Want to teach my kids German...where do I start?

[Lfwfv]

Hi,

 

I am just starting on this homeschool journey. I have two boys, and my oldest is only 3.75 years old, so we are just starting to chart our course, and decide on a direction for PreK and K. I am leaning towards German (instead of Latin and/or Spanish) as our second language. I grew up speaking German, was in a bilingual school my entire life, my extended family and parents speak German, and I completed the Sprachdiplom successfully in twelfth grade. I haven't used my German speaking skills much at all in the last 15 years, so I don't feel confident just speaking it to my kids at this point (at least, not as their only form of instruction).

 

I don't want to jump into a curriculum that will be over my little guy's head, but I also want to take advantage of this early-childhood window where I might still be able to help him develop an appropriate German accent, develop an ear for good grammar (of course, fleshing out the actual grammar mechanics once he is older) etc.. Is there a curriculum for this?

 

I am wondering if I could just start introducing 3-4 vocab words per week (Das Auto, die Frau etc.), learn the German alphabet, learn to count, and maybe get 2-3 easy German picture books that we can read over and over for a few months, and then add in some more (any suggestions? and where to buy them?). Would that suffice for the next few years?

 

And then what? Is there a good early elementary curriculum for German? I glanced at Das neue Deustchmobil but that seems geared to kids in at least 3rd grade or so i would think? And Fabuli is by the same publisher, but I'm not really sure if that is intended to come before Deutschmobil? All seems kind of confusing on their website...

 

thanks!

Tanya

[Loesje22000]

You might consider 'Spielerisch Deutsch Lernen' from Hueber:

https://www.amazon.de/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_13?__mk_de_DE=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=hueber+spielerisch+deutsch+lernen&sprefix=hueber+Spiele%2Cstripbooks%2C181

[mom2bee]

What is your end goal for doing German with the kids? Its hard to offer advice without knowing that.

 

If you want them to have any sort of conversation ability, then your proposed plan sounds too slow and too unnatural (for their circumstances) to work.

3-4 words a week is unbelievably slow.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

We like the 1000 First Words in German book, I think it's by Usborne.  I agree that you can move much faster than 3-4 words a week.  As soon as possible, start combining the words into simple sentences.  Just naming things gets boring pretty fast!

 

Other than that, your plan sounds fine to me!  I don't know of a program designed at very young children that takes language learning seriously.  You can do things like Little Pim, but it's designed to "familiarize" the child with the language, not to actually acquire skills in a meaningful way...

[mom2bee]

Given your background and the family connection with/to German, to me, it seems like your kids can realistically become bilingual if that is your desire. I'm biased. I was raised monolingual and jealous of my friends who were growing up in bi-and trilingual house holds. Also, I know a lot of young adults who grew up without learning their parents/grandparents language and regretted it as 12-25 year olds once it was "too late" for it to be "natural" for them.

 

I have never known a family to regret maintaining and passing on a language, only losing them. If I were in your shoes, I would position them to learn as much German as possible and I would begin now, not later. I personally feel very strongly that kids language courses should lean strongly towards conversation and comprehension, not grammar + vocab. I recommend 2 things.
1) Begin aggressively brushing up on your own German. I have several tips and resources if you are interested in particulars. This is topic that I'm passionate about, so I'll bore you with all sorts of specific details and drown you in resources if you'll let me.

To prevent myself from writing an entire novel I will sum up my tips as this: You need to fill the background silence of your home and car with German songs, podcasts, audiobooks and news, instead of sitting in silence. Get a German book (or 10) and read from them to yourself daily. Call up some old friends from German immersion to put together a regular German chat session.

2) Buy a beginning library of German Books for your kids and make a point of using something from that library 3-7 times a week. Books that I recommend:

• My First 1000 German Words
• Language Helper German
• Kids Stuff German
• The Berlitz Kids German Language "starter" Pack  There are 2 more books in the Berlitz Kids Adventures of Nicolas series and their German Picture Dictionary is great because it uses eye-catching illustrations and has sentences for each word.

Begin teaching and using simple sentences/common phrases. Do a daily circle time that is just about German. Then transition to doing Circle Time in German. I can offer dozens of exact resources and more specific ideas. I have a few resources that would probably be good for German language homeschooling resources that I can recommend also.  Since this is topic of interest for me, I could go on and on and on, so I'll stop here.

 

 

[ikslo]

Oh, feel free to keep going... :D

[Lfwfv]

I would love more info Mom2Bee! Resources would be awesome. I read the Usborne book for German words had a lot of errors in terms of der, die, das, so I was shying away. Thoughts on that?

 

Ok, so, my objectives...

 

As a long-term project, it would be to have kids that graduate high school with decent speaking/comprehension skills in German. Not necessarily completely fluent, but a good understanding of it, and decent spoken language.

 

Is it really possible to just jump into talking German for 30 minutes per day with my 3.75 year old, who'd never been exposed to it? Would I translate along the way? I know my grammar might be a bit rough right now (I can start reading Deutsche Welle, some books, and working through some grammar drills to brush up, but I know it would be imperfect, and I can't devote huge amounts of time to this right now). Is it worth it just to start exposing them to it, even if my own German is a bit imperfect right now?

 

I hesitate to do a super specific circle time at this point, but i'm open to considering it. Right now, I already teach him violin (I'm a professional violinist myself), he is learning to read (almost done 100EZ lessons, and working on Bob Books), and we spend some time daily on pencil skills and fine motor skills (coloring, dot to dot, writing letters and numbers, writing his name, coloring, cutting etc....one or two tasks per day). We fill "empty air" time with a lot of talking and discussing, read-alouds, listening to good music, and memorizing Bible verses and counting. I feel like i'm already leaning towards "overkill". So, if we add German, I need it to be something doable and fun and not more "schoolwork".

 

I could see allotting 30 minutes to German only time, where I just switch out our usual English conversation and book reading to German. So, we read in German and I converse with him in German about our daily happenings, without actually making it some formal learning thing. Maybe adding a CD of German songs or nursery rhymes, but i don't think I could handle much more than that.

 

I would like to formally learn the language with them as well, which is why i was asking about currriculum. Is Hueber a good resource? I like the look of the Spielerisch Deutsch (maybe even as Prek4?), and then maybe Planetino?

 

So, I guess, i"m looking for them to learn a second language, and for it to be as painless as possible for me, hence my leaning towards German. I am not necessarily interested in them being truly bilingual (just semi-fluent...able to understand pretty well, and able to converse somewhat), and I am not looking to add a lot of stress or additional work to our days at this point in their young lives. It would have to be something easy to integrate/use. I tend to go overboard when i get a goal in my head, and I don't want to turn this into another overwhelming project with extremely high expectations. I figure if we start now, and use curriculum along the way, we should be able to get through German at a high school level without too much trouble?

 

thanks!

Tanya

[Arcadia]

Planetino is what my kids German saturday school use for the prek-1st grade kids who are learning German as a second language.

 

German is hubby's and my 3rd language so we rather outsource it since both of us aren't good at german grammar.

[3 ladybugs]

There are Saturday schools that teach German to 4 year olds. My son is in one of them, my younger son will join him in 2017. Depending on where you live, they could be affordable for you as well. My son's tuition for the year (31 Saturdays, each class is 2.5 hours) was under $500. I think it was around $450. Not fun all at once I know, but over the coarse of the year VERY affordable. The school I send him to, has classes for 4 years through adult. You can find schools here: http://www.germanschools.org

 

We were sent this link the other day from the school. It might also help you: http://www.eighthoursandchange.com/blog/getting-an-early-start?platform=hootsuite

 

Another idea is the school that we send our son to, started out in the basement of a church. It outgrew that space, but there is still a german service at that church. Yesterday we attended. It was a small amount of people, and we know very little german, but we were able to follow along. I imagine you would have more success having the background you do, that would help you brush up on your german. :)

 

Good luck!

[ikslo]

I can't find a Saturday School near us. :(  I've looked.

 

 

[3 ladybugs]

Bummer! We drive about 45 minutes to go to the one we go to, but it is worth it for once a week. I imagine soon they will have online schools that do it, though I am not sure if the cost will be higher or not.

[shawthorne44]

For brushing up on your own German, I highly recommend Michael Thomas.  I am a complete and total dunce when it comes to languages.  He taught ME some words.   If you knew me, you'd know how amazing that was.   Back when I was learning, I was able to get the first two CD's for super cheap.   His method top explain some things and then have you guess what the word would be in German.  Really really effective.  

[Lfwfv]

Hi again everyone,

 

Thank you all so much for the thoughts and shared experiences and knowledge! I actually started trying to speak German to my kids this weekend and was pleasantly surprised to find I can talk almost completely fluently still. I guess hearing German at holidays with my family and reading and translating the odd thing for my engineer husband has done more to keep me in shape than i thought. I also realized that my daily language with the kids is not especially challenging, and it's not like I need to be explaining world issues to them in German at this point (which is where I ended up with my education path). I think i was panicking for nothing, ha! So, I think my plan will be something like the following:

 

1) Read and listen to Deutsche Welle a bit each day to keep my skills up, and get some easy grammar drill books on Amazon to brush up on some of the Grammar rules as I'm able to.

 

2) Buy a few German kid's books and start reading minimally one German book to them per day (probably repeating it a few times). Add to the library every month or two.

 

3) Speak German throughout our entire day. Intersperse German and English, a lot of repetition, translate for my three year old as necessary. I think I can easily amass 1+ hours per day of German language just in our everyday conversation, not to mention adding in books and songs.

 

4) Do some specific memory work with the kids to learn days of the week, counting, months etc. in German.

 

5) Teach the kids German songs, and listen to a German CD each day.

 

6) Probably starting in Kindergarten (maybe even sometime in PreK), I think we will work through the Speilerish Deutsch levels Vorschule, 1,2, and 3, and then probably Planetino, and then we'll be ready for some more challenging materials in middle school. The curriculum plan is loose right now...will see how things progress, and am going to connect with Hueber and try to get a clearer recommendation from their customer service in terms of a good progression through their materials. But, the samples online look good. So, focusing on conversation and reading for now, then adding in a curriculum around K or the end of preK to fill in the blanks a bit. I'm excited... :)

 

thanks!

Tanya

[Miss Tick]

I found a Saturday school by accident and they (loosely) use material from the Goethe Institute. I was able to find lessons online, but it was not geared for a non-speaker like myself. You may be able to find some useful ideas.