"A Family From Germany"

A Family From Germany
Written by: Sonja Peters
Photographs by: Peter Ginter
Published by Steck-Vaughn Company in Austin, TX in 1998
Genre(s): Picture Book, Informational Text
ISBN: 0-8172-4905-2
Reading Level: Grade 4
Activity Level: Grades 2, 4, and 5

Summary: This book teaches readers all about Germany through the story of the life of one young family. Readers learn about the more simple life of Germans, where having as many things as some American families do, seems excessive. (The first picture in this book is of the entire family and everything they own sitting in their driveway!) By reading this book children are introduced to the statistics of Germany, some history of the country, the family's home and lifestyle, common foods in Germany, work, school, and some leisure activities in which the family participates.

Response: I think this is a great book for children who are beginning to learn research skills. There is much information placed in this one text about this specific country. That information is learned through reading about the family and reading the highlighted inserts on many of the pages.

The photographs in this book show much about German life, such as how Germans dress, what family homes and schools look like, and how families relax there. These photographs of real people make readers feel as though they are actually in Germany, viewing these scenes for themselves, so it make the story seem more real to the students.

Teaching Connections: For second graders, the teacher could get another book in this series and divide both books into sections so that she had enough for a small lesson for each day of the week and read to her class the same information about the two countries the books discuss, each day. Then, the class could practice their skills with Venn Diagrams to compare and contrast the two countries.

In a fourth or fifth grade classroom, the teacher could assign this book along with the other 10 books in this "Families Around the World" Series to a group of students. (Each of the 11 groups would receive one book about one country, or the teacher could divide the class into 5 or 6 groups and give each group 2 books.) Each group would then be asked to choose the most important and interesting facts within the text and make a short presentation to the rest of the class about the country they studied.

To make this activity appropriate for each grade level, I would increase the number of sources that needed (from 2 in the fourth grade to 3 in the fifth, with the books in this series as the beginning point) to be read before a group could present (and also increase the amount of time each group had to present from 6 minutes to 9 minutes).

What Students Learn: From this series of book and these activity students will learn about countries around the world and common customs, food, and family lifestyles about which they may not have previous known.

Image Retrieved From: http://www.bedfordfallsusa.com/store/images/0817249052_large.JPG