Tag Archives: Body Parts

Kopf, Schulter, Knie und Fuß / Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

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

Singing this classic children’s song is a great way to teach my pre-k/kindergarten classes about body parts.

I like to back into the song, teaching the parts of the face first. It’s nice to repeat these a number of times, because they only show up in the song one time, while the others repeat three times!

  • Augen (eyes)
  • Ohren (ears)
  • Nase (nose)
  • Mund (mouth)

We repeat those a couple of times. Then I point to them on me in a random order and ask if it is X? First I do it right, then I start to make “mistakes” 🙂 For example, I point to my nose and say: “Ist das die Nase?” They all say: “Jaaaaaa!” But later I’ll point to my eyes and say: “Sind das die Ohren?” Most of the children recognize the mistage and say: “Nein!”

Then we move on to the bigger body parts:

  • Kopf (head)
  • Schulter (shoulders)
  • Knie (knees)
  • Fuß (foot)

Once we have the vocabulary down, we sing the song! We usually start seated and then sing it again standing. This year we repeated the song one last time at the end of the lesson. It was a nice way to reinforce it. And next week, those facial features will come in handy when we start making our Kürbislaternen (Jack-o-Lanterns)!

It’s also fun to read Eric Carle’s book Von Kopf bis Fuß (From Head to Toe) with this lesson.

I always send home a coloring page for the children. Here is one with all 8 body parts. You can download it for free below!

Kopf Schulter Knie Fuß Malvorlage 2 GitADownload

SL: Pflaster / Bandages

Posted in 1st - 4th Grade, Story Listening, Uncategorized, Videos by

The next story for my 1st & 2nd graders is called Pflaster. I got it from one of my own 1st-grader’s early readers. In English it’s called Bandages, but I translated “Pflaster” as band-aids when I told the story.

Instructions for TWS students:

  1. Watch the video (below)
  2. Write the story into your German Story Listening Log (Get it HERE if you need it!)
  3. Choose ONE of the following exercises to complete. Take a picture of your completed work or take a video to post on SeeSaw.
    • Go back to the end of the video and choose three words to draw and label.
    • Tell the story to someone at home (in English).
    • Download the following PDF and choose ONE worksheet to complete: Pflaster Arbeitsblatt – GitA

* If you feel frustrated while watching the story, because you do not understand, please stop and choose another story!

 

The worksheets look like this:

Bonus: Go to the previous post and watch the video with the song on washing hands! Do you remember it?! “Hände waschen”!

Enjoy the story! I can’t wait to hear how it goes!!

Easy Kürbislaternen for Pre-K & Kindergarten

Posted in Coloring Pages, Crafty Projects, Holidays, Pre-K & K Class, Uncategorized by

 

I have posted before about making simple Jack-O-Lanterns out of orange paper plates. We made them in the Lesestunde.

In pre-k/kindergarten last year, I came up with a similar activity to practice shapes and a few parts of the body: eyes, nose, mouth.

I used my trusty orange paper plates (from Target) and punched a bunch of shapes out of black paper: circles, squares, and triangles. We talked about the shapes in class.

We also sang “Kopf, Schulter, Knie und Fuß” to practice the words Augen, Nase & Mund. You can find the lyrics over at Mama Lisa’s World.

Then I showed them the worksheet. They had to choose a different shape for each part of the face. Then look at the sheet to see how many of each shape they needed.

Meine Kürbislaterne mit Formen GitA-page-002

They could place the shapes on the worksheet first. Then they glued them to the orange plates to make their Kürbislaternen.

On the back of the worksheet, I also printed a coloring page:

Meine Kürbislaterne mit Formen GitA-page-003

You can download the worksheet and the coloring page for FREE here: Meine Kürbislaterne mit Formen GitA. The PDF file includes instructions.

Story Listening: Goldlöckchen

Posted in 1st - 4th Grade, Games, Story Listening, Uncategorized by

2018-10-09 14.35.56

This week’s story was Goldilocks. Even though it is a story that is familiar to the children, it still works great for Story Listening. There is something comfortable about knowing the story and being able to predict what is coming next.

1st & 2nd Grade:

We sang a new song in class: the German version of “Head, Shoulder, Knees, and Toes.” In German, you sing “foot” instead of “toes.” It goes like this:

Kopf, Schulter, Knie und Fuß, Knie und Fuß
Kopf, Schulter, Knie und Fuß, Knie und Fuß
Augen, Ohren, Nase und Mund
Kopf, Schulter, Knie und Fuß, Knie und Fuß

(That funny letter in “Fuß” is called an Eszett and is basically a double “s.”)

Sometimes it is hard to sing a song that you already know in another language! So we’ll keep working on it 🙂

3rd & 4th Grade:

We have been working on colors the past two weeks. So we added some new ones: schwarz, weiß, braun, grau, & rosa (black, white, brown, gray, & pink).

Although I shouldn’t really say “working,” because mostly we are having fun with these words! The children love to play games, so we played a round of “Ich habe …, Wer hat…?” (I have, Who has?). (I got the game here.)

And we played their favorite game: Ja oder Nein. I hold up a color and ask if they like it (in German, of course). If the answer is yes, they say, “Ja!” and move to one side of the room. If the answer is no, they say, “No!” and move to the other side of the room. We have had to add in der Mitte (in the middle) for those who can’t quite make up their minds 🙂

Goldilocks is available on The Great Story Reading Project 🙂

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.

Mein Körper

Posted in Books, Language Themes, Pre-K & K Class, Uncategorized by

We did a review of body parts in school this morning. I reviewed the body parts we learned at our last lesson and added a few more:

  • die Haare
  • der Arm
  • der Hand
  • das Bein

We sang “Kopf, Schulter, Knie und Fuß” again. It’s such a great song for this age group! It gets them involved and active. Plus, they already know the melody and get the idea of the song. Makes it easy to teach it! I think last time we sang the song, we all just stayed seated. But I found that having them stand and do it helped get them more into it. I’ll remember that for next time, too!

We read a different book this time: Das bin ich. Ich zeig es dir by Heinz Janisch (Tyrolia, 2015). It’s a really fun rhyming book that introduces all the main body parts. And ends with a laugh and smile in the mirror! I decided not to translate it for them, as I often do. Instead, I read the page and then asked them where the body part was.

das-bin-ich-book

I sent the children home with a different worksheet. You can download it here: Mein Korper – GitA (PDF)

mein-korper-gita

Head, Shoulder, Knees, and … Feet!

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

Today at school, we brought back a favorite lesson from last year: Body Parts! The children loved singing the German version of “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” – which says Fuß instead of toes 🙂

We started off with the 8 body parts in the song:

  • der Kopf
  • die Schulter
  • das Knie
  • der Fuß
  • die Augen
  • die Ohren
  • die Nase
  • der Mund

Then we got to sing the song! In case you need the German words to the song, it goes like this:

Kopf und Schulter, Knie und Fuß, Knie und Fuß.
Kopf und Schulter, Knie und Fuß, Knie und Fuß.
Augen, Ohren, Nase, und Mund.
Kopf und Schulter, Knie und Fuß, Knie und Fuß.

We also did the Fingerspiel about the mouse family. (You can find it in my last teaching post: about Counting Mice.) And we read Eric Carle’s Von Kopf bis Fuß (Gerstenberg, 2011).

von-kopf-bis-fus

Finally, the children got to do a coloring page I created with all those body parts they learned at the beginning of the lesson:

kopf-schulter-knie-fus-malvorlage-gita

Download the coloring page in PDF here: Kopf Schulter Knie Fuß Malvorlage GitA

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)

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

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

To go along with the latest theme on Body Parts, I also created a coloring page to accompany the song “Kopf und Schulter, Knee und Fuß”.

2016-04-25 14.56.04

Kopf Schulter Knie Fuß Malvorlage (PDF)

In case you need the German words to the song, it goes like this:

Kopf und Schulter, Knie und Fuß, Knie und Fuß.
Kopf und Schulter, Knie und Fuß, Knie und Fuß.
Augen, Ohren, Nase, und Mund.
Kopf und Schulter, Knie und Fuß, Knie und Fuß.

 

Body Parts Game

Posted in Games, Uncategorized by

I saw an idea for a body parts game as I browsed through Pinterest one day. Here is the result:

Körperteile Spiel

We played this game during story hour last week, and it was a big hit! It probably would have helped to do a quick review of the six body parts in the game before we started playing. Next time!  We played the simpler version of the game. Even though there was no competition involved – and hence no winner – the children really enjoyed it. They wanted to take it home, but we decided to save the game boards and body parts to play again at another story hour 🙂

Here’s how it works:

Preparations:

  1. Download the Körpertiele Spiel document above.
  2. Print out the images of the boys, one color (p. 2) and one grayscale (p. 3), per player. Print on cardstock, or you can laminate them for longer use!
  3. Cut out the colored image of the boy. Then cut him up into body parts: head, arms, hands, torso, legs, and feet.
  4. Print out one copy of the page with the body parts in squares. Again, laminate if you wish. Cut out the squares and tape them to the foam die.

 Additional materials (optional):

2½-inch foam die

 Rules of the game:

 

  • Each child gets a “game board” with a grayscale image of the boy and one set of body parts in color.
  • Children take turns rolling the die. Whatever body part s/he rolls, s/he can put on to the grayscale body.
  • The first child to complete the boy wins!
  • *If you don’t have a die, you could use the squares as cards, and children take turns drawing a card.
  • *Of course, when they roll a body part, they have to say the word!

 

For a simpler version with younger children:

  • Children take turns rolling the die.
  • Each child says the name of the body part, while all children add the body part to their grayscale body pictures.