Keeping up German with DS almost 7

[gabid]

Does anyone know good books/resouces to teach about 1./2. Klasse Deutsch at home?

My DS is fluent in German and speakes it to me and DD (3), he is in Y2 of an UK school. He can read a little in German, but at the moment we have plenty to do with his school work.

I would like to keep his language going by introducing some basic grammar, reading short stories, texts, poems, analysing language and whatever is suitable at that age.

I would like to just read a lot with him, but although he enjoys speaking and learning language (he always asks questions and tries his hardest to stick to German with me), he is not very much into reading or stories.

Any ideas?

If you google "Free German lessons for kids" you'll find loads of stuff on the net. (I've just been d/l stuff for dd to do some Spanish)

teachit uk has a languages section now, then there's the BBC languages pages.

Tbh though, if (as I understand) you are a native speaker yourself, then you won't need to do much, other than keep on talking to your children. My dd is bilingual Italian/English and as we're in Italy, I'm not worrying too much about stuff like writing. She watches English tv, reads English books etc.

I'd have thought going to a Samstagschule would be the best option - that way he would be motivated to keep speaking it as well. Perhaps you're too far away from one.

I know Duden does a good range of supplementary materials for each class and subject, but obviously as there is no home-schooling in Germany the assumption is made that your DC will be going to school as well, ie it's not standalone teaching material.

The books our school uses for German are the Elefantenheft (which is very popular and great fun) and the Bausteine books.

This is the kind of Duden book I meant, but there are also ones for individual classes.

Yes, DS is fluent in German, however, just talking, I feel is limiting and at age 7 or 8 they also need an understanding of the structure of language. That is someting DS likes, he likes non fiction to some extent but will not read fiction.

I think my DS is still a bit immature, we tried Samstagsschule last year (he was just 6). He wasn't interested in sitting down, playing games with 3 others, he just wanted to play - that hasn't changed, he won't play games.

However, he loves finding 'doing words' in his reading books from school, he always asks about the meaning of words and he is interested in technical things and how things work. That's why I thought maybe a German school book where we can do short grammar exercises and text analysis and stuff like that would suit him more - and he would read a bit more in German. I will consider that Duden and Elefantbausteine book - thanks!

Maybe something like this:

www.amazon.de/Spielerisch-Deutsch-Wortschatz-Grammatik-Lernstufe/dp/319019470X/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331027349&sr=1-6

That might be good too - have you used it?

NO, I just came across it because I was looking for something similar. DD starts to get very confused with der/die/das or other typical German Grammar concepts because they obviously don't exist in English.

DD understands German perfectly but is currently not using it actively and if then with a very English Grammar.