Tag Archives: Vocabulary

Kleiner weißer Fisch / Little White Fish

Posted in Book Materials, Books, Games, Pre-K & K Class, Word Posters by

I often do a sea life theme with me pre-k/kinders in the fall. I use the books about Kleiner weißer Fisch (Little White Fish) by Guido van Genechten and have written about some of the things I do in the unit in this post.

To help introduce the sea animals in the books, I’ve made a set of posters. Here is a selection:

After I introduce the words that go along with a specific book, we play a game of Gefunden!

I love that the books introduce simple vocabulary in addition to the sea life … colors, games, and even saying “goodbye”. We read a different book each week for 3 – 5 weeks, depending on what else is on out schedule. The children enjoy the familiarity of the adorable Little White Fish 🙂

Here is the FREE PDF download for the posters:

seetiere-kleiner-weiser-fisch-posters-gitaDownload

Olympische Sommerspiele / Olympic Summer Games

Posted in Games, Uncategorized, Word Posters by

I’m finally coming out of my fog from the end of the school year. And I just realized that the Summer Olympic Games will be starting in a few weeks!

Four – make that five – years ago, I made some vocabulary cards for the Summer Olympics in Rio. I thought I would repost them here. You can read more about them in the original post.

There are 8 sports covered in this packet of materials. You can use them as flashcards, play games like Memory and Go Fish, and also solve some Purzelwörter – scrambled word puzzles.

Some of the words I chose are not the official names of the sports. As this is meant for an introduction to vocabulary, I went with simpler forms. For example, instead of Leichtathletik, I used Laufen. Clearly, Leichtathletik encompasses a whole lot more than just running, but for young children, it made sense to keep it simple!

Download the FREE PDF here:

olympische-sommerspiele-gitaDownload

Gefunden! A quick vocab game

Posted in Games, Pre-K & K Class, Uncategorized, Word Posters by

With new classroom rules in place for covid, we are all having to get creative! I recently came up with a little “Hide & Seek” game that I’ve been using with my pre-k/kindergartners.

I use a set of vocab posters I already have. For example, we’ve been working on the weather. So there are 8 – 10 words they are learning. After we review the words, I choose one to “seek”. For example, it’s been very gray and snowy here, so we’ve been looking for the sun a lot 🙂 I shuffle the vocab posters and then hold them in front of me, so I can’t see them. Then I start asking, “Ist das die Sonne?” They answer “Ja!” or “Nein!” And after they have found the sun and answered “Ja!” we then call out, “Gefunden!”

I made a little poster with the words “Gefunden” on it to help them learn it. Tomorrow when we play the game, I’ll hold up the sign after they find the word 🙂

You can download the poster here:

Gefunden GitADownload

Was für Wetter sehen wir aus dem Fenster? / Weather out the Window

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

Last spring I posted some materials for weather-watching. But as it was already April, I did not include winter weather. Well, we’re at the beginning of a big Nor’easter here, about to get a whole lot of snow! So I wanted to add words for snow and ice to the checklist and weather cards. Here are the new materials!

Wetterbericht Woche 2021 GitADownload

If you are looking for the older materials without wintery weather words, they are in this post.

I often ask my young students what kind of weather they see out the window. (Was sehen wir aus dem Fester?) This allows them to answer in a simpler, more consistent noun-form. It avoids the mix of answers like “Die Sonne scheint.” – “Es schneit.” – “Es ist nebelig.” Once they master the nouns, it will be easier to move into the various sentence structures.

I also have a video to review the words. The word Eis is not included, however it is pronounced pretty much the same as the English “ice”.

Thanksgiving-Dinner Umfrage / Survey

Posted in 1st - 4th Grade, 5th - 6th Grade, Baking & Cooking, Holidays, Uncategorized by

As a follow-up to my post from last week introducing food items you would find at a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, I created a few more accompanying materials.

In my 1st & 2nd grade class, I thought I would do a survey of who likes which foods. I will ask: “Wer isst x gern?” If they like it, they can stand up, if they don’t they stay seated. We will then count – in German, of course! – the students who are standing. And I will record the number in the box next to the food.

Thanksgiving-Dinner Umfrage GitADownload

I made a similar sheet with smaller boxes as a handout, so the children can mark their own papers to show which foods they like to eat – Ich esse … gern!

Thanksgiving-Dinner Ich esse gern GitADownload

Guten Appetit!

Das Thanksgiving-Dinner

Posted in 1st - 4th Grade, 5th - 6th Grade, Baking & Cooking, Holidays, Uncategorized, Word Posters by

Thanksgiving is a truly American holiday. They obviously do not celebrate it in Germany! And yet, the Germans I know are all rather fascinated by the holiday.

With my 5th & 6th graders, we have been practicing how to talk about foods that you like and don’t like. So with Thanksgiving approaching, I thought it would be fun to hear which traditional foods the kids like and which ones they don’t.

To talk about foods they like (gern essen) and foods they don’t like (nicht gern essen), I made some posters to hang:

Included in the download is also a single poster which includes both sentences, as well as a poster for expressing a favorite food. You can download these here:

Ich esse gern GitADownload

Then I made a handout with 12 traditional Thanksgiving foods. I’m sure the kids will have ideas about what was left out! But I thought these covered the basics.

Thanksgiving-Dinner GitADownload

I also made individual posters that you can laminate to introduce the vocabulary. I have to say, I was surprised to find that pies are essentially called Kuchen. I always think of Kuchen as cake! But every source I checked used the same words. So Kürbiskuchen and Apfelkuchen it is!

Thanksgiving-Dinner Plakate GitADownload

Guten Appetit!

Mh mh macht der grüne Frosch im Teich

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

For the past two years, I have been singing the song “Mh mh macht der grüne Frosch im Teich” with my preschoolers and kindergartners. They LOVE it!

I usually do some lessons on farm animals in the spring, and we sing the song for several weeks in a row. I often bring a little canvas bag filled with my farm animal finger puppets (if you watched the video on counting farm animals, you know I have 12!), and I pull one out at a time. Then we sing about that animal.

Just because we’re learning from home right now doesn’t mean we have to skip the song! I made a video where I talk about the farm animals and what they “say” in German (yes! even animals speak differently in different languages!). Then I sing the song, using my finger puppets.

You can download the text to this traditional song here: Mh mh macht der grüne Frosch im Teich GitA

I also made a few coloring pages, a tracing worksheet, and a label-the-animal worksheet for the children to do after they watch the video.

You can download the PDFs here, too:

 

Was für Wetter haben wir heute?

Posted in Pre-K & K Class, Uncategorized, Videos, Word Posters, Writing by

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:

Wetterbericht Woche PKK 2020 GitA-page-001

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!

Farbenlied – Color Song

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

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.

Regenbogen-page-001

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

 

Weihnachts-Bingo

Posted in Games, Holidays, Uncategorized, Word Posters by

Looking to practice some Christmas vocabulary? How about a fun game of bingo?! I made up 25 different cards. There is also a key for you to keep track of which items have been called already – just in case your students have other ideas 😉

When we play, I bring a die. Whatever number I roll is the column where they have to find the word. If I roll a 6, then it can be anywhere on the card.

Here is what the cards look like:

You can download the Bingo cards for FREE as a PDF file: Weihnacht Bingo GitA

The words are the same 24 that I used in my Vocabulary Advent Calendars.

If you would like to print out posters of the words, you can download this PDF: Weihnacht Posters GitA. I also print these 6 to a page to use a the cards that I draw for the Bingo words. Here is a sample of what they look like:

Here is a list of the 24 words that are included:

  1. der Adventskalender
  2. der Adventskranz
  3. die Geschenke (plural)
  4. die Glaskugel
  5. der Hampelmann
  6. die Kerze
  7. das Knusperhaus
  8. das Lebkuchenherz
  9. der Lebkuchenmann
  10. der Nikolaus
  11. der Nussknacker
  12. die Plätzchen (plural)
  13. die Pyramide
  14. das Räuchermännchen
  15. der Schlitten
  16. die Schneeflocke
  17. die Stiefel (plural)
  18. der Stollen
  19. die Tasse
  20. der Tannenbaum
  21. die Weihnachtskarte
  22. das Weihnachtslied
  23. der Weihnachtsmarkt
  24. die Zuckerstange

Frohe Weihnachten!