Die Kleine Raupe Nimmersatt (The Very Hungry Caterpillar)

This week, we read Die Kleine Raupe Nimmersatt which is the German version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. A lot of people don't realize this, but Eric Carle's parents were actually German immigrants. His mother was so homesick, however, that she brought the family back to Germany when Eric was six years old. He was raised in Germany. His father was drafted to serve in World War II and was captured by the Soviets. He came home weighing only 85 pounds. Eric was forced to dig trenches for the Siegfried Line at the age of 15. He went studied art in Stuttgart, but always wanted to return to America, the place of his happiest childhood memories. So after graduation, he moved to New York with his art degree and $40 in his pocket.

This is an adorable little animation of the story in German to help your children learn more of the vocabulary found in the story.




And if your children enjoy songs, here is the story, sung in German.



This is a short activity to practice the days of the week. We have not gone over this a great deal in class, but it is in the story and in their minibooks they brought home. In the activity, the speaker asks "Welcher Tag ist heute?" (What day is today?). It then says the day and circles it in the calendar. Type the name of the day correctly in the blank (just copy what is circled and don't forget to capitalize the first letter). Good luck!

Next week, there is no class. After that, we will be celebrating St. Nicholas Day with cocoa, a specialty cookie from East Frisia, some holiday Bingo and we'll practice Oh Tannenbaum (Oh Christmas Tree) to sing at the talent show. Parents are more than welcome to join us for class. I'll have extra cookies for everyone!

Martinstag ~ The Feast of St. Martin

This week, we learned about Martinstag, celebrated November 11 throughout much of Germany. We read a popular story (available alongside notebooking paper and other activities as a pdf) about St. Martin, a Roman soldier who took pity on a poor beggar. While riding home through snow and ice, he came across a man dressed only in rags. He cut his own cloak in half to share with the poor man. At home, he dreamed that Jesus praised him for his kind act and thus came to the faith. Later, the church wanted to make him a Bishop, but he was a humble man and didn't want such recognition. He hid in a goose pen, but was given away by the squawking of the geese and ended up becoming a Bishop afterall.

The generosity and love of St. Martin is celebrated today with soft, warm pretzels (a symbol of neighborly love) and evening parades through the streets where the children carry lanterns, sing about St. Martin and their lanterns and are rewarded with candy and other goodies as they stop at houses along the way.

This first video shows some of the festivities. It starts out with the song we learned in class and will be practicing again next week for our own lantern parade and includes a brief re-enactment of the story we read in class.

 This video begins with another very popular song sung this time of year and then shares the story of St. Martin. It is a little longer and more complicated than the story I read in class, however, it is illustrated and your children should already know the basics of the story so they should be able to tell what is going on and hopefully recognize a few words as well.




And this final Martinstag video is of the song we practiced in class for our parade next week. It includes the music and text. The song has multiple verses, but we will only be singing the first verse (included on the coloring sheet I sent home) so that is all they need to practice. Unfortuntely, embedding has been disabled on this video, so you'll have to watch it on YouTube.

Laterne, Laterne, Sonne Mond und Sterne

For a little practice, this reviews counting to ten. This one is a song about ten little beetles and this quick activity has you match the word to the numeral by dragging and dropping.

Finally, this week's post is a little heavier in videos than I normally do so I thought about skipping our weekly TroTro, but the children really seem to be enjoying it.

In this episode, TroTro doesn't want to share. Children should recognize the color words while he's arguing with his friend over crayons and may be able to pick out the words for the individual toys he is hoarding to himself. The story is clear enough from the illustrations, but I may come back and make an introduction later because there are good phrases for new learners to learn as well.



As always, let me know if you have any questions!

~Frau Hanley