Tag Archives: Worksheets

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!

Die drei kleinen Schweinchen (Three Little Pigs)

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

I did my latest Story Listening lesson in the 1st/2nd grade class on The Three Little Pigs. To be honest, I think I focused too much on vocabulary. When you use a familiar story and try to teach too many words, the kids tend to lose focus and stop paying attention. A lesson learned for me!

Here is the simple version of the story that I put together: Die drei kleinen Schweinchen GitA (PDF)

Still, I thought I’d share my worksheets to go along with the story.

Download the PDF here: drei kleine Schweinchen AB GitA

I also sang the beginning of the song “Hurra, der Wind ist da” by Nena:

Hurra der Wind ist da-page-002

I made it nice and big, so I could hang it on the board, and all the children could see it clearly. Download the PDF here: Hurra der Wind ist da GitA

I also tried to teach a tongue twister with them. Tricky business! But fun 🙂

Ferkel Zungenbrecher-page-002

You can download this letter-sized poster here: Ferkel Zungenbrecher GitA

Viel Spaß!

Story Listening: Klingelingeling

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

I was back in the 1st/2nd grade today! So it was time to tell another story. I selected one of my favorite read-aloud children’s books: Klingelingeling by Nicola Smee (arsEdition, 2010; original English title: Jingle-Jingle).

klingelingeling

Of course, I didn’t actually read the book. I told it as a story, which meant I had to add some description. Since the book is copyrighted, I can’t post my version of it here. But it wasn’t too hard to work out!

For today’s lesson, I wanted to add a brief discussion about the weather. So after our hello song, I asked the children about the weather for today. I told them the words in German and wrote them on the board: es regnet, regnerisch, warm, leichter Wind. I’d like to start each lesson with the weather in the future.

From there, we went right into our story. I was really pleased with how it went! It’s such a fun little story, especially when the horse climbs into the sleigh, so he can ride down the hill with the other animals! I did have to figure out how to draw all those animals, though! I used a book called The Usborne Step-By-Step Drawing Book (Usborne, 2014):

Usborne drawing book

(They didn’t have a duck, so I looked up some ideas online.) When I drew the horse, I warned the children not to laugh at my drawings. They actually clapped! They could all tell it was a horse. Success! Here is a look at my finished story board:

2018-01-12 11.16.40

When I finished the story, they asked where it was from. So I told them about the book. I happened to have it with me, so I showed it to them. Most of them wanted to hear it, so I read it aloud to them. I think it was actually a great way to reinforce the story and repeat the vocabulary!

I made up some worksheets for them to practice the main words: die Katze, der Hund, das Schwein, die Ente, das Pferd, der Schlitten. I thought about Schnee, too but decided to keep it to 6 words (I like even numbers!). The tasks included:

  • matching picture to word
  • tracing the word under the corresponding picture
  • writing the word under the corresponding picture (I left this one out today and just used the tracing words)
  • a word search
  • cut out 4 images and paste them in the correct order on the next page

They did great with the first pages. Some of them had trouble with putting the images in order. It helped if they started with the last one first, since it’s obvious (they flew out of the sled when they reached the bottom of the hill). I did not expect them to be able to read the text under the pictures, but it’s there for exposure.

You can download the worksheets as a PDF file here: Klingelingeling Arbeitsblätter, 2018 GitA

Before I sent them off to work on the assignment, though, I had one more bit of fun with them. I decided to try a tongue twister! I do love a good tongue twister! I was surprised to find that I had to explain what it was for some of the children. But then I also got to show off my “Peter Piper” 😉

For our German tongue twister – or Zungenbrecher (literally: tongue breaker), I chose:

In Ulm und um Ulm und um Ulm herum

I started by teaching them how to pronounce Ulm. Oooooooo. Then add the L, then the M. Then make it short. Then we started very slowly. And we worked up our speed. Some of them got quite good at it!

After they completed their worksheets, I had one more surprise for them. They had been begging me to read an Elephant & Piggie book by Mo Willems. A few of them have been translated into German, and I just happen to have one: Das Buch über uns (Klett Kinderbuch, 2015; original English title We are in a Book).

Buch über uns

For the most part, they really enjoyed it. And some of them knew it well enough in English to translate as we went along. That was fine. It was the end of a very long lesson (I ended up being in the class for an hour and a half!) at the end of a Friday half-day. So it would have been a lot to expect them to sit still and just listen!

Overall, I’d say it was a very successful lesson! I was exhausted, but then I usually am! And it’s so worth it! Even Froggy said he enjoys the lessons, even though he isn’t really learning anything new 🙂

Nikolaus und die drei Töchter (eine Legende)

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

Today I was finally back in 1st & 2nd grade. We’re a few days late for Nikolaus, but that’s okay. I started the lesson off with a story, of course! This time, it was the story of Nikolaus and the three daughters and how he helped them by throwing sacks of gold through their window, so that they could be married. Here is the story I told:

Nikolaus und die drei Töchter: eine Legende

Vor langer, langer Zeit lebte ein lieber Mann. Der Mann hieß* Nikolaus. Er hatte ein großes Haus. Er hatte viele schöne Sachen. Er hatte viel Geld. Er war ein reicher Mann.

Aber Nikolaus war traurig. Er war allein. Er hatte keine Familie. Er war nicht glücklich. Sein Geld machte ihn nicht glücklich.

In seiner Stadt wohnte ein anderer Mann. Dieser Mann hatte drei Töchter. Der Mann hatte keine Arbeit. Und er hatte kein Geld. Er war arm. Weil er kein Geld hatte, konnten seine drei Töchter nicht heiraten.

Nikolaus wusste von diesem Problem. Er wollte helfen.

In der Nacht warf Nikolaus einen kleinen Sack durch das Fenster. Am nächsten Morgen fand eine Tochter den kleinen Sack in ihrem Schuh. Der Sack war voller Gold! Jetzt konnte die erste Tochter heiraten!

Am nächsten Morgen fand die zweite Tochter einen kleinen Sack voller Gold. Jetzt konnte die zweite Tochter auch heiraten!

Am nächsten Morgen fand die dritte Tochter einen kleinen Sack voller Gold. Jetzt konnte die dritte Tochter auch heiraten!

Nikolaus hat die Familie geholfen*! Und er wollte andere Leute auch helfen. Endlich war Nikolaus glücklich!

Ende.

You can download a PDF of the story here: Nikolauslegende printable – GitA (I pieced together and simplified the story using some online sources. You can find them listed in the PDF printable.)

We did a few different activities after I told the story. I made up some worksheets to go with some of the vocabulary from the story. I decided to focus on the opposites: glücklich – traurig, Nacht – Tag, groß – klein, reich – arm.

You can download the PDFs here: Nikolaus Opposites Arbeitsblatt – GitA 2017

I also taught them the traditional Nikolaus song: “Lasst uns froh und munter sein”.  Do you know it? Here is the first verse:

Lasst uns froh und munter sein
Und uns recht vom Herzen freuen
Lustig, lustig, tra la la la la
Bald ist Nikolausabend da
Bald ist Nikolausabend da!

I gave out my coloring page with a picture of Nikolaus and the first verse to the children to color. You can find it in this post.

I decided to give them the riddle, Das Haus vom Nikolaus, as well, where you have to draw the house in 8 lines without lifting  your pencil! You can find the download in this post.

Our main activity was a boot-lacing craft. First the children decorated the boot with silver crayons. I brought them in special 🙂  Then they laced the black construction-paper boots with red yarn and glued red pom-poms at the top for fur.

2017-12-08 11.33.37-2

All the instructions along with the boot template can be found in this post.

We actually did the boot-lacing project first. Then I gave them hand-outs to work on after they finished their boots.

Goldilocks and … Two Firsts for Me!

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

For the very first time, I taught in Froggy’s 1st & 2nd grade class! And for the very first time, I used a method of language teaching called Story Listening (SL). You can read all about the method at the Stories First website. It was a total success! I’m so thrilled!

I had the children for a whole hour!

As I entered the group, I said, “Guten Morgen,” and repeated it. To my delight, the children chimed right in! Then we went right into “Ich heiße…” Again, they were ready to repeat! We practiced the “ch” sound. Then we started again. The only thing was, they repeated my whole sentence, including my name 🙂  So we straightened that out, and I went around the room, asking each child’s name. I started with the 4 children who had been in my German class in Pre-K/Kindergarten. I figured they would be more comfortable with saying the phrase, and they could also be a good model for the other children.

Next, I talked to the children about magic. Yup. Magic. To me, speaking a foreign language is a lot like making magic! It’s like cracking a code. Or knowing a secret – the good kind of secret 🙂  And just look! All of the children had already worked some magic! I never told them what Guten Morgen or Ich heiße meant. But of course, they knew. Then I told them I was going to teach them some more magic a little later….

Then I taught them the hello song. I used my word posters to teach them the actions: klatschen, stampfen, patschen. And we counted to 2. We talked about doing the actions quietly, so the classroom below us didn’t think there’s a herd of elephants – or a thunderstorm – upstairs! And then I asked them if I was showing them the right word, so they could practice ja and nein. Finally, it was time to sing the song!

Next it was time for the children to be magicians! Because I was going to tell them a story.

A whole story, all in German!

I asked them to listen with their ears and watch with their eyes, and just relax and take it all in.

Of course, we needed our magic words to start the story: Es war einmal…

I had practiced telling a simplified story of Goldlöckchen (Goldilocks). As you tell the story, you draw pictures on the board and write the word in German (L2) underneath it. You can use other tools from the SL toolkit (on their website), too, like gestures and antonyms to help with comprehension. The children were right with me, the whole time! Here’s what the board looked like when I was finished:

2017-10-27 11.42.07

Of course, by the time I had finished, the kids were a little restless. Time for some movement! So we played a game of Simon sagt! (Simon Says). We used the verbs from the hello song (klatschen, stampfen, patschen) plus the verbs from our story: essen, spazieren gehen, rennen, einschlafen, aufwachen. It was a big hit!

Then I had handouts for the children to do. I had come up with 5 ideas, and the teachers liked them all, so we made up packets for them to do. The first and second-graders got different ones, based on difficulty.

You can download the handouts here: Goldlöckchen Arbeitsblätter GitA

The Stories First website also has a collection of stories for various languages and levels in the Great Story Reading Project. You do have to register to gain access.

Shape Resources

Posted in Language Themes, Resources, Uncategorized, Word Posters by

For our shape unit, we’ll be using some materials I bought a few years ago on TeachersPayTeachers.com. It was created by Open Wide the World, who has a number of German-language units. In fact, the weather unit I used last month was also created by them.

shapes-open-wide-the-world

The unit costs only $3.50, and you can purchase it here. And here’s what you get:

posters
a single page display featuring all 10 shapes
10 individual posters, one shape & shape name per page

game cards
“Bang!” game cards & directions
3 sets of flashcards for games & drill work: 1 set with shapes and shape names, 1 set with shape images only, 1 set with shape names only

2 mini books
1/4-page sized mini book: trace the shape name and draw the shape
1/2-page sized mini book: fill in the blank with the shape name, color the image, and read aloud with a partner (level = emergent reading, repetitive sentence structure)

word search
includes answer key

I’m excited to start using all these colorful materials!

Weather Plan: Week 3

Posted in Language Themes, Uncategorized, Writing by

Froggy is still into weather, so we’re continuing with the topic. I have to admit, I haven’t gotten to work on my own materials much lately. So I’m still relying on some great resources I’ve found online.

I do have a couple of ideas up my sleeve, though! I found some fun books related to Weather and want to create some worksheets to go with them.

We also had an idea for a super fun project! We’re going to do a weather comparison for some familiar places. Well, sort of familiar. We’ll be comparing our own weather in Philadelphia with Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (where our 3 au pairs are from!) along with the Netherlands (where PER is from, and where Oma & Opa still live). More on that soon….

For now, here is what we’ve been up to this week:

  • Day 1:
    • A quick weather worksheet that also provided an opportunity to talk about dates (Datum) and seasons. The season part was easy enough, but we had to talk about the words Datum and Monat. Nonetheless, he zipped through it quickly, which was perfect for a tired Monday afternoon. The worksheet was a page from an entire German online workbook from Lehrmittelperlen. I think we’ll be using the rest of it for other topics, too! (Lehrmittelperlen is a site full of German teaching resources that costs about €20 per year.)

2017-01-30-17-18-50

  • Day 2
    • Today we read a simple book: Elmar mag jedes Wetter by David McKee (translated from English; Thienemann, 2016). I made up a worksheet to go with it. See my post for the details and download!
  • Day 3-5
    • Time to start a weather project! We are going to record the weather in our town (Philadelphia), Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. I’m working on a document for our recordings. I’ll post it as soon as it’s been tested and ready to go! The plan is to record the weather for a month and then graph our findings. We’ll see how it goes! I’d be happy with a week, I suppose!

Elmar loves all weather!

Posted in Book Materials, Getting them to read more, Language Themes, Uncategorized by

Today for our weather unit lesson, Froggy read a book called Elmar mag jedes Wetter. It’s a pretty simple book. But at this stage, simple is good!

elmar-mag-jedes-wetter

At the same time, it wasn’t quite enough to fill out a full lesson. So I created a worksheet to go with it. It, too, is rather simple. Since Elmar likes all weather, the answer to each question is Ja! But I added a bit more to personalize it:

elmar-mag-jedes-wetter-gita

It also sneaks in a little work on how to say that you like something!

You can download the PDF here: Elmar mag jedes Wetter – GitA

 

Der Herbst ist da!

Posted in Book Materials, Numbers, Story hour, Uncategorized by

With Columbus Day coming up, we were going to miss our first October meeting of Story Hour. So we snuck in an extra session on the last Friday of September. Perfect timing, since fall has just begun!

We started out by reviewing numbers. I just grabbed the blocks from the play area to go over numbers 1-10. For the first book (Zehn Blätter fliegen davon), I had put sticky notes on each page to count the leaves that had flown from the tree. That way, the children had the chance to review the numbers again. At the end of the story hour, we did two activities to practice numbers.

Books:

  • Zehn Blätter fliegen davon by Anne Möller (2008)
  • Manuel & Didi. Das zweite große Buch der kleinen Mäuseabenteuer (“Der Apfel”) by Erwin Moser (2009)
  • Der Herbst steht auf der Leiter by Peter Hacks (2012)

Songs:

  • “Bunt sind schon die Wälder” (Here, you can find lyrics and music.)
  • “Der Apfelbaum” (Die 30 Besten Spiel- und Bewegungslieder) Click for youtube video
  • “Der Herbst steht auf der Leiter”

All of these songs are available to download through Amazon.de!

Activities:

1. Klebe das Blatt mit der passenden Zahl an den Baum. In addition to the handout, I used foam leaf stickers. I wrote a number on each one (1 – 10), and the children had to match the leaf sticker to the number on the tree. Download the PDF here: zehn-blatter-arbeitsblatt-gita

zehn-blatter-arbeitsblatt-gita-page-001

2. Malen nach Zahlen Download the PDF here: malen-nach-zahlen-herbstblatt-gita

malen-nach-zahlen-herbstblatt-gita-page-001

Alles über mich!

Posted in Story hour, Uncategorized by

For our first session of Lesestunde (Story Hour), I like to do a topic that is all about “ME!” So we read books and sing songs about the body and feelings. For the end of the session, I prepared a few variations of activities, so the children could also report on themselves.

Download the PDF file here: das-lied-uber-mich

Here are the books we read:

  • Heute bin ich by Mies van Hout (2015)
  • Das bin ich by Heinz Janisch & Birgit Antoni (2014)
  • Von Kopf bis Fuß by Eric Carle (2011)

And here are the songs we sang:

  • “Wenn du glücklich bist”
  • “Meine Finger, Meine Finger” (Die 30 Besten Spiel- und Bewegungslieder, Vol. 3)
  • “Kopf und Schulter, Knie und Fuß”
  • “Das Lied über mich” (Volker Rosin)

You can download all the lyrics here: lieder-16-sept-2016 (PDF)