For those of you who homeschool your children, adding a foreign language like German is a fun way to work in multiple topics like math, music, and geography. Here is the first in a series of methods to help you develop the routine and how to apply German in other topics.
1. Create the right routine for you.
For you and your children, it might be easiest to have German lessons on a particular day or on different days at the same time. If you use a tablet or a smartphone as part of their instruction, you can set up the time in the calendar for an automatic reminder. This method could also be used if you want to have German learning time, say in the morning, and German practice time later on that same day. Breaking up the learning into small chunks helps you repeat the same material more frequently, so you learn the material more quickly.
Other homeschoolers might benefit from having a dedicated German room. This is the perfect place for some of the methods I describe below, like using (removable) stickers to label everything in the room. Creating the association between your couch and the German word "das Sofa" is particularly effective for visual learners. When your children are secure in that vocabulary, you could add another room like the dining room and work on "die Gabel," "das Messer," and "der Löffel."
For children with more German knowledge, you could dedicate an entire day to German. If you wanted to alternate days (especially for children who have a solid background in German already), you could make a fun sign with "German" on the one side and "English" on the other. This method worked well for a friend with a Spanish-speaking roommate; they hung a sign on the back of their door and alternated days so the Spanish speaker could improve her English and on the opposite days, so the English speaker could improve her Spanish. They found it to be effective and a fun way to communicate with one another.
What about dedicating two days per week to German? And eventually alternating weeks? This can be done and would be a blast!
Check back next Tuesday for more Methods for Homeschool German!
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Mutter-Kind/Vater-Kind Kurse You can learn German with your child! If you are interested in taking German lessons with your homeschool children, I have daytime slots available. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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