Piggy pedagogy

Piggy pedagogy

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Literary-critical Sunday school, part 1

Reading: Annamarie Benedikt, Die Kinderbibel, early chapters of the New Testament. Listening: Margot Käßmann, Die Bibel für Kinder, 0:00-11:00 of New Testament; Otfried Preußler, Der kleine Wassermann, part 4, 33:40-51:00; Roald Dahl, Sophiechen und der Riese, part 1, 1:02-1:32. Viewing: Der König der Löwen (85 min.)

This is our first serious excursion into New Testament stories. It's not easy going for a four-year old to make sense out of the sprawling and yet fragmentary narrative of Jesus's and John the Baptist's infancy and then sudden adulthood, with only one—for J totally non-interesting—episode from boyhood, the scene in the temple. Today we discussed the manger and John's diet of locusts and honey, which led to a conversation about different dietary habits in different cultures. 

The Dahl was much more exciting, since the section we covered today features the snozzcumbers (Kotzgurken) and frobscottle (Blubberwasser). Before we got to the latter, J interrupted because he first wanted to explain to me how the frobscottle works. 

With Wassermann J wanted to hear the song from part 3 again and then sang whole sections of it during the day, so that's definitely a very sweet spot. Here was also, I believe, the first time J used the verb vergleichen (to compare), which I've been stressing a lot in my own speech. He said something like, "The little water sprite is kind of dumb. He compares every new thing he sees with something from home." I assured him that this was not at all dumb, it's just that the sprite is very young and hasn't seen much of the world yet. I reminded J that he first thought that airplanes were birds. He laughed.

With König der Löwen last week J said after some of Scar's dialogue that "I understand it better now in German than in English," which warmed my heart. My wife said it was probably because of the British accent in the English. But still!

Age 4.12.16

No comments:

Post a Comment