Tag Archives: Letters

Buchstaben: AU

Posted in Alphabet, Buchstabe: AU, Uncategorized, Writing by

I’m not sure how I feel about doing a vowel blend for the next letter. But that’s what comes next in my books: Mein ABC Übungsheft. So we’ll run with it!

There are two types of objects for this letter combo: words that begin with AU and words that have the AU in the middle.

  • die Aubergine – eggplant
  • das Auge – eye
  • der Ausstecher – cookie cutter
  • das Auto – car
  • der Bauer – farmer
  • der Baum – tree
  • der Dinosaurier – dinosaur
  • die Maus – mouse
  • das Raumschiff – spaceship
  • die Sau – sow (pig)

I made up cards with both all caps and upper & lower case letters. Here’s what they look like:

Download the PDFs here:

I came up with some new worksheets to go along with the unit. I was trying to find some things that both Hippo and Froggy could do. So the worksheets go in order from easier to harder. A little one will probably still need help, even if it’s just reading the directions! Here are some ideas of the worksheets:

There are even two word searches, one easy and one hard! Solutions to both word searches are also included 😉

Download the PDF here: Arbeitsblätter AU – GitA

Let me know how they work out for you!

Viel Spaß!

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!)

 

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!

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?

Montags mit Mama: Name Train

Posted in Crafty Projects, Uncategorized by

Our little Hippo started school last week! He is 3-and-a-half years old and will be going 3 half days (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday). I’m so happy – and relieved! – to say that his first week was a huge success! Froggy started 1st grade, and it was an easy transition. This morning, he informed Hippo that he wouldn’t go to school today, and Hippo completely slumped in his chair. Half of me wanted to hug him, since he was so sad, and the other half wanted to jump for joy that he likes school so much! 🙂

My goal is to do a project with Hippo on Monday mornings, since he isn’t in school. It’s a great way to spend some “quality”time together. When Froggy was 3, we used to do projects almost every day – crafts, art, science experiments, all kinds of fun things! And of course, I want to use it as an opportunity for a German lesson!

Today we borrowed an idea from Tippytoe Crafts: Name Trains! Here’s what we needed:

2016-09-12-10-56-05

  • print-out of a locomotive and some tracks
  • colorful squares of paper
  • letter stencils
  • scissors
  • glue stick
  • crayons
  • black paper
  • small circle punch
  • large piece of paper (or a couple of sheets taped together)

I could have had Hippo just draw train tracks, but he hasn’t been into drawing or coloring lately. In fact, his locomotive remains black and white!

First, we glued the tracks down. Then the locomotive. Next, we started sounding out his name. I think he knows his letters well enough. But I was surprised that he could figure out which ones we needed next. Each letter “car”was glued on to the train. Then he glued on the wheels. He could have colored the letters and decorated the paper, but like I said, he’s just not into it right now.

2016-09-12-11-15-27

After we finished the train, we practiced some color recognition. We even included braun and grau from the tracks!

While we worked, I played some German train songs, too.

  • “Die Eisenbahn, Die Eisenbahn” by Stephen Janetzko
  • “Mit der Eisenbahn” by Ottmar Liedl
  • “Der Schaffner hebt den Stab” by Lamp Leute (Die 30 besten Spiel- und Bewegungslieder, Vol. 2)
  • “Das Tschuu-Tschuu-Eisenbahn-Lied” by Hartmut Höfele
  • “Der Zug ist Weg” by Stephen Janetzko

The clipart for the locomotive was created by Charlotte’s Clips, and the tracks were created by Hidesy’s Clipart.