Posted in German with the Kinder

A while back when I was still trying to force my daughters to study German, I ordered two Magic Treehouse books from Alphabet Garten.  At the time, they were very into Magic Treehouse and I thought it might help spark some interest in German. It didn't work.

Reading to the twins had not been too successful so far.  They didn't seem to understand that they were supposed to sit and listen.  I now have a pretty good collection of little picture books in German, but they would just take the one I was reading and fight over the other ones and trade them back and forth, and not much listening was going on.

The first Magic Treehouse book is about dinosaurs.  We have lots of dinosaur toys because Gabrielle really likes dinosaurs, and the twins have been playing with them (although Christopher seems to believe that all of them should belong to him for some reason).  So I decided to read "Im Tal der Dinosaurier" (In the Valley of Dinosaurs) to the twins.

I give them some little picture books to look at and read them a chapter or two of the book.  There are pictures on just about every page and the twins like to point them out.  I like reading that to them instead of the little picture books because they are hearing much more German.  And I have noticed that they pay extra attention when they hear me reading something that I say to them frequently, like "Warte!" (wait) or "Komm schnell!" (come quickly).  They often look at the book when I say a word they recognize.

We are about halfway through the book now.  I have been trying to read to them when I get them up from their afternoon nap. I really would never have thought that the answer to getting the twins to listen to me read was to read them something longer and more complicated!  But it's working!