Tag Archives: Words

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

Zahlen – Tiere auf dem Bauernhof (Numbers)

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

For my young students, I wanted to review numbers today. We count regularly in class, so I thought it would be a good idea to refresh the numbers. I also used farm animals to count, so that I can introduce them in a week or two.

I made a video of counting:

 

Then I made a counting sheet for the children to do at home. Count the animals in German, then circle the correct number below. There is a color and a black & white version.

Download the PDF here: Zahlen 1-12 Tiere GitA

If they want a little more of a challenge, I also have a worksheet for tracing German numbers.

Download the PDF here: Trace the words in German 1-10 GitA

I also found some cute clips of Graf Zahl from Sesamstraße (The Count from Sesame Street). I posted them to one of my YouTube playlists (It may look like the same video as above, but this link takes you to the playlist – you can click through the videos here or click on YouTube at the bottom of the video to go there and find the list):

Bewegungen – Action Words

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

For three weeks, I’ve been doing numbers in the Pre-K/Kindergarten class. I was wondering if the repetition was good, or if the children needed a little variation! So I came up with a compromise for today’s lesson. We still included number, but we also added some new vocabulary.

We have been starting each class with our Hallo-Lied and working on ich heiße.

As a quick review, we sang “Meine Finger” again. Just like on the first day, we used klatschen and patschen. I added schnipsen this time, too. And to review numbers, we counted to 5 as we did the actions five times each.

Then I introduced some verbs. We already talked about schlafen with the song “Unser kleiner Bär im Zoo,” but we repeated that one again here. Then we also added gehen, essen, spielen, and steigen (to walk, to eat, to play, to climb).

In addition to the word posters, I created a coloring sheet for the children to take home:

Bewegungen AB GitA-page-002

I chose these words because of the book we read: Mein 1-2-3 Mäuschenbuch by Alexandra Dannenmann. In addition to counting from 1 to 10, each page shows a different action. I decided to select just five of the action words to introduce.

mein-1-2-3-mauschenbuch

Usually, I read the book last. But I wanted to end this class with a fingerplay that the children always love! It’s called Die Mausfamilie. You can read the text and download it on this post from last year.

The action word posters and coloring page are free to download here:

Viel Spaß!

O ist für Oma und Opa

Posted in Alphabet, Buchstabe: O, Uncategorized by

It just so happens that the boys’ Oma & Opa are visiting from the Netherlands! So what better way to start our O week than with these two special words!

Here’s a look at all the objects in my little O box:

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The words are:

  • das      Obst                          fruit
  • das      Ohr                            ear
  • die       Oma                          grandma
  • der      Opa                          grandfather
  •             orange                      orange (color)
  • die       Orange                     orange (fruit)
  • der      Orang-Utan               orangutan
  • das      Ornament                 ornament
  •             ost                             east
  • das      Osterei                      Easter egg
  • der      Osterhase                 Easter bunny
  • der      Otter                          otter

For the corresponding word cards see the post on Buchstabe der Woche: O.

Buchstabe der Woche: O

Posted in Alphabet, Buchstabe: O, Uncategorized by

This week we’ll be starting our work on the letter O! The words in this unit are:

  • das      Obst                          fruit
  • das      Ohr                            ear
  • die       Oma                          grandma
  • der      Opa                          grandfather
  •             orange                      orange (color)
  • die       Orange                     orange (fruit)
  • der      Orang-Utan               orangutan
  • das      Ornament                 ornament
  •             ost                             east
  • das      Osterei                      Easter egg
  • der      Osterhase                 Easter bunny
  • der      Otter                          otter

I would have liked a little more variety. There are some sets of similar words – Oma & Opa, orange & Orange, Osterei & Osterhase – but sometimes it depends on what objects I can find!

I think I will try to group them by the kind of sound that the O makes.

  1. Oma, Opa
  2. Obst, ost, Osterei, Osterhase, Otter
  3. Ohr, orange, Orange, Orang-Utan, Ornament

Here’s what the cards look like:

This are the all-caps version. You can download the cards below in all-caps or in upper and lower case letters.

I also decided to try creating a backing paper for the cards. Sometimes you can see through the cards, even when I print on cardstock. That doesn’t make for a very good game of memory or go fish! So I created these papers to be printed on the opposite side of the word cards. To be fair, I haven’t tried them myself yet! My print-outs were already laminated. But I’ll try it for sure next time and report back on how it went.

Wortschatz Karten letter backing O-page-001

There has been a lot of activity on the blog recently! But I never hear from my visitors 😦  I would love to hear how you are using the materials! And if you have other ideas, that would be great!

Viel Spaß!

Koffer Packen: Kids’ Packing List

Posted in Getting them to read more, Travel, Uncategorized by

Koffer Packen GitA-page-001

Last year when we went to Europe, I found some great packing lists for kids online. But of course, they were all in English! (See for example: this one from Lemon Lime Adventures; or this one from Stuffed Suitcase with images for non-readers.) They worked great for our preparations last year. But this year, I just had to make my own!

Here is what they look like:

 

 

There are three packing lists:

  • Kleidung (Clothing)
  • Toilettenartikel (Toiletries)
  • Rücksack (Backpack)

You can download all three of them here: Koffer Packen GitA (PDF)

Only the Kleidung page has images. I haven’t decided yet if I want the images on there or not 🙂  For Hippo (age 3), the images make sense. But if the goal is to get Froggy (age 6) reading as many German words as I can put in front of him, then the pictures may be doing him a disservice. We haven’t actually done the packing yet, so I’ll see how it all goes! If I think they could use some adjusting, I’ll edit the pages and repost.

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kleine Raupe

Posted in Book Materials, Coloring Pages, Numbers, Pre-K & K Class, Word Posters by

We have loved Eric Carle’s book about the hungry caterpillar for years! I wanted to share it with Froggy’s class last week. So I created some picture cards to introduce the words. For this set, I added cards with words and numbers, too.

Included in this set are:

  • image cards
  • images with numbers, 1-5
  • images with words (fruit in both singular and plural)
  • words only

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Print them full-size for wall posters or to have large images to introduce to a class. Or print them 6-to-a-page for flashcards or a memory or matching game.

If you want to use them for Memory, be sure to use a thicker cardstock, so that the images don’t show through 🙂

I’d love to hear how you use the cards!

Click here to download: kleine Raupe Posters  (PDF file)

In addition to the posters, there is also a coloring page with the caterpillar and the five different fruits, labeled with colors and numbers. Download here: kleine Raupe Essen Farben Zahlen Malvorlage (PDF file)

 

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Another Reading Trick

Posted in Getting them to read more by

As I said in my last post, I’m always looking for ways to put German in front of Froggy, so his reading skills don’t fall too far behind his English reading.

Another trick I use daily is to write a note for his lunchbox in German. I always put the date at the top. Ideally, I would have some topic that we’re working on (but I haven’t done that in a while), and the notes would use vocabulary from that same topic. Mostly, my notes have something to do with what is going on at school, the weather, or something he might be looking forward to. Here are a couple of examples:

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  • “Mittwoch, der 10. Februar – Lieber Froggy, wir sehen Schnee weit und breit! Bis bald! – Deine, Mama”
  • “Mittwoch, der 17. Februar – Lieber Froggy, spielst du heite draußen? Viel Spaß! – Deine, Mama”

 

 

His teachers say the notes have been working great this year. He not only reads them but often shares them with his friends. A couple of months ago, the school counselor had a number of special lunches with the kindergartners to talk about friendship, and she also said that Froggy would read and translate the notes for the group 🙂  At least for now, German is cool enough to share with friends!

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A Treasure of Words

Posted in Getting them to read more by

Froggy doesn’t have much interest in reading German books. And I’ve learned not to push him, or he’ll go running lightning speed in the other direction. So I try to put German words in front of him whenever I can to make sure his reading abilities in German don’t fall too far behind his English.

Today, he was begging me for a treasure hunt. Aha! Opportunity strikes! I found a bunch of paper hearts he had punched that were leftover from Valentine’s Day and started writing clues. In German, of course! If I’d been planning something like this, I might have made an effort to focus on something specific: a certain group of words, or questions, or the imperative, plural, etc. But this was very spur-of-the-moment, so I was just winging it. Here are a few of the clues:

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  • Fange beim Weihnachstbaum an! (Yes, one of our trees is still up! It’s waiting for a new home 🙂 )
  • Wo sind die Bälle?
  • Wo ist das Dreirad?
  • Geh durch den Tunnel!
  • Schau mal unter Elmo!
  • Gefunding! Hier ist der Schatz!

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