Celebrating Karneval

Last week was Karneval! We celebrated by singing a little song with a dance, learning a little about what Karneval and Lent is about and closed by making masks.

Students had a short homework assignment to color masks according to the directions.

Hei wir feiern Fasching is a fairly repetitive song and uses some of the verbs we learned the first day of class (hop and turn around). The songs I found on YouTube cut off the end, but the main part of the song the students will remember is there.

In the song we sung, it ended by mentioning the Polonaisen Schritt. This is a Polonaise ballet dance. If students watch closely, they should recognize the main elements of the dance we did, though it was a far cry from anything related to ballet! (hop on one leg, turn to your partner and dance in a circle).

And for some additonal cultural education, this is a clip from the actual Polonaise in native costume. It is a traditional Polish dance. It is danced for Karneval and also for the Polish equivalent of the prom 100 days before exams.

And, to close, another TroTro because everyone seems to love him. This episode has nothing to do with Karneval, but he does put on a mask. And he wants to be a Tiger, one of the things we imagined ourselves to be in the song we learned.

~Frau Hanley

Learning superlatives

Today in class, we introduced a new morning song. I want to open our classes with a song from now one. We will practice the same one several times to help learn them before moving on to a new one. Our first one was a very simple good morning song with four verbs to practice (nod, wave, smile and clap). I was not able to find it on YouTube, however, it is available on amazon for 99 cents.


Actually, most of the songs we sing in class are available through amazon so if you are interested in making your children an album of the songs we've sung, let me know and I will send you the links. Or stay tuned. I will compile them eventually.

To practice superlatives, we played hot and cold. One student left the room while another hid a little binder ring somewhere in plain view. The class then directed the other student toward the ring by saying "hotter," "hottest," "colder" and "coldest" (in German, of course).

And the video I sent out was of Daniel Tiger celebrating his own birthday party. This one is a little longer and may be a little more difficult for students to understand. There are a lot of words in it we've gone over in class, but I think it is good for students to hear the language spoken by native speakers as often as possible. It help build listening skills, will help with pronunciation later and helps them learn to look for context clues. This only helps if they're enjoying, it however! If they're frustrated with it, just turn it off. These videos are supposed to be a fun way to hear the language!

Happy viewing!

Welcome to the new semester!

As most of you know, I had a baby over the winter break. Well, actually, during the last class period of last semester! I delivered a happy, healthy, 7 pound 14 ounce baby boy. And wow does he keep me occupied (or sleeping!) during the evening hours when I'm used to getting things done!

Anyway, that's why I'm a little behind. Fortunately, Asa loves his new swing so I am going to try to get caught back up and keep up with this blog through the rest of the semester.

The first day back to class happened to fall on my birthday, so we celebrated my birthday in class with all the typical birthday vocabulary. Students tried their best to say Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag (how Germans say Happy Birthday). It is a mouthful for anyone, but they did well. They had a much easier time with the Happy Birthday song. Except for the "dear," Germans sing it in English.

This week actually includes two episodes of TroTro because I couldn't find the one I wanted as a single episode. In the first one, TroTro tries to get Nana's attention and his father says that dancing is the way to go. 

In the second episode, TroTro gets invited to Nana's birthday party. Students should hear a lot of the vocabulary we went over in class.

Happy viewing!


~Frau Hanley