Friday Link Love - September Link Love - my weekly sharing of cool stuff

I can’t believe it’s already September, the ninth month of the year! So here’s my September Link Love.

Teaching and parenting

First of all I want to share some link love with my new employer, the German International School of Silicon Valley. On Tuesday I started to work there as a part-time substitute teacher for Math and DaZ. It’s a great school, even though it’s not the right choice for our children right now. They’re happy where they are.

And that’s where my 5th grader watched this super cool music video touring the 50 states of America.

Thinking and talking a lot about school this week, I came across this brilliant TedTalk “How to raise a successful child” from Julie Lythcott-Haims. I can highly recommend her book as well.

Living in the crazy world of Silicon Valley and anywhere else really, her ideas and strategies to raise children can give you a good perspective.

In my opinion this TedTalk is a Must-see for parents today. I, myself freak out from time to time, because as a German living in the US, we don’t have the BIG plan for our children. But then we don’t want to have one. We want them to grow up to being responsible, purposeful, caring and first and foremost happy adults.

Furthermore I want to share two other links regarding parenting and teaching. If you’re a German parent living abroad, you might find these two links helpful. I was looking for good German movies for my children and I found this list of 300 best movies for kids (not all of them are German, but I got some new ideas what to watch with my kids in German).

If you’re teaching German like I do, this blog is super helpful: Learn German with fun. Michaela shares lots of great ideas for your German lesson (even if you’re just trying to teach your own children).

And if you need more ideas how to maintain your children’s German while living outside of Germany, you should check out my blog series “Deutsch für Kinder im Ausland”: Lesemotivation, Zeitschriften und Webseiten für Kinder.

Fun Stuff

My 10-year old and her friends at school are totally into the Cat’s cradle game right now. It’s fun, great for fine motor skills, working together and you just need a piece of string. Brilliant, endless fun times!

You should try it yourself.

Triathlon

What else is going on this month? Next to blogging and working, I’m training for my 10th or so sprint triathlon.

Here you can find 9 Reasons why you have to sign up for a race yourself. From my personal experience I can say that #9 is very true: “The triathlon community is extremely inclusive. Doggy paddlers and walkers are all welcome — crossing the finish line is all that matters.”