Lesson Planning for Preschool-Aged Norwegian Class

Since last October, I have been teaching Norwegian to a 4-year-old girl over Skype.  Here is an overview of my lessons with her.  I will be going into detail for each one in later blog posts, and chronicling my lessons from here on out in blog posts as well.

September 30 & October 1, 2013 (1/2 hour each day)

• "Per Sjuspring" song
• Numbers using Min Første Ordbok
• Colors using Farger book that they have

 October 7 & 8, 2013 (1/2 hour each day)

• The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Den Lille Larven Aldrimett)
• Sequencing pieces for The Very Hungry Caterpillar
• Butterfly life cycle pieces in Norwegian
• Calendar and weather pieces to set up a calendar bulletin board
• Clothing and weather using Min Store Ordbok
• Fall song

October 14 & 15, 2013 (1/2 hour each day)

• Body parts using labels on a silhouette
• "Hode, Skulder, Kne og Tå" song
•  Body parts using Min Store Ordbok
• Body parts using Roll-A-Monster

October 21 & 22, 2013 (1/2 hour each day)

• Farm animals using a book they have
• Farm animals using the Norwegian version of Big Red Barn
• "Bæ, bæ, lille lam" song ("Baa, baa, black sheep")
• "Per Olsen hadde en bondegård" song ("Old MacDonald")

November 26 & 27, 2013 (1/2 hour each day)

• Thanksgiving plate craftivity
• Thanksgiving foods
• What I'm thankful for
• Setting the table

December 2 & 3, 2013 (1/2 hour each day)

• What to wear in the snow
• Winter wear vocabulary cards
• Winter wear in Min Første Ordbok
• Freddy the Frog story (Freddy Frosk)

December 9 & 10, 2013 (1/2 hour each day)

• Winter words
• Christmas matching game

December 16 & 17, 2013 (1/2 hour each day)

• Christmas verbs

January 6 & 7, 2014 (1/2 hour each day)

• "Å jul med din glede" song ("O Christmas with your joy")
• Nativity story & pieces from the Bible

January 13 & 14, 2014 (1/2 hour each day)

• Sami video
• Label the reindeer
• Make your own reindeer

January 20 & 21, 2014 (1/2 hour each day)

• Polar bears & other arctic animals word wall
• Label the polar bear
• Polar Bear on the Go book
• "Bjørnen Sover" song ("The Bear Sleeps")

January 27 & 28, 2014 (1/2 hour each day)

• Da snøen kom (The Snowy Day in Norwegian)

 February 24 & 25, 2014 (1/2 hour each day)

• Hot chocolate category sorting game

March 31 & April 1, 2014 (1/2 hour each day)

• Fairies theme
• Building a fairy house (house part vocabulary)
• Making a flower wreath (art vocabulary)
• Label the fairy

April 14 & 15, 2014 (1/2 hour each day)

• Religious Easter vocabulary
• Easter egg Bible story hunt
• Paper plate tomb

April 28 & 29, 2014 (1/2 hour each day)

• Princess theme
• Medieval words
• Add/subtract the dragons
• Label the castle
• Cookie tea party

May 5 & 6, 2014 (1/2 hour each day)

• Norway vocabulary
• Symbols of Norway
• May 17th coloring sheet
• May 17th barnehage book

May 12 & 13, 2014 (1/2 hour each day)

• Norway's Constitution Day theme
• Mina og Løven book

May 26 & 27, 2014 (1/2 hour each day)

• Beach theme
• Beach vocabulary
• Beach bingo

June 3, 2014 (one hour lesson)

• Ocean animals
• Ocean toob from Safari Ltd
• Wild Republic Itsy Bitsies Aquatic pink bucket animals
• Ocean animals memory game
• Ocean depth "submarine dive"

June 8 & 9, 2014 (1/2 hour each day)

• Summer theme
• "Sommer kommer" song ("Summer comes")
• Adding soap bubbles
• Which is different?
• Patterning

June 16, 2014 (one hour lesson)

• Airplane travel
• Label an airplane
• Looking at toy airplanes
• Sequencing a plane trip
• Airport vocabulary
• Putting suitcases in order from smallest to largest

I probably am forgetting some themes for some weeks, so I will add more as I find them in my files.  Most of the time, we did 1/2 hour lesson twice a week, but sometimes we did a 1 hour lesson once a week.

Barnehage goes on a field trip!

The summer theme for our children's group, barnehage, is "camping".  Going camping is as popular in Norway as it is here in the States, although in Norway people tend to go camping in cabins rather than in tents.  These cabins are sponsored by a national group and are located along popular trails, hiking destinations, and on the coast.

To combine the Norwegian love of camping and the American camping tradition, I brought back the little tent and camping set from Fisher Price that I used last year.  The kids love it!  They use it as a house, a doorway (since it does not have a back), and various other things as well as a tent.  The fire that came with the set is the class favorite toy now, and everything gets grilled over it!

On June 22nd, the day of the National Wildlife Federation's Great American Backyard Campout, we took a field trip to Laurelhurst Park to study outside wildlife.  I gave each child a scavenger hunt page, half a toilet paper tube slitted into a cuff bracelet, and a small bag.  The scavenger hunt page I used is downloadable for free from this site in Norwegian or English.  Since Laurelhurst Park has a lake, we were able to find most of the animals listed!

We played tag in Norwegian, saying "sisten" when we tagged each other.  It means "last" in Norwegian.  The children used their bags to collect various leaves, stems, flowers, sticks, and other natural objects.  Later on, they glued or taped their finds onto the toilet paper tube bracelets and hole-punched a hole in each side of the slit.  They tied the bracelet to size with yarn, making the bracelet easy to take on and off.

Sensory box and toys for June's garden/farm barnehage theme

Our theme for the barnehage, our children's Norwegian-language playtime, is gardening & farming.  I put together this activity table to encourage the children to learn new Norwegian words and use them in their play.  It includes a Playmobil farm set (seen in and around the yellow fence), several My Little Pony toys and accessories (including the barn), a sensory box, and picture cue cards.

The box has coffee beans in it, and the children can "plant" the fruit, flowers, and vegetables from the plastic toy sets.  They can also put row markers made from cut drinking straws in the coffee beans.  Then they can "water" the plants with the watering cans.  The big flower is a four-piece puzzle, and the cards to the left of it (below the straw signs) are word cards for the parts of a flower.  On the right are two sorting sheets, one for flowers and one for vegetables, and a set of picture/word matching cards with the words written in both Norwegian and English.  The sorting sheets can be used with the plant stakes and with the matching cards.

My ideas for this play table came from the Playmobil 5893 Pony Farm with Carrying Case, the My Little Pony Applejack's Sweet Apple Barn Playset and other accessories, homeschoolcreations.com, and Modern Parents, Messy Kids.

Unraveling how children become bilingual so easily

from the Associated Press, via Yahoo

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard, Ap Medical Writer – Tue Jul 21, 3:08 am ET

WASHINGTON – The best time to learn a foreign language: Between birth and age 7. Missed that window?
New research is showing just how children's brains can become bilingual so easily, findings that scientists hope eventually could help the rest of us learn a new language a bit easier.
"We think the magic that kids apply to this learning situation, some of the principles, can be imported into learning programs for adults," says Dr. Patricia Kuhl of the University of Washington, who is part of an international team now trying to turn those lessons into more teachable technology.
To read the rest of this article, click here.