Counting to ten

All the students are doing a wonderful job watching and listening to figure out what I am asking them to do even though I'm speaking a lot of German. It can be very intimidating to be called on and know you are expected to do something but you aren't sure quite what. I am very encouraged that everyone is so willing to try . . . and that they obviously understand more than they think they do as they very cautiously offer the right answer or something very close to it!

Today, we reviewed the alphabet and began learning  a German counting rhyme. It is essentially the German equivalent of "One, two, Buckle my shoe." They are not expected to learn the rhyme this week. I am posting it here because it is more interesting than the other counting videos I found. Next week, we will concentrate on learning to count to three. Because Oktoberfest, the largest festival in the world, begins this weekend, we talked a little about its history as well. The German American Society in Omaha is also celebrating Oktoberfest this weekend and it is a wonderful opportunity to experience authentic German food, music, dance and dress. There is also a shop where you can buy articles from Germany. More information is available at the website of the German American Society.

Interestingly, MoDo, a German techno group, did a remix of this classic children's rhyme and it hit the top of the charts in Germany. This made it very difficult to find the traditonal rhyme online because all the search results are turning up MoDo's version and other modern dance mixes. There are several versions of this rhyme sung in Germany, including many parodies. The following is from a kindergarten class in Croatia and is slightly different than what we practiced in class.

We learned "drei vier Grenadier" (three, four, grenadier) whereas this version has "drei vier Offizier" (three four officer). It also ends differently with "schlafen gehen" (going to sleep) rather than "auf Wiedersehen" (goodbye).

And mostly because I find it very amusing to think of a song like this hitting the top of the dance charts, this is the techno version by MoDo. It's refrain is fairly simple and has two good phrases as well:

Ja ja ja
Was ist los?
Was ist das?

(Yes yes yes
What is wrong?
What is that?)

And I may as well finish off with a simple counting song. This is just the numbers from one to ten and then back to one.