I Can Speak to Preschoolers - Sort Of

A friend here in Luneburg directed me to a reading hour for preschoolers she had read about in the local paper.  My friend, Antje (Aunt-Yah), lives in Luneburg with her husband, Jens (Yens), the university professor who invited Tom here, and their three year old daugter.  She works part time in Hamburg, a 40 minute train ride each way, with Thursdays off.  She has been helping me to find ways for O and I to occupy ourselves, especially in the morning.

So, it turns out that this reading hour is offered for free through a social work program at a facility just 10 minute walk from where we live.  On the morning I was to go, just me and O, I started to lose courage about managing alone and started making excuses, but Tom pretty much pushed us out the door and on our way.

The foyer had a sign on the wall which I determined said to park strollers there but I wasn't sure about the one on the inside door.  It was locked, with no "buzzer", but I could see the moms and kids milling about just inside.  Some looked in my direction, but made no move to let me in.  I tried to act casual, like I knew what I was doing, when another mom appeared.  She didn't make an attempt to talk to me, but did gesture to me to open the door and I found that this time it was unlocked.  Hmmm....

I was pretty sure this was the right time and place: moms and kids about Oskar's age, little cushions arranged in a circle around a mat, but still noone made a move to greet me and I couldn't tell which one of the adults was in charge.  Again, I just pretended I knew what I was doing: took off our coats, hats and shoes (always take off your shoes indoors - Germans have a thing about this) and looked to see what the other moms and kids were doing.  Finally someone approached me and asked something in German.  I replied that I only knew a little bit of German and did they speak English.  "Nein", but the two women replied in a friendly and welcoming way, so we made ourselves comfortable.

There were no toys around, but there were a few shelves of books.  Most turned out to be parenting books, but there was one book that caught our attention: "My First Book of... city/transportation/something of that nature".  Just as we started to open the book, a boy about three years old sidled up beside us and asked, "Wie heist er?" OO-OOO! I know that one: What is his name?  So I introduced him to Oskar and was able to ask his name, too.  Then we began reading the book. I wasn't about to start laboring through the text and risk losing my audience, so I simply started asking, "Was ist das?" and pointing to the pictures in the book so the boy could tell us the name of the objects in German and I could repeat them to O.  Cool!

When we finally got started with the program, we all sat around the play mat on the little cushions.  Now, fortunately I have lots of experience with these types of programs, so when the songs began, I was able to get the gist of their meaning fairly quickly - not to mention my extensive backgound in preschool level German vocabulary!  The first one was, of course, a "hello" song and included greeting each child by name.  They paused when they came to us (obviously the other kids had been here plenty of times before) and I told them O's name.  I had to repeat myself a few times, and they struggled with it, them moved on.  This was the first time anyone had a hard time with his name - and then I realized that I had pronounced it with "American" vowels rather than "German" vowels AND that I was obviously dealing with women who had no training in English.  I don't expect that all Germans should speak some English, but I have found it to be the case that most Germans do.

As expected, the songs (and there were several) involved the usual preschool topics - animals, trains, body parts, and general silliness - and ample hand and body motions to copy.  One I recognized and actually knew the "words" to - with some variation, "Ram Sam Sam"!  Another involved walking around the circle- like a train, I deciphered- and each time we stopped, a child was asked to name an animal, some words were sung and the animal sound made (animals speak in different languages, too) and then they made a gesture which I could not quite determine if it was pushing the animal onto the full train or shooing him off the train.  When it came to O, he chose a rabbit, an animal which, of course, I do not know the name, nor does it make a sound.  So, I swallowed my discomfort,  stuck two fingers up on my head for ears, and hopped.  They were pleased with this and continued with the song,  hopping like rabbits.

During the train song, as we were going round the circle, O very much wanted to jump and walk on the floor cushions.  This seemed like a normal desire of a two year old who looks at every obstacle as a possible jumping point, but none of the other kids were thus tempted.  Was it against the rules here or was it part of the "don't put your feet on the furniture" culture?  No one said anything, but it was all I could do to keep him off the cushions and avoid a possible social faux pas.

At some unseen signal from the leaders, a couple kids ran over to a blanket covering something and revealed a wooden treasure chest containing, at last, books!  The chest was brought over to the center of the circle and the kids helped themselves and the moms all started reading to their kids.  To our delight, there were several books which were German versions of books we own or have read before.

We were allowed to read freely for about 15 minutes and then the books were collected and the program ended. Whew!  We did it.  We managed a social activity with not a whit of English and are looking forward to returning next week.  I just need to brush up on my German animals.....