Learning words for family members

This week, we learned about our immediate family: der Vater (father), die Mutter (mother), der Bruder (brother) and die Schwester (sister).

To introduce the words for family members, I showed them Die Mausfamilie, a finger play about a family of mice that also reviewed some of the body parts we already have learned. This one is a little different than the one I did, but was the clearest of the ones I found on YouTube and uses words for body parts we have already practiced.




We then glued pictures of our immediate family into our folders with simple sentences to practice introducing family members. ("Das ist mein Vater," means "That is my father.") Everyone did very well as I went around and asked them in German to point to family members and introduce them to me in German. If they didn't finish, just have them glue down their pictures. There isn't room for multiple brothers and sisters, so just have them staple the pictures together or glue them to small pieces of paper and staple those together to place in the appropriate places. Their homework practices introductions by asking the names of various family members. If they don't have brothers or sisters, just leave those questions blank. If they have multiple, they only need to answer with one (it is about the practice more than anything) but they can certainly write out everyone's names if they wish!

This is just for fun, but I also came across an interactive site with simple games to teach German vocabulary. This is a simple tic-tac-toe game that can be played by one or two players to review body parts. The start button is kind of small, so you'll have to look for it, but then it just requires you to select your space, listen for the body part, and select the correct word from a list. I thought it would make a good review. I will begin including one of these games in these weekly posts for some additional practice and you are welcome to explore the site on your own. Some of the games require correct spelling and for now, I won't be including any of those, but you are certainly welcome to try them out!

And to finish off, our weekly episode of TroTro! In this episode, TroTro is a little afraid to sleep in his bed alone. He joins his parents who are a little desperate to get him to go back to his own bed.


Mutter and Vater are the more formal German words for mother and father. Listen closely to see what TroTro calls his parents. As we talked about in class, these are very familiar words used in many languages. Enjoy!