower case letters. Tja! So this week, I have the letter A cards in both upper and lower case letters to download 🙂

The words in this unit are:

  • der    Aal                                    eel
  • das    Achteck                           octagon
  • der    Adler                                eagle
  • der    Affe                                  monkey
  • das    Ahornblatt                      maple leaf
  • die     Ameise                            ant
  • die    Ampel                              traffic light
  • die     Ananas                            pineapple
  • die     Anemone                        sea anemone
  • der    Anker                               anchor
  • der    Apfel                                apple
  • der    Arm                                  arm

The cards look like this:

As always, there are cards with images and words, just images, and just words. Although they are not shown here, I also have cards with words in all caps.

Download the PDF file of cards with words in upper & lower case for FREE here: Wortschatzkarten A – GitA

Download the PDF file of cards with words in all upper case for FREE here: Wortschatzkarten A – ALL CAPS – GitA

UPDATE (5 October 2017):

Of all things, Hippo found a mistake in my original cards! Somehow, I had the word card for Ampel with the wrong article. I have corrected the mistake and updated the files! (I did not update the image of the cards, but be assured – the PDF version is correct!)

 

Letters Everywhere

Posted in Alphabet, Buchstabe: M, Uncategorized by

I have been organizing some of my letter materials, now that we’re three weeks into our Buchstaben work.

A few years ago, I splurged on a large set of capital letters. They are actually lacing letters by Learning Resources, but they are nice and sturdy, and you hardly notice the holes. Today, I put them into a craft box that has 32 compartments (purchased at a craft store). More than the 26 I needed, but that’s okay! Now if only I had a way to get letters with umlauts….???

I have another fun little storage unit that I keep stickers in. Sometimes, the boys just like to play with stickers. It’s super simple. But this way, I can just grab the letters I need. I got the small storage unit online, but you can get them at the hardware store. Then I just stuck alphabet stickers on each little drawer. Easy peasy!

It takes some time to cut up letter stickers, but I just do it while I’m watching TV. Or like today, as I rested in bed with a cold 😦

Today, I grabbed some stickers to play with before Hippo’s nap. Now that we’re three weeks in, I also figured I could work with all three letters: B, P, M.  Only my foggy brain got a little confused, and I grabbed a pear for P instead of B (Birne). Oh well!

 

2017-09-26 13.51.41

I use a sketch book for our letter work. The pages are nice and thick, and they are blank. It costs more than, say, a composition notebook, but I figure it will hold up better. You can see (kind of) that I wrote the letter M at the top of the page and then how Hippo put the M letter stickers on the sides of it. I wrote “OBST” and then the three letters. I tried not to say the letter names, but just the letter sounds. He would say the word, and I would repeat it, emphasizing the first sound.

Fast, easy, and most importantly FUN!

 

Buchstabe der Woche: M

Posted in Alphabet, Buchstabe: M, Uncategorized by

I’m pretty well behind in posting all of the materials I’m creating for our German alphabet study. I’ll get as much up as I can. But I’m trying to make sure that I’m spending my time on teaching my kiddos and not just posting to the blog 🙂 Eventually, I’ll get everything posted!

We’ll be starting the letter M on Monday. So I have just finished up the vocabulary cards to go with our letter study. They look like this:

There are also cards with just pictures and just words.

You can download them here for FREE: Wortschatz Karten M – GitA

Buchstabe der Woche: P

Posted in Alphabet, Buchstabe: P, Uncategorized by

I’m late posting this! We already finished P-Week. But here are the vocabulary cards:

This is just a sample. There are 16 words this week. And as usual, there are cards with images and words, just images, and just words.

I added four extra words, so there are a few consonant blends (Prinz, Prinzessin, & Planet). Plus the word Pyramide is kind of tricky. We are sticking to the simple words this week. You can decide for yourself which ones you want to use!

Here are the cards in PDF format to download for FREE: Wortschatzkarten P – GitA

Leave me a comment to let me know how you are using the cards!

Der erste Tag / First day of Story Hour!

Posted in Book Materials, Coloring Pages, Story hour, Uncategorized by

Today was our first day back at story hour. It seemed like no time had gone by at all! Except, of course, that the children had grown. They just keep doing that 🙂

I like to start off the new year talking about them! I’m super excited about the activity we did to kick things off! On a large piece of paper, I drew a simple outline of a tree with a bunch of big circles inside. The circles were not just apples, but were meant to represent each child in the group. As they arrived, I called each child over to pick a favorite color and color in the “apple”. Then I labeled each one with their name, age, and a favorite toy or thing to do. Not only did we have a lovely little art project, but I got to know something about them and can use that information to plan future story hours!

In the past, I used books mostly about Körperteile – or parts of the body. But I wanted to also talk about things they like to do. So I used one story about a girl named Frieda who loves to dance. We did include one about the body. And then I couldn’t resist reading the Elephant & Piggie book, Das Buch über uns. The kids just love it! Especially if you use voices 😉

  • Frieda tanzt by Birgitta Sif (Aladin, 2016)
  • Das bin ich by Heinz Janisch (Tyrolia, 2014)
  • Das Buch über uns by Mo Willems (Klett, 2015)

Here are some other books we could have used:

  • Von Kopf bis Fuss by Eric Carle (Gerstenberg, 2011)
  • Heute bin ich by Mies van Hout (aracari verlag, 2012)
  • Der Hase mit dem roten Nase by Helme Heine (Beltz & Gelberg, 2016)
  • Bin ich klein? Am I Small? by Philipp Winterberg (CreateSpace Independent, 2013)
  • Das kleine ich bin ich by Mira Lobe (Jungbrunnen, 2016)

We sang four songs today, since I couldn’t decide on just three!

  • “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 the lyrics here: Lieder – ich (PDF).

After we wore ourselves out singing “Das Lied über mich” (I think the moms enjoyed it even more than the kiddos!), the children had a choice of coloring a picture of themselves or filling out a Steckbrief! Some chose to do both 🙂

You can download the activities as PDF here: Das Lied über mich – GitA.

Back to School = Buchstaben!

Posted in Alphabet, Buchstabe: B, Uncategorized, Word Posters by

It’s time for the kiddos to go back to school. At this time of year, I always get inspired to bring more German into their day! So I’m gearing up to begin our letter work. I did a lot of this work with Froggy three years ago. And now it’s Hippo’s turn. I’ll include Froggy as much as possible, but on a higher level, of course. So I am busy printing, laminating, and cutting! Because even though I’ve done a lot of this before, there is always room for improvement!

I’d love to share all these materials with you here. But I have also promised myself to focus more on teaching (and planning & prepping) for my kids and a little less on the blog. So forgive me if the posts are short & sweet!

We start tomorrow with the letter B. Why? Because I want to teach them in groups according to how you say them. The letter B is one of the easiest sounds to say. So that is where we’ll begin.

I’ve been collecting mini objects beginning with each letter of the alphabet. And I’ve created vocabulary cards to go along with each object/word. The words for the letter B are:

  • der Bagger
  • der Ball
  • die Banane
  • der Bär
  • der Baum
  • der Bauer
  • die Birne
  • der Bolzen
  • das Buch
  • der Bus

Because there is room on the cards for 12 images, I also added das Baby and das Boot. But I don’t think we’ll get to those. I thought we would introduce two words per day (for 5 school days in a week). We’ll see, though….

The cards are about 3×3 inches. There are three sets:

  • words only
  • pictures only
  • pictures with words

There are plenty of ways to use the cards! I’ll write more about that later…. (Dinner is almost ready!)

In the meantime, you can download the cards here: Wortschatz Karten B

Viel Spaß! I’d love to know how you use the materials! Please comment below!

Back to School – Where Does German Fit in?

Posted in Books, Uncategorized by

Today was the first day of 2nd grade for Froggy. While homework won’t start coming home until next week, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want to piggyback some German work onto it.

For school, he’ll be expected to do about 10 minutes of math and 20 minutes of reading (that includes bedtime books, thankfully!). So I don’t want to do more than 10 minutes of German, or I know I’ll lose him.

I want to get back to basics with both kids, so I’ll be working on letters with Hippo and reading with Froggy.

I plan to start our day in German. The kids have been having German breakfasts with our au pair, so we’ll continue that. And I’m going to try to do some fun letter work with them at breakfast, too. We’ll have a letter of the week and different objects that represent that letter.

After school, I want to start us off by playing some educational games. I found a number of alphabet and reading games while I was in Germany this summer. Things like the Clever Spielen series.

Clever spielen

I know I’ll keep their interest more if I can keep it fun!

The good news is that Froggy is taking an interest in learning more German. It always seems to happen when we are in Europe over the summer. Even being in the Netherlands seems to bring out his German – as if hearing another language activates his own second language, even though they are different! I just hope it lasts!

I also want to use up some of his homework reading time with German. The teachers were okay with that last year. So we’ll read some German books at bedtime, too.

Tonight we read a fun one by Erwin Moser called Das große Buch von Koko und Kiri. I just love his humor 🙂 Both boys needed help with comprehension here and there, but they got most of it!

I just stumbled on to a post about homework and bilingual children. For Emilia at Raising a Trilingual Child, it was more a question of which of the family’s three languages to speak when helping her children with their homework. It’s the kind of question most parents never think about. I know it would never occur to me to speak German while helping Froggy with his homework!

How do you work in lessons in your minority language when the kids go back to school? And what language do you speak with your children when helping them with their homework?

Traveling on Your Own

Posted in Travel, Uncategorized by

I was 21 the first time I traveled on my own. The truth is, I was miserable a lot of the time. But that wasn’t just because I was alone. I had just had the summer of my life, studying abroad in Germany. I not only lived in Germany for the first time and improved my German. I met people from all over the world. Not just Europe, but truly the whole globe: Italy, Sweden, Georgia, Lybia, Israel, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong. It was incredible – so very eye-opening!

I had thought I would meet others at the school who would want to travel after the 8-week session. But everyone seemed to already have their own plans. So I took a deep breath – as well as what I’d learned already from traveling with my new friends that summer – and dove in! I cried a lot on the trains. But not really because I was alone. It was because I knew I would probably never see any of these new friends again. Okay, maybe I could travel to their respective countries for a visit … some day…. But in 20 years, I never have. I was just so sad!

But I still managed to see an awful lot of Europe on that trip. Well, some big highlights at least! Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, Budapest, Venice, and Florence. That was when I finally got to meet up with a few friends from my program. I’ve never been so happy to see two people in my life!! From there, we met up with our Italian friend at his parents’ summer villa and got to relax on the beach and have a local’s view of Rome! We stopped in Pisa as we headed back north, and I crashed with my friends who were staying with relatives in Lucerne.

When I got back to Freiburg, I had such a treat! For that one night, the students my class who were staying for the next session (along our fabulous teacher) had planned to meet up on Schlossberg – the scenic beer garden overlooking the city! I was thrilled to be able to see everyone again!

It was a tough trip … and a very long week alone. But I saw so much! And experienced so many wonderful things. Most of all, I was growing – and building my character. When I returned home, I was a different person. I was stronger and more confident. I was more independent. I knew myself a whole lot better … and I knew what I was capable of.

Since then, I’ve traveled many times by myself. Mostly in Britain, but also in Germany and Italy. Once I knew what to expect, I welcomed the time to myself. I knew it would be different from traveling with friends or family. There would be no one to laugh with (unless I met others along the way), and no one to look back and share the experiences with. But it was a time when I could decide to do whatever I wanted. Mostly, though, it was a time of introspection. A time to get to know myself even better.

I made some big life decisions on some of those trips. And I’ll always be grateful that I decided to travel on my own.

I was inspired to write about some of my past travels after reading a blog post by Sitting Pretty in the Queen City: What no one tells you about solo travel. Thanks!!

Rome, 1996

Here I am in Rome in 1996 (learning my truth?), after meeting up with friends. What a long time ago!

Road Trip Scavenger Hunt auf Deutsch

Posted in Games, Travel, Uncategorized by

2017-08-13 13.44.18

Today was the day! We drove 5.5 hours south, from the Netherlands into Germany. So what did we do to keep the kiddos occupied? Well, they actually slept quite a lot! A month abroad has taken it out of them! They did a busy bag or two. (There were some new little puzzles I’d found at the Hema in the NL – it’s kind of like Target, only smaller.) And we also did a road trip scavenger hunt 🙂

Last year, I posted a set of travel games for road trips in Germany and the Netherlands. It looks, in part, like this:

There are also sets with just pictures and just words (so you can play games such as memory or go fish), plus a search for just vehicles (3rd image here).

Froggy had a great time with the scavenger hunt last year and managed to cover all of his boxes!

2016-07-21 16.47.19

This year we were driving from the Netherlands to Germany again, so I packed them up once more. But I also found a new scavenger hunt. This one has 52 things to find. And it’s all in German!! It also is only words with no pictures. That meant the boys needed help with the hunt. Heck, I had to look up a few words for myself before we left!

As we drove down the highway toward Baden-Württemberg, we found a whole bunch of things, right off the bat. And then Froggy got tired and lost interest. I think PER and I ended up having the most fun with it 🙂  I still have 9 items that I never found. But as we got closer and closer to our destination, I was SO excited to check off just one or two more things: ein rotes Cabrio!!! ein Mini-Cooper!! I still say I saw a green Jeep, but as it wasn’t an actual Jeep brand, I wasn’t allowed to cross it off my list 🙂  You can see all my scribblings on the scavenger hunt:

2017-08-14 22.11.38

You can download your own copy over on Isi-im-Glück. Herzlichen Dank, Isi!

UPDATE (29 May 2018): I have made a new version of my Road Trip Scavenger Hunt! This one is adjusted more to traveling by train, but it could work well from the car, too! Check out THIS POST to get the new FREE download!