Learning colors

The children seem to be getting used to listening to me speak predominantly in German. The first class period is always interesting with most of the class looking at me like they're not quite sure if they're in the right place . . . or if maybe I'm from another planet. But I saw a little more enthusiasm this week, the kids were able to follow simple instructions with little or no cues from me and are already answering my questions in a mix of English and the German words they have learned.

I sent home a sheet of flashcards. These are to hang in their roms if you like to help reinforce new words. If you would like more for different rooms and are the kind of family that would love to label every item in your home, I would love to send home a set each week for different rooms in the house. Just let me know!

Sentences/questions we have practiced so far in class:

Wie heißen Sie? Ich heiße ... (What is your name? My name is . . . )
Woher kommen Sie? Ich komme aus . . .  (Where are you from? I am from . . . )
Ich sehe . . . (I see . . .)

We have also been working on several commands such as 'Stand up', 'sit down,' 'turn around', 'come to the front', 'go to the (wall, corner, door, closet, etc).  

And we practice saying "Thank you!" and "Your'e welcome!" as I pass out candy at the end of class. Here is a quick lesson on please and thank you and goes more in depth with different ways to use these very important manners.

 

And for class yesterday, we read Brauner Bär, Was siehst denn du? (Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?). We also practiced colors and filled out a sheet for their binders. They will need this for later homework as we learn body parts, clothing, etc. At the end of class, they were able to call out the colors and animals, so are learning very quickly!

This video goes over the main colors in German. This was the only one I found that actually said the names of the objects it showed so your children can practice learning by listening and watching. 


This is actually an advertisement for Cobra paints. I'm sharing it for the nice German accent and because it is pretty easy to follow.  I like sharing snippets of German as it is actually spoken so students can get used to the sounds and listening at a normal speaking pace. It is a quick tutorial on mixing paints and your children should recognize the color words. If they already know the color wheel, they might hear him mention primary, secondary and tertiary colors (the words are very similar to English). And you watch the artist mix the colors while he says them. One word he says over and over is "rein" (sounds like the river Rhein). That just means "pure." A "reines rot" is therefore a "pure red."


 I have another video I want to share, but I need some quiet in this crazy house of mine to make it so hopefully you will get a note tomorrow that it is ready!

For some fun, here is Tro Tro. If your children found my English introduction last week helpful, let me know and I will make one for this one and future ones. Happy viewing!

Next week, we're going to start going over numbers, so for the young man in class who asked last week and this week if we were going to learn to count, yes! We're finally getting to that, too!