Near the place where we used to live is a park with a playground. On the way home, we came past a high school. For some reason, my daughter would make a speech on the steps of the high school entrance every time we came past. When she was almost three years old, I filmed […]

Mein Exemplar von Eine Woche voller Samstage fällt schon auseinander. Wie auf der ersten Seite zu lesen ist, war es ein Geschenk zu meinem 8. Geburtstag, und das ist nun schon eine ganze Weile her. Meiner Tochter habe ich das Buch zum ersten Mal vorgelesen, als sie gerade sieben war, bevor ich wusste, dass sie […]

Last Friday, my daughter and I picked up an order at the German bookstore. The owner, whom we’ve known for a few months, recommended another book my daughter might like. Something with monsters. After reading the first sentence of the back cover blurb, my daughter was sold, and I could hardly refuse her a new […]

Es ist schon wieder einen Monat her, dass meine Tochter (etwas über 7½) das letzte Mal vor der Kamera stand. Sie hatte sich die Einleitung zum ersten Band einer ihrer Lieblings-Vorleseserien ausgesucht, nämlich Die Schule der magischen Tiere. Autor: Margit Auer Illustrator: Nina Dulleck Verlag: Carlsen ISBN: 978-3551652713

Now in grade 2, every week my daughter gets a few new sight words to learn in her minority language. When she didn’t seem to understand why she had to learn them, I came up with an idea. I scanned and printed the first page of our illustrated Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone edition […]

Letzten Sonntag hat meine Tochter mich zu einer Theatervorstellung eingeladen. Mich erwartete ein Puppentheater mit der Geschichte “Conni geht zum Zahnarzt”: Autorin: Liane Schneider Illustratorin: Eva Wenzel-Bürger Verlag: Carlsen ISBN: 978-3551085566

I’ve finally read my daughter the first Harry Potter book. I’d been holding back because she wasn’t interested, but I was increasingly worried about spoilers, especially since many of her classmates have older siblings, and they also watch movies in after-school care. But no the time had come at last. A few weeks after we […]

Two days ago, we unintentionally created a joke that you need 3 languages to understand. Here is what happened: My now 7-year-old daughter was practising looking up words in her new German elementary school dictionary. As she was looking for Fledermaus, she came across a word she didn’t know, and asked me: “Flattratte?” It’s a […]

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 […]

When I started introducing self-made work sheets for my daughter’s minority language homework (see them all