Tag Archives: Halloween

Halloween Bingo auf Deutsch – The Rules

Posted in Games, Holidays, Resources, Uncategorized by

I recently posted my Halloween Bingo game to play in German. Actually, you could use the Bingo Cards in any language as long as you know the words for all of the images!

But I forgot to explain how we were going to play it! So here are THE RULES:

Before we began, I used the word posters to review the vocab.

Then I used the little cards to “draw” the image. I also rolled a die to see in which column (Spalte) they had to look for the image. Obviously there are only 5 columns. So if I rolled a 6, they could cover the images anywhere on the board. (The boards have each image two times – 12 images for 24 squares.)

Halloween Bingo GitA-page-002

My 3rd & 4th grades had a blast playing!

I also had non-candy prizes for them. I had found some German pencils at Teacher’s Discovery. They say “Mach Fehler. So lernst du.” I thought that was a fun phrase! You can get them here (12 for $3.95).

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!

Halloween Bingo

Posted in Games, Holidays, Uncategorized, Word Posters by

Last year I made up some Halloween Bingo cards, but I forgot to post them! I never actually had a chance to use them, either. Maybe this year?!

Halloween Bingo GitA-page-002

There is a whole set of materials:

  • Bingo Cards (set of 12) – Download PDF for FREE here: Halloween Bingo GitA
  • Word posters for introducing the 12 vocabulary words – Download PDF for FREE here: Halloween Wortschatz Posters GitA
  • 3 sets of small cards with the 12 vocab words: pictures with words, just words, just pictures. These could also be used for other games, such as Memory or Go Fish. Download PDF for FREE here: Memory Cards GitA

Here is a sample of some of the word posters:

And here is what the small cards with words look like:

Now the only thing I have left to do is figure out what I’m using for Bingo chips! It would be fun to have something Halloween related. I’m just not sure what that would be….

Viel Spaß!

Morgens früh um sechs

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

Just in time for Halloween!

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

Morgens früh um sechs Mvl GitA-page-002

Download the coloring page for FREE here: Morgens früh um sechs Malvorlage GitA

Story Listening: Halloween Story

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

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I’m not a fan of scary stories. And the last thing I want to do is frighten a child, even at Halloween! But I still wanted to tell a good story with a Halloween theme. So I found the book The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams.

The little old lady is followed home by two shoes, a pair of pants, a shirt, gloves, a hat, and a scary jack-o-lantern. But when they don’t frighten her, they get sad. But she has an idea! The next day, she wakes up to see them all standing in her garden making the perfect scarecrow!

This story is perfect for Story Listening, because of the way it repeats. The ending was a little tricky to make clear, though. I’ll have to work on that for next time.

In 3rd & 4th grade, I’m teaching in a different room, so I now have a white board instead of a chalk board. The pictures don’t come out quite as well 🙂

I tried something new with this lesson. I gave the children a sheet of paper with some of the words on it, so they could draw along with me. My intention was for them to be more attentive in their listening. But I don’t think it worked very well. They were too concerned with their drawings. I saw more of the tops of their heads than their eyes! It was a good experiment. Maybe I’ll try having them draw after the story another time.

1st & 2nd Grade

I simplified the story even more for the younger children. I took out the gloves and hat and also removed some of the descriptive colors of the clothes. It made the story go a little faster, since I don’t have as much time to spend with them.

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Story Listening: Das grüne Halsband

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

2018-10-17 14.48.29

Because my lesson on How the Apple got its Star was a little too challenging – and long – for my 3rd & 4th-graders, I knew I had to choose something simpler for the 1st & 2nd-graders this week. So I went with a Halloween-themed story: Das grüne Halsband (or The Green Ribbon).

I knew the story from the I Can Read series: a book called In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories. It’s not really scary. More like a little creepy – and just plain weird. Here’s the thing, though. I personally don’t really like the story. And when I don’t like the story, the lesson just does not go as well. I wanted to like it. I tried to make it work. But it really did not go over very well. Lesson learned!

This story is available on the Great Story Reading Project 🙂

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.

Halloween in der Lesestunde

Posted in Books, Crafty Projects, Holidays, Numbers, Story hour, Uncategorized by

We celebrate Halloween a little early in story hour last week! I don’t think the children minded 🙂

We actually read four books, because I just couldn’t decide on three!

  • Die neugierige kleine Hexe by Lieve Baeten (Oetinger, 2003)
  • Pip und Posy: Das Gruselmonster by Axel Scheffler (Carlsen, 2015)
  • Für Hund und Katz ist auch noch Platz by Axel Scheffler (Beltz & Gelberg, 2017)
  • Wir sind Dreieck, Kreis, Quadrat by Felicitas Horstschäfer (Velber, 2012)

Why did we read a song about shapes that has nothing to do with Halloween?? Read on! You’ll see… 🙂

And of course we sang songs:

  • “Morgens früh um sechs”
  • “Ich bin die kleine Hexe” from Die 30 Besten Spiel- und Bewegungslieder
  • “Die winzig kleine Spinne”

To introduce “Morgens früh um sechs” I brought in a large cardboard clock. We didn’t focus on telling time – the children are much too young for that. But I used it to count up to 12. When we sang “kleine Hexe” we just had to ride our brooms around the room! And we used the colors of the children’s shoes to decide which colors the witch was wearing in the songs. And we went around 7 times – one for each child! For “kleine Spinne” we didn’t just sing about an itsy-bitsy spider. We also sang about a great big spider! Download the lyrics below for the other version.

You can download the lyrics here: Lieder Halloween GitA

We ended with a pumpkin craft. I found orange paper plates (at Target) to be our pumpkins. To make the faces, we used … what else? SHAPES! In the past I have used craft punches to make triangles, circles, and squares out of black paper. Then the children glued the shapes to the pumpkins. This year, however, I happened to find a box of foam shape stickers, so I snatched them up! The children had fun choosing their shapes and creating their pumpkins!

How do you celebrate Halloween … German-style?

Viel Spaß!

Halloween & die kleine Hexe

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

When I teach German at preschool around Halloween, I like to do a lesson on colors to go with the song, “Ich bin die kleine Hexe”. First we review a few colors. Then we sing the song to practice the colors. At this point in the year, we’re starting with the basics: just the primary colors of red, yellow, and blue.

I created a full-sized poster of a pair of shoes and printed them on red, yellow, and blue paper to use as a cue when we sing the song.

schuhe-kleine-hexe-gita-page-001

There is also a coloring page with three sets of shoes, one for each color. The lyrics are on the sheet as well, so the children can bring them home with them. I often hear from parents about how the children sing the songs I teach them, but they don’t know the songs! So I hope this helps them out.

schuhe-malvorlage-gita-page-001

You can download them each here as PDF:

You can also find the sheet music here at Labbe.

Happy Halloween!

Montags mit Mama: Pumpkins!

Posted in Crafty Projects, Holidays, Uncategorized by

It’s that time of year! The leaves are turning fiery colors. The air is getting crisp. And it’s time to visit the pumpkin patch! We started the tradition 3 years ago. Our local patch is only about 10 minutes from our house. We can go on a hay ride or pull a Radio Flyer wagon out to the pumpkins. The boys always enjoy being pulled out to the pumpkin patch in the wagon.

We got some small pumpkins this year in addition to the bigger ones we would carve. So Hippo and I got out the paints and started decorating. We used circle-shaped sponge brushes in different sizes to start applying paint. Perfect opportunity to talk about shapes! Hippo started out by making a pattern. I was so impressed! But then he just couldn’t stop himself. So it turned into a lovely blue-green pumpkin. That’s okay, though. It’s the boys’ favorite color!

So our little activity allowed us to talk about fall, pumpkins, shapes, and colors.