As some of you are aware, I am Austrian and am keen to bring Red Ted & Pip Squeak up bilingually. Key to the success is that I speak lots of German with them, but I also think music and books are important. To me language is also about culture and music and books are integral part of this. So here are some of our (very long list) of favourites:
Die Schoensten Lieder fuer Gross und Klein, by Ellermann Heinrich Verla. I asked my sister-in-law to “pick me up” a nice song book in German and she came back with this one as a gift. I love it! I love it because:
1) It has almost all the songs I can remember from my childhood
2) It has the notes to go with it, if you can’t quite remember the tune
3) It is illustrated nicely
4) It has an accompanying CD
What more can you ask for? If you are looking for a good German Children’s Song book, I really don’t think you can go wrong with this one!!!!
Available here – any “revenue” earned through this Amazon store, will go towards prizes, giveaways & charity!
Wer hat denn meinen Hut versteckt? By Anne Steinwart. I picked this one up randomly in a bookstore in Vienna when Red Ted was 5.5 months old… and he took to it immediately (to my surprise!). It is a lovely little book with pull outs. I tend to add all the animal noises as we go through. Red Ted seems to (still) really enjoy this book, I can’t say what it is about it, but I love it too! I guess the main educational value would be that you have lots of farm animals in it and the text is written in a way that “grows” each time an animal is “added” – am I making sense?!
Available here – any “revenue” earned through this Amazon store, will go towards prizes, giveaways & charity!
Der Hase mit der roten Nase, By Helme Heine. Keen to get him lots of German books, I bought this “blindly” from Amazon. It just “looked German” to me so off I went and ordered it! The book is very popular in our house. Red Ted even made up his own “sign language” for “bunny” – which is pointing to his nose, as the bunny in this story has a red nose. Whenever I am drawing with Red Ted, he usually asks for a bunny at least once.. simple rhymes, accompanied by cute drawings. Not too much to learn from, but enjoyed very by Red Ted! (It is already falling apart).
Available here – any “revenue” earned through this Amazon store, will go towards prizes, giveaways & charity!
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