Fastest way to Subject/Object!

[Lawyer&Mom]

I’ve started teaching my first grader German.  We are using workbooks designed to teach German as a second language to immigrant children in Germany.  Everything is basically copy work and following the examples, there are absolutely no grammar explanations, which is totally fine.  I’m planning to do Latin later for an in depth dissection of grammar.  German should just be whole to parts immersion.  

Well we finally got to the accusative case, where the masculine articles are declined for the noun which is the object of the sentence.  Now I didn’t want to explain that last sentence to my first grader, so I just nonchalantly said, “oh, the der becomes den when it’s the object of the sentence.”  She had no idea what I was talking about.  Oops.

So maybe we need a little English grammar instruction...  What’s the fastest way to get an advanced seven year old to understand sentence structure.  I don’t want exercises and drills, we will save that for Latin, ideally just a quick overview.  Something I could read aloud and cover the bases.  MCT, maybe? 

[wendyroo]

I am about to start MCT with my 7 year old, but I’ve done quite a bit of preteaching. We’ve covered parts of speech and subject/object. 

For subject/object, I’ve found it easiest to spend 10 minutes talking about the concept of sentences having a “do-er” and a “do-ee”, and then spend the next couple days prolifically pointing out that construction in daily speech and read alouds until the child can easily parse the roles of subjects and objects.

The two things that tend to trip up my kids are 1) distinguishing direct and indirect objects, and 2) identifying subject complements as direct objects. Those take longer to solidify, but the initial subject/object idea has been pretty quick for my kids.

 

[PeterPan]

7 hours ago, Lawyer&Mom said:

Well we finally got to the accusative case, where the masculine articles are declined for the noun which is the object of the sentence.  Now I didn’t want to explain that last sentence to my first grader, so I just nonchalantly said, “oh, the der becomes den when it’s the object of the sentence.”  She had no idea what I was talking about.  Oops.

Since your goal is immersion, I think do something simple. Use the same noun as the subject (der whatever) and then again as an object (den whatever). If you can form the sentence using physical objects in front of you (dolls, plastic animals, whatever), all the better. 

It has been a super long time since I took german and then I only had one semester, haha. However with googlefu, I'm going to suggest a sentence like "The father kissed the stallion" which you could then switch to "The stallion kissed the father." 

My apologies if that doesn't work, but you see the idea. Two figures (man doll and horse) and you've got it. 

The bigger issue is that gender is not simple, sigh. 

If you want to do it without language, draw pictures. Same story sequence, just reverse subject and object. Stick figures will do.

https://beegerman.com/teaching-children-accusative-case-german

Edited March 22, 2021 by PeterPan

[Miss Tick]

We always repeat the same definition over and over until all I have to do is open my mouth and they fill it in. " The object of the verb receives the action, and the indirect object benefits." Then we talk about simple examples like, Mark sent the letter to his Mom, and slowly move toward more abstract examples.

[PeterPan]

Shurley grammar teaches them to find parts of speech with Q/A flows. We did the same thing in Russian, because the pronouns all had cases (like german does, yes?) to match the parts of speech. But that's a 3rd year kind of exercise, very complex. In english it's more straight forward (bought what?) but in highly inflected languages you're then doing pronouns, sigh. 

 

[PeterPan]

Just now, SusanC said:

We always repeat the same definition over and over

Oh man, I don't even remember what definitions FLL gives. Maybe op has it lying around? That was something I did right away with my more language capable dd. 

[Miss Tick]

42 minutes ago, SusanC said:

We always repeat the same definition over and over until all I have to do is open my mouth and they fill it in. " The object of the verb receives the action, and the indirect object benefits." Then we talk about simple examples like, Mark sent the letter to his Mom, and slowly move toward more abstract examples.

Maybe start that definition with, "The subject does the action, etc." I closed over that you were looking at subject vs object since we, here, tend to get stuck at DO vs IO.

 

[Lawyer&Mom]

Thanks you guys!  I agree, I can teach this one concept my myself, no curriculum needed.  I will need to explain indirect objects *eventually* (hello, Dative!) but not yet!  

[Lawyer&Mom]

Two minutes with a man and a horse (using Playmobil!) and we got it.  Thanks again!

[PeterPan]

5 hours ago, Lawyer&Mom said:

Two minutes with a man and a horse (using Playmobil!) and we got it.  Thanks again!

Oh hurray!!!