For her 6th birthday party (advanced due to the early start of the school holidays), my daughter invited six classmates – representing a stunning seven nationalities. I was prepared for that, witness the cake: What I was not prepared for was the guests singing Happy Birthday in not two,  not three, but four languages, thanks […]

One of the many things in France that are different from Germany are the Ferrero chocolate bars called Duplo™. I’ve always wondered why they made two so very different bars and gave them the same name. I don’t think I’ve ever bought the French ones; I’m not too fond of whole hazelnuts. The German ones, […]

Die große Besonderheit der Felix-Bücher ist, dass die Briefe von Felix in Umschlägen sind und richtig herausgenommen und auseinandergefaltet werden müssen, um zu erfahren, was Felix erlebt. Teil 2 einer Serie: Neue Briefe von Felix Autor: Annette Lange Illustrator: Constanza Droop Verlag: Coppenrath ISBN: 978-3815712009

Three years ago, almost to the day, I shared a video of my daughter making a speech on the steps of the high school near our house. For some reason, every time we came home from the park, she’d stop there, go up the steps, and hold a speech. That day, I had the camera […]

Today, we were on the Métro 7 on our way to school, when my daughter asked at which station we were. I told her, and we looked at the métro map, and I read the names of all the stations we had passed or would pass. One of them is called Place Monge. Her: “Das […]

I never lose an occasion to try and work on basic German vocabulary – which at age 5½ includes a lot of numbers, days of the week, months of the year, you get the idea. So the other day, when my daughter rightly declared: “Morgen ist Freitag!” (Tomorrow is Friday), I prompted: “Und heute?” (And […]

Wir lieben Bücher. Wir empfehlen gerne Bücher. Und so kamen wir auf die Idee, unsere Lieblingsbücher vorzustellen. Teil 1 einer Serie: Mit Felix auf großer Deutschlandreise Autor: Annette Lange Illustrator: Constanza Droop Verlag: Coppenrath ISBN: 978-3815792551

A month ago, our 5-year-old daughter started her final preschool year at a new school, one with a program for native speakers of German. She has one hour of German class each day, and the other week she came home with this cute rhyme:

Another holiday day: one day, I came to pick up my daughter from the holiday resort’s kids club, and when I checked in, I was told she was in the puppet corner. There she was indeed, playing out a puppet story to a captive audience* – in German! * an audience of two, but that […]

Summer holidays are full of fun and an occasion to try out new things. When on the third day in our German holiday resort, the kids in the surrounding holiday homes were outside playing after supper, our 5-year-old decided she wanted to join them on skates. (She’d only skated once so far.) So that’s what […]