So Many Vehicles!

Today in Story Hour, we read and sang about vehicles … cars, buses, trains, excavators, fire trucks, tractors, submarines, ships, hot air balloons, rockets, and even soapbox cars!

After reading our books, singing our songs, and doing a finger play, the children created their own little book based on Kikaninchen: Wer fährt heute mit? Each child had a booklet with each of the days and a place to enter which vehicle was used and who got to go along. They could fill in the information (with help from a caregiver) and then add the appropriate sticker to match. Later on, when Froggy (our 7-year-old) heard about the project, he wanted to do one, too. He was able to write the words himself, with some spelling help. Here are two examples:

To assemble the booklet, you print out the two pages, double-sided, and cut them in half. Then you can staple them together to make the booklet. (You’ll need a long reach stapler to get all the way to the middle of the booklet.) Next, print out the stickers on round labels (1 2/3-inch):

wer-fahrt-heute-mit-stickers-gita-docx-page-001

You can download both documents here in PDF format. Included in the download is a sheet with specific instructions.

The three books we read were:

  • Unser Ausflug. Wir fahren ins Grüne  by Chris Embleton & Louise Martin (Parragon, 2008)
  • So viele Fahrzeuge im Einsatz  by Stefan Seidel (Coppenrath, 2011)
  • Kikaninchen: Wer fährt heute mit?  (arsEdition, 2011)

We also did a fingerplay (Fingerspiel): “Tatütata(click on the link to see a video of the fingerplay)

Tatütata – Wer kommt daher?
Tatütata – die Feuerwehr.
Tatütata – Es brennt ein Haus.
Tatütata – die Schläuche raus.

Wasser marsch!

And we sang two songs:

“Die Räder vom Bus”

Die Räder vom Bus, die rollen dahin, rollen dahin, rollen dahin
Die Räder vom Bus, die rollen dahin
Stundenlang

Die Türen vom Bus gehen auf und zu …

Die Wischer vom Bus machen wisch wisch wisch …

Die Hupe vom Bus macht “tut tut tut” …

Der Fahrer vom Bus sagt: “Fahrkarte, bitte!” …

Die Kinder im Bus machen “Blah blah blah” …

Die Leute im Bus, die schaukeln hin und her …

“Mit der Eisenbahn” (2010, von Ottmar Liedl)

Wir fahren heute Eisenbahn
und schauen uns die Welt mal an
Wir machen einen langen Zug
Platz für alle ist genug

Hallo, Du! Du bist dran!
Hallo, Du! Häng dich dran!
Mach die Türe zu
Der Zug, der fährt jetzt ab

Wir fahren heute Eisenbahn
und schauen uns die Welt mal an
Wir fahren jetzt in eine Stadt,
die den Namen Passau hat

Hallo, Du! Du bist dran!
Hallo, Du! Häng dich dran!
Mach die Türe zu
Der Zug, der fährt jetzt ab

Wir fahren heute Eisenbahn
und schauen uns die Welt mal an
Wir fahren bis zur Endstation
Da ist die schon

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German Date #4: More Space!

Froggy has been enjoying our German dates so much, he wanted to do more! So we decided that he would go on another date this week with AP2. Of course, he wanted to keep talking about space. I just happened to have ordered some space workbooks in German, and they arrived Thursday afternoon. He’s really into sticker workbooks right now, so he was VERY excited 🙂

He worked through 4 or 5 pages of the book. Hippo and I happened to crash their date at the last minute, so I got to see some of it in action 🙂  AP2 was doing a lot of the reading, but then we got Froggy to read out loud, too. The workbook provided some good challenge with a number of words that he didn’t know.

The workbook we used is called Mitmach-Heft Weltraum (Was ist was Junior) (Tessloff, 2016). I bought it on Amazon.de for about €5.

German Date #3: Planet Activity

Our space fun continued today on our third German Date 🙂

I hadn’t had time to create anything snazzy before I picked up Froggy from school. So while we dug into our fro-yo, I whipped up a quick worksheet to go with some stickers I’d picked up at the craft store. The planet stickers are by Mrs Grossmann’s. They come with six planets, so I created questions to go with them.

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Don’t look too closely! When I got home, AP2 found a few mistakes! Well, I wrote up the activity in a more formal document – with corrections! – and you can download it here:

Space Sticker Activity (PDF)

We also used the activity as an opportunity to practice German letters. Once Froggy came up with the answer, I spelled the planet in German for him. Those vowels get a bit confusing!

I tried to get him to play Hangman (Galgenmenschen) with me as well, but I couldn’t persuade him. It would be another great way to practice those letters!

Instead, we brought out the Space Cards again. This time, we played Fische! (Go Fish!). We used two sets of the cards. He chose to use the set with pictures and words plus the set with just pictures. I think it might have helped to put out the set with pictures and words, since I’m still learning which planets are which! Then we could have matched picture cards to word cards. But the game still was lots of fun. We played twice! Here you can see my hand, the deck of cards for “fishing,” and Froggy’s matches.

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Fische!!