On Saturday, we were coming back from one of the numerous birthday parties to which my daughter has been invited this year. It had started to rain, and we were waiting for our tram, commenting on the weather, and my daughter concluded with: Schietwedder!”, which is plattdüütsch (my grandma’s mother tongue, a regional language I still understand but sadly don’t speak).
The lady next to us turned around, smiled, and said: “Ja, richtiges norddeutsches Schietwedder!”
It turned out she was from somewhere between Hamburg and St. Peter-Ording.
It’s a small world.

When I started introducing self-made work sheets for my daughter’s minority language homework (see them all here), she was inspired to make her own work sheet for Mom and Dad – the only difference is that hers is in the majority language, since that’s what we both speak.

This fourth work sheet for my daughter’s minority language homework came about thanks to illustrator Kirsten Carlson’s wonderful Color & Draw Journal, which gives really easy instructions to draw, among other sea creatures, Adélie penguins.

Here is the third work sheet I made for my daughter for minority language homework. They have similar work sheets in class, where they label elements of a picture. I might have gone slightly overboard here.

Nach Conni im Zirkus und Gute Nacht Gorilla kommt hier das dritte und letzte Buch des Buchvorstellungsmarathons vom 15. Januar 2017 von meiner Tochter (zu dem Zeitpunkt war sie 6½). Eine Mischung aus Nacherzählung und Vorlesen, Teil 5 einer Serie:

Wo ist Mami

Autor: Julia Donaldson
Illustrator: Axel Scheffler
Übersetzer: Bernhard Lassahn
Verlag: Beltz & Gelberg
ISBN: 978-3407793515

Following up on my previous post, here is the second work sheet I made after my daughter told me the other week that they had moved on from spring flowers to blackbirds. Again, I thought of scanning it only after she had already filled it in and I had corrected it.
Note: She pointed out that in her school work sheets, they were given a word list to copy in the appropriate spots, so I complied with that.

Adam Beck of Bilingual Monkeys and the Bilingual Zoo forum repeatedly insists on the importance of an effective homework routine in the minority language. I tried my hand at it when my daughter was still in preschool, but life got in the way. And it didn’t get any better when she started at her bilingual school because it added so much transport time that reduces evening time at home and adds to fatigue of both the minority language parent (me) and the bilingual kid.
When recently she brought home her minority language workbook and I saw the kind of writing/vocabulary exercises they currently do, I thought that I could come up with something similar. And it isn’t all that difficult!
My first attempt was directly inspired by their latest spring flower exercise, but from there I developed my own ideas, which I am going to share here in a new series.
Disclaimer: my drawing abilities are still on an elementary school level. (But at least they are recognisable.)

Below is the first worksheet, which I scanned belatedly, that is, after my daughter wrote in it and I corrected her mistakes:

Als ich meiner Tochter vorschlug, doch mal wieder ein Buch vor laufender Kamera vorzustellen, war sie sehr begeistert. Aber nachdem ihr bei Conni im Zirkus doch sehr schnell die Puste ausgegangen war, hat sie ein anderes Buch ausgewählt. Dieses Buch hat nicht nur sehr wenig Text, sondern unsere Ausgabe ist auf Englisch (und eine Seite ist verkehrt herum gedruckt), aber sie erzählt die Geschichte nach.
Dieses Video ist vom selben Tag, 15. Januar 2017, als sie 6½ war. Teil 4 einer Serie:

Gute Nacht Gorilla

Autor: Peggy Rathmann
Verlag: Moritz
ISBN: 978-3895651779

Meine Tochter liebt Conni-Bücher, seit sie drei Jahre alt war. Jetzt (in diesem Video vom 15. Januar 2017) ist sie 6½ und versucht sich an einem ihrer Conni-Bücher. Aber es ist doch noch etwas schwierig. (Im März ging es schon um einiges besser, aber das Video kommt später.) Darum hier nur der Anfang des Buches. Teil 3 einer Serie:

Hereinspaziert! Conni im Zirkus

Autor: Liane Schneider
Illustrator: Eva Wenzel-Bürger
Verlag: Carlsen
ISBN: 978-3551517876

I haven’t posted in some time. My daughter is now 6¾, and she’s been learning to read in both French and German. The other day, when I suggested she read in front of the camera, she chose one of her Conni books. It was much longer than she’d thought, and we took several breaks. At one point, when she started again, she had real trouble with one word, and the sentence didn’t make any sense:

(The full video of the book will follow shortly – we need to stitch the segments together first!)