Spielgruppe 3

Heute schien es uns zu kalt, um draußen zu spielen, also haben wir uns an der Uni getroffen und verschiedene Gesellschaftsspiele gespielt. 

Da gab's Obstgarten:

Die Schwarzwald-Ausgabe von Monopoly:

sowie freies Buchstabieren:

Mäusefreunde Ulli und Sabine sind auch mitgekommen und haben sich von Jamie und Luca die Namen buchstabieren lassen:

Sabine und Leyla zeigten einander ihre Ohrringe:

Zum Schluss musste doch noch ein bisschen Auslauf sein: 

Media today 64

Apart from the things here we read:

Helme Heine, Der Hase mit der roten Nase; Andreas H. Schmachtl, Juli Löwenzahn: Schatzsuche im Möhrenbeet. 

These are borrowings from the "German book library" the German playgroup parents have set up to pool our reading resources. 

Spielgruppe 1

This is the first of regular posts on the activities of our Germanophone children's playgroup, which meets every Sunday afternoon at a local park in Athens, Georgia. This has been going on for about two years. In the past several months we have gotten somewhat more serious and organized.

Right now there are twelve of us:

Vera with three boys, Niko (8), Domi (6), and Bennet (8 mo.)

Nina with daughter Leyla (8) and son Lucas (6)

Jeremy with daughter Grace (8) and son Luca (5)

Alex with son Jamie (5)

We usually start out with field hockey training:

Why field hockey? Because Vera was a serious athlete in this sport in college and wishes to pass it on to her three boys—and to all of us! Eventually I'll have an interview with Vera (and with the other parents) about German in her family, which will be especially interesting because she is a professional linguist. 

The group usually finishes with soccer:

This afternoon there was something new. Niko, Vera's eldest boy, had an idea for a new game, which he called "Das Mörder-Spiel." It was a lot of fun. Here he is explaining the rules to us:

I told Niko I would try to remember and write down his explanation so that he can check it and make any corrections or modifications he wants. There is also a suggestion from me below.  

Spielregeln

"Alle Leute stellen sich in einer Reihe auf. Jeder macht eine Faust und hält sie hinter dem Rücken. Es gibt einen Schiedsrichter. Der nimmt einen kleinen Stab, geht hinter die Reihe und drückt jemandem insgeheim den Stab in die Faust. Der soll der Mörder sein. Niemand darf nach hinten schauen, also wissen die anderen nicht, wer der Mörder sei. Auf das Zeichen des Schiedsrichters mischen sich die Leute. Der Mörder wählt jemanden aus und flüstert ihm zu: 'Du bist tot'. Der muss ein paar Sekunden warten, dann tot umfallen. Danach findet der Mörder ein neues Opfer, und so weiter. Mittlerweile sollen die anderen sehen, ob sie erkennen können, wer der Mörder ist. Wenn jemand meint, er weiß, wer es war, soll er zu ihm gehen und sagen: 'Der Mörder bist du!" So ist der Verbrecher gestellt, und derjenige, der ihn zuerst erkannt hat, ist der neue Schiedsrichter."

Vorschlag für Niko: Mir scheint, dass es ein bisschen zu leicht ist, den Mörder zu erkennen: Das ist doch immer derjenige, der den Leuten etwas zuflüstert! Was ja leicht zu sehen ist. Vielleicht kannst du die Regel einführen, dass alle Teilnehmer allen anderen auch etwas zuflüstern sollen: "guten Tag", "Hallo" — was immer, nur nicht "Du bist tot!" So wäre es schwieriger, den Mörder zu identifizieren, und deshalb spannender, oder?

Human pen pals 1

Yesterday a playdate between J and Luca and respective stuffed friends had to be cancelled, but we were able to work in a bit of German nonetheless:

Lieber Luca, 

Jamie hatte sich sehr gefreut, als ich ihm erzählte, dass wir Dich zu Hause besuchen und Deine Stofftiere kennenlernen. Unsere Schweinefreunde Friedel und Thusnelda hatten sich auch gefreut. Leider bin ich jetzt erkältet und wir wollen Euch nicht anstecken! Das machen wir also ein anderes Mal, ja? 

Hoffentlich klappt es morgen noch mit der Spielgruppe!

Alles Gute,

Jamie und Alex 

***

Lieber Jamie,

Wir haben uns so auf Dein Besuch bei uns gefreut.  Schade dass wir es verschieben müssen.  Wir laden Dich, Deinen Papa, Friedel und Thusnelda wieder zu uns ein sobald es geht.  Inzwischen wünschen wir Euch viel Spaß mit den Schweinchen!  Vielleicht sehen wir uns sogar morgen bei der Gruppe.

Schöne Grüße

Jeremy und Luca

***

Lieber Jamie,

Hier siehst Du Luca und einige seiner Freunden die deutsch verstehen.  Es gibt einen Hund, eine Katze, einen Bären und einen Bieber.

Jeremy

***

Luca,

Großartig! Danke. Es grüßen Dich in unserem Bild Jamie und die Schweine sowie Schmusi Schmusebärchen—der aber kein Bär ist, sondern eine Klapperschlange! ;) 

Alex

Media today 59

Reading: Nina Weger, Die sagenhafte Saubande. Kommando Känguru, 9-30.

Listening: Kommando Känguru (Die sagenhafte Saubande 1), 0:00-15:00.

Viewing: Die Sendung mit der Maus: Sachgeschichten, "Das Krankenhaus" (28:20); Die furchtlosen Vier, 0:00-42:00. 

The Weger book, which comes with a recommendation from a colleague and fellow German-kiddie-playgroup parent, is J's first real excursion into something more like "youth" than "children's" literature. I'm curious about whether he will like it. At first he didn't seem to and wanted me to stop, then changed his mind and asked me to keep going, and by the end of the chapter he seemed quite interested. We'll reinforce this reading with the audiobook later today. 

There's a good bit of slang and youth idiom in this book, for example Schiss haben = Angst haben. The way I deal with slang is the following: I lean in conspiratorially towards J, lower my voice, and tell him what the expression means, but that it is kind of impolite and that he should not go around using it and that he should definitely not let Thusnelda hear him using it or she will probably reprimand him. Friedel won't mind, however. 

We also encountered the word Wumpe here, in the expression Das ist mir Wumpe, which means Das ist mir egal. I had never heard this before; apparently it is pretty new on the scene. 

Wow, he really liked the audiobook. It's actually a "szenische Lesung" based on the book, and ends up compressing the introductory chapters. The voice actors are very talented; especially the poodles are very well done.

At 13:00 the poodles tell Mateo that he may end up in an insane asylum (Irrensanstalt) if grown-ups hear him talking to animals. J was very interested in what an Irrenanstalt is and bombarded me with questions: who goes there; if it's true, as the poodles say, that they "stuff you with pills" (dich mit Pillen vollstopfen) there; why pills; and if these kinds of places still exist. I told him that they do, though people are not kept there forcibly as much as they used to be, and that some people are mentally so ill that they have to be kept on medicine so that they stay calm and don't hurt themselves and others. He wanted to hear this section again.

Whew. About ready for this:

Total audio 2015: 10.23
Total video 2015: 14:00
Age 5.3.26

Reading words of the week 1

Already more than two years ago I got it into my head that I could start teaching J to read. That was a mistake, as I write about in my article. But now he is quite ready and willing. He has long since learned all his letters (upper-case very well, lower-case less so) and is just beginning to sound words out of his own accord.

I'm going to begin by adopting a very simple but elegant and low-stress technique suggested by a colleague of mine and fellow German-kiddie-playgroup dad, Jeremy Reynolds. Every morning at breakfast he gives his children a piece of paper with a German word on it, and they try to sound it out. 

I'm going to modify this slightly. If the word is a noun, then in the morning I'm going to write the singular form, and in the evening add the plural form (articles included). If it's a verb, then the infinitive comes in the morning, the past participle in the evening. Also, after J sounds the word out, he will write it down on the card, and I will leave a blank card after each word in anticipation of a later stage when he will practice writing the word after having seen it but while not currently looking right at it. 

I got a index card notebook for the purpose, 

5 X 8 so there's enough room for singular and plural forms of longer words and space for J to write them. 

The first word of the day is der Hund. Here's the morning exercise:

J was able to sound it out independently, but probably partly or mostly because he knew since last night what the word was going to be. I think I'll do this for awhile, then stop telling him ahead of time. 

Here's the evening excercise:

(At this point he was about to drop, exhausted from a birthday party in an indoor jungle room!) 

I'll do these entries by week. As for the choice of words, I'm just going to start simple and follow my nose, keeping some letters and letter combinations constant while changing others.

1.1 der Hund, die Hunde
1.2 die Hand, die Hände
1.3 der Mund, die Münder
1.4 das Band, die Bänder
1.5 das Land, die Länder
1.6 der Sand, die Sande
1.7 die Wand, die Wände

Saint Martin's Day

Yesterday we celebrated Saint Martin's Day (Nov. 11) with the Germanophone kiddies at the apartment complex of one of our group.

After some twilight tennis, playground horseplay, and dinner, we fired up the homemade lanterns, I strapped on my guitar, and the twelve of us (four adults and eight kids) put on a very respectable little Laternenlaufen for the neighborhood. We sang "Ich geh mit meiner Laterne" and "Sankt Martin ritt durch Schnee und Wind" numerous times, and in numerous keys. We got a lot of funny looks from passing drivers! Then we all went back to the house and had tasty homemade Weckmänner.

J was excited for days beforehand. In preparation we watched and talked about this lovely video from Sendung mit der Maus: