I’ve had a couple of occasions lately to notice that, despite my frustration, my German really is improving. Today I had a teacher-parent interview with Annie’s last care-giver to wrap up her time from Kindergruppe (daycare) and talk about the transition into Kindergarten. Last year Gabby had prepared this in English, but this year she thought I could handle it in German. (We speak enough that she has an idea of how I’m progressing…not just Annie.) I understood almost all of it. Gabby spoke slowly and clearly with no dialect, but still.
And last week was the lantern festival through the park again. The video is useless, as Annie was having a bad day and so was crying unless I held her hand. Oh well. But I did notice that this time last year, I didn’t understand either the words to the songs or what the school director was saying in his speech afterward. This year I caught most of it.
Annie is going through her own language phase. Although she has loved books from the time they were merely chew toys, she hasn’t shown much desire to learn the letters. I’ve given it a go periodically, but she hasn’t been interested in much past “A is for Annie.” Then a couple of weeks ago she started to be able to find the “O” on the bus we take. (The orange “O” is best, being somehow superior to the bus with the green “O”.)
And last night we were playing in the tub and I happened to say that boat starts with a “B”. Well, we then had to go over every thing in the tub (and there are a lot of toys in that tub!) several times and talk about what letter each one started with. It was lots of fun for both of us.
I’m sure I’ve said it before, but I think it is such a gift to be learning a language at the same time as my daughter is discovering language. I think it gives me an interesting perspective on how her little brain must be processing the information.
So on that note, here is Annie “reading” a book. This is one of her favourite activities; often she will ask to read to herself before going to sleep after we have finished reading together.
Here is a few seconds of a much longer video of Annie reading/remembering/singing a nursery rhyme book. (I think I took over 5 minutes of this.) As I’ve mentioned before, my movie making skills are bruuuutaaaaal, but I guess that isn’t the point. (And please ignore the crazy hair. We just had had a major tickle fest before getting ready for bed.)
Annie “Reading” from Hillary Samson on Vimeo.
Elliot “reads” his books now — I love watching him. And he, too, often reads a couple after we are finished reading. We call those books his “nighttime” books.
And the video is awesome. Thanks for sharing.