As I was preparing this week’s lesson on farm animals, I came up with the idea of having the children make puppets with the farm animals. It’s simple enough! Download the PDF, color and label the animals. Then cut them out and glue them to craft sticks!
Download the PDF here: Bauernhoftierepuppen GitA
Let me know how they turn out!
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:
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!
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.
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
For ages I have been wanting to teach the song “Morgens früh um sechs” to my young school children. But it’s a rather tricky song in parts, so I knew they would need some help.
Finally I have created some word posters to introduce the main vocabulary of the song. And I made a coloring page that they can take home with the images and words to the song. Here’s how it all looks:
Download the word posters for FREE here: Morgens früh um sechs Plakaten GitA
Download the coloring page for FREE here: Morgens früh um sechs Malvorlage GitA
We just finished our Martin’s Day activities, and I was looking for a lesson to do with the children right before Thanksgiving. I guess a topic of Thanks would have been obvious. But I have been wanting to read a favorite book with the classes, so I decided to give a lesson on feelings.
I have some feeling word posters that I made earlier this year, so I chose three of those to teach: froh (happy), müde (tired), and aufgeregt (excited).
You can download all the feeling posters for FREE here: Gefühle Wortschatz Posters GitA There are 12 feelings in all:
I added froh at the end, because I thought it is an easier word for younger children to say. The file includes:
I also made a coloring page to send home. I always like to give the parents and idea of what the children learned in class.
You can download that for FREE, too! Gefühle Malvorlage – GitA
Okay, so after we talk about those three feelings – and whatever other feelings come up! – I am going to read Kaninchen ist sooo müde by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler (Beltz & Gelberg, 2000). It’s a sweet little lift-the-flap book from the creators of Der Gruffalo.
It ends with the rabbit’s friends singing “Der Mond ist aufgegangen.” So of course, we’ll end class with that song!
I have big plans for Martin’s Day this year at school! Since I am teaching all the way up through 4th grade, I thought it was time to do a parade. That means that the children need to learn the songs!
So I made up some posters to help them learn the words to “Laterne, Laterne”. Last week, I used the word cards to teach the first four words. (You can find out more about how I used them last year in the post Martinstag in the Classroom, and you can download the cards in the post Der gute Martin.)
Now this week it’s time for them to learn the rest of the song.
You can download the posters for FREE here: Laterne Laterne Lied GitA
I made up some posters for teaching “Ich geh’ mit meiner Laterne” but the images I found are copyrighted, so I can’t share them. However, there is a great coloring page that you can find at Teddylingua.
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.
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:
You can download the worksheet and the coloring page for FREE here: Meine Kürbislaterne mit Formen GitA. The PDF file includes instructions.
This year I have decided to put more emphasis on polite expressions in the pre-K/kindergarten class. Because such expressions are a sign of respect, they are consistently taught in the Montessori classroom.
In the past, we have always had the children say “Danke” when they receive their coloring page. But I am hoping to add more expressions, such as “Entschuldigung” and even “Guten Appetit!”
I have made some posters to help teach the words to the children. Although I only intend to focus on one expression at a time and then reinforce it throughout the year.
Our first word is Danke!
I will also send a coloring page home with the children to reinforce the word:
You can download all of the polite expressions posters for FREE here: Höflichkeit Posters GitA
And you can download the Danke! coloring page for FREE here: Danke Malvorlage GitA
As I create more coloring pages, I will be sure to post them!
We’re doing a little review today in pre-K/kindergarten. It’s hard to believe it’s almost the end of the year! The children have learned so much! And I’m so inspired to do even more with them next year!!
One of the things we will review today is the weather. We’ll look out the window to see what the weather is like and what we see: die Sonne, der Wind, die Wolke. It’s a beautiful day today 🙂
And we’ll read Elmar mag jedes Wetter again.
I prepared a coloring page for them as well. There are two versions. In the first version, the children can trace the weather words under the pictures. In the second version, I’ve given them a bit of a challenge. There is a word bank (Wortschatz), and they will have to choose the appropriate word to write under the image. I have plenty of each, so the children can choose what they would like to do.
You can download the PDF version here for FREE: Wetter Malvorlage GitA
Check out these other weather materials to go along with Elmar! And for other weather work, just click on the “weather” tag at the right!
Yesterday, I wrote about a nature scavenger hunt I’m preparing for the children in the pre-K/kindergarten class. I’m introducing the vocabulary, so they can go on the hunt at the class picnic and teach their parents the German words along the way!
The first part was about signs of nature. This second part is about “animals” in nature – well, animals and insects 🙂
We’re going to play a game of Simon sagt (Simon Says) to practice the words. I’ll teach the children a small motion to go with each word. Then we’ll all play at being the different animals and insects!
Here are the word posters:
And here is the coloring page:
You can download the PDF for free here: Tiere in der Natur GitA
