Today one of our Reception classes started to make their ‘Meine Familie’ books. The students needed to write who each family member was in German and draw a picture of them. Next week we will be taking photos of our work and recording our voices saying family members names in German. We will then use the Book Creator app on our iPad to create a book!
This week our Reception children have started to learn about German names for family members! We are going to be working towards creating our own ‘Meine Familie’ books but before we can do that, we need to know our words. The children were very successful in the first matching task, using displays and their memories to match a picture with a word.
This week our Reception children have been very clever and learning their numbers in German. They love singing the song, ‘Zehn Kleine Käferlein’ and using their fingers to show which number they are up to.
Instead of just singing about ladybirds, this week they also used them to show their counting skills!
This week the Year 1 students have been playing ‘Farben Memory!’
The students played the game is groups of 5 or 6 and we focussed strongly on team work, being supportive and turn taking.
The groups were formed by putting names into an online group generator – which meant the groups made were completely random!
The students loved playing the game and practised both reading and saying the colour words in German.
The Year 1 classes have been very busy today. Some started their German lesson with a game of Bingo! Students had to listen very carefully as numbers, colours and greetings were called out. If the words were on their game cards they needed to cover them over with a token. If they covered four in a row they called, ‘Bingo!’ Our first game had 3 winners!
Mrs. Hook’s Year 1 class did a fantastic job preparing for an assembly item. Ten students will lead the Year R/1 assembly in singing, ‘Zehn Kleine Käferlein’ by holding up ladybirds as the numbers go by in the song. The rehearsal looked great!
All students in German are either learning or revising the song, ‘Zehn Kleine Käferlein’ this week. It is a fantastic song to practice our counting and when we sing it, we use our fingers to show the number the song is up to.
Here is the video to the song with full credit going to Languages Online. Practice at home with your family!
As always I am so very impressed with the way our new Reception children learn and retain language in German!
This week the children were given a caterpillar which had a different colour on each part – written in German. They had to match the word with colour posters in our classroom and then colour the part in the correct colour. They also needed to trace/copy each word. They all did a fantastic job remembering the words!
This week our Year 2 students trialled a new activity. In our German classroom we have a large selection of German readers. We often speak in German about the importance of identifying keywords and not getting caught up in trying to understand every single word. Keywords can give us clues as to what the text is about.
The students chose a partner and then selected a German reader together. They then needed to carefully read through the book, recording all of the words (and their translations) that they knew. Some books had lots of familiar words while others only had a few!
The children were very engaged with this activity and proud of just how much they can understand already. We will certainly try this activity again soon with a different book.
This week the Year 2 students have been revising their numbers to 10. They needed to write the number as a word, as a numeral and then show how many with pictures. We talked about how we needed to be confident counting to 10 to be able to learn the patterns when counting to 20. We also played a favourite class game of ‘Buzz’ to remind us of our counting!
After this task many students started looking at numbers to 20 in German. We discussed the patterns that most of the numbers follow (except, elf, zwolf and zwanzig!) and showed this understanding by colour-coding numbers. We now know that ‘teenager’ numbers in German usually have a small number (like drei) with 10 (zehn) at the end: drei + zehn = dreizehn = 13!
Finally we played the game of ‘Zahlen Kopfs” (Number Heads). This is a new game! One student sits on a chair in front of the class with a headband on. Attached to their headband is a number written in German – but they don’t know what it is! They need to guess numbers in German and the students need to either say, ‘hoch’ (higher), ‘niedrig’ (lower) or, with two thumbs up, ‘ja!’ if they get it right. The students LOVED playing this!
The Year 1 students have been going back over their German counting skills this week, singing along to ‘Zehn Kleine Kaferlein,’ playing class games and practising writing the German numbers. We’ve had a lot of fun!
