Non-native Mommy

It's been a while since we started the new Helen Doron Early English package: Fun with Flupe. Now I have the time to review it a little.

The whole story is based on 3 main characters:

Granny Fix

Paul

Granny Fix - who solves all the problems and speaks in rhymes
Paul Ward - I guess he is Granny Fix's grandson. He helps Granny sort out the problems
Flupe or Flupie - a purple alien, who does not speak much apart from some words (it is very funny to see Flupe sad - turns blue- or frightened - turns yellow)

Flupe

This is what our package looks like:

Content:

A bag - it's similar to the previous, but the colour of the straps are yellow while in case of the first package they were green
4 activity books - not just picture books and rhymes, but proper workbooks. One can colour, stick stickers. Now we are working with the second one. During the lesson we work in the booklets, but no longer than 4-5 minutes

Rub-a-dub-dub - we coloured the tub and the animals, then had to put 5 carrot stickers on the holes

Skill development: Find and circle the same animal as you can see in the front

Booklet with the words for parents - quite useful for those parents who do not speak and/or understand much English (in the picture it is behind the 4 activity booklets)
1 DVD - with short stories
4 CDs - with all the conversations from the stories. My problem with the CDs is that the songs themselves cannot be listened to separately, only as a part of the whole story

I know it is officially not allowed but I asked our teacher to give us the teacher's CD and I uploaded the songs on our PC, so we can listen to the songs only.

I feel very strongly about this package. Very good material from many aspects. The workbooks are strong and good quality. The tasks are suitable for kids between 2-5 years of age.

Not only does this course develop a child's language skills but also their movements (dancing, jumping, crawling, running and hopping), fine motor skills (sticking, colouring, matching, craft activities). The five senses are in focus again.

There are 25 songs to listen to. They are mainly traditional nursery rhymes/songs with some change in the tune or in the lyrics. The songs appear in 12 animated stories in which Granny Fix talks in rhymes. (Certain lines of her return from episode to episode.) These episodes can be seen on the DVD.

Have a look at one episode (Rub a dub dub):

Our teacher, Zs., always involves some eating and drinking during the sessions if it is somehow connected to the topic. (E.g.: biscuits were hanging by the window on a rope. - I can't reach it. - she said and all the kids tried to reach the biscuits. Then they needed to ask for it: - Can I get a biscuit?. But a similar situation is created when asking for water to drink etc.) And this is just one example how well the kids are involved and encouraged to use the language in real life situations.

There is a Helen Doron Song Club on youtube where you can find videos connected to this material and to other courses too.

Five Little Monkeys has always been a favourite:

You can find Fun with Flupe as an application in the Google Play Store: click here to see what it looks like. When I installed it, it was free of charge.

All in all, this set is just as professional, well-designed and full of fun as the previous, Baby's Best Start.

As I said before I love autumn. Not only is it beautiful but also gives us a lot to talk about and plenty of opportunities to be creative.

Here come our new projects concerning autumn:

Very Hungry Caterpillar out of conkers and dried orange slices (googly eyes, pipe cleaners and glue sticks).

I made holes in the conkers with a screwdriver

threading the conker

then the orange slice

gluing the eyes on

caterpillar heads

caterpillar bodies

Let's make them friends

Autumn Nature Hunt - one day when we came home from the nursery I'd packed a bucket for E. to be able to collect whatever she found on the way home. (More simple picking and collecting whatever we find; not as directed and focused as the Tray Nature Hunt we did in the spring)

The next day we were sorting, grouping and naming them:

Autumn twig and confetti decoration. The pictures speak for themselves. I found the idea on Pinterest.

end result

playing with autumn shadows

We covered a great number of autumn vocabulary (leaves, trees, berries, colours - just to list few topics), and also the process of sticking, gluing, sprinkling, threading. I've just realised that E. is more and more interested in short craft projects and it means a lot of language input. We won't stop. I'll come back with more.

Halloween is here in less than two weeks and E. is so excited about it. She has already chosen what to dress up as (a skeleton - what else a 2 and half year old girl wants to be?)

I'm trying to do some Halloween projects with her.

The first one was a skeleton out of cotton buds. The idea came from here; it is the easiest craft ever.

What you need:

cotton buds
black coloured or construction paper
glue
printed or drawn skull

She loved the skulls at first sight

Gluing in progress
(I was making it with her to show her how to and where to put the bones. Although she's got and almost perfect knowledge of bones of the skeleton. I'll write about our little skeleton craze in a later post)

Final touch

Witch-craft (source: Toddler Approved!)

This craft idea combines Halloween, shapes and colours. While E. was in the nursery I cut up the shapes and when we arrived home the sticking could start. (I should have chosen some more colours - she wanted to add red eyes)

orange rectangles for the hair
black rectangles and big triangles for the hat
small black triangles for the nose
green circle for the head - could be any other colour
pink small and bigger rectangles, semi-circles for eyes eyebrows, lips etc.

At first we identified the colours and the shapes

Then we put together the witch

Funny witch... not scary at all - stated E. happily.

I found it really cool with those eyes :)

Our preparation for Halloween started more than a month ago with the skeleton craze (see a post about it). E. has really been excited about this holiday. She didn't get the spooky part. She thought ghosts, skeletons and witches are funny and fell in love with the jack-o-lantern.

We, parents, did a lot of preparation for the big day, which was the 30th instead of the 31st October.

It all began in the nursery. A little costume party was organised in the afternoon and parents were invited. The kids had a short performance of singing and dancing in Hungarian and mostly in English. Songs like these:

E. knows them well enough as we've been watching nothing else but Halloween songs since she saw the Dem bones song:

E. knew exactly what she wanted to dress up as from the very beginning. What else than a skeleton. (I got her skeleton costume -pyjamas- from H&M).

As a part of the party the kids could have a look at how a pumpkin is carved into a jack-o-lantern.

Little helpers

Partying hard

The fun continued at home with our welcoming jack-o-door ...

... and the MEC (Mums' English Club) Halloween party.

Guests are arriving in costumes

We added face paint to maximise the scariness

MEC group

Mummies, oat-pumpkin biscuits and other snacks

Batman is playing with the balloon, Pumpkin and Spider are looking for some toys, Fairy wants her Mommy in the backround and Skeleton is just gazing into air.
What a company!

The parties, the excitement, the food, the costumes, the decorations and the atmosphere were all great and memorable for both parents and their little ones. See you next year!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!!

Let me start with THE song, the small pebble that started the avalanche:

(Around Halloween it is quite relevant)

E. got crazy about bones and the skeleton itself. So it's time for us, parents, to learn a little too.
I didn't have the faintest idea about the names of the bones. I used to have problems with them in my native language, not to mention English. However, I did everything to satisfy my little one's hunger for knowledge.

Flashcards
I made skeleton cards for her. I found a blog (montessoriworkjobs) where there are black and white skeletons with the major bones highlighted in red. So I printed them and made flashcards.

Cotton bud skeleton - craft
See more about it in an earlier post

fsscinated by the skulls

gluing

sticking and pushing

final touch

finished

Child size skeleton puzzle
I found printable bones on a site. You need to print about 8 A/4 pages. You do not need much colouring ;) I laminated the bones as I want to use them next year too.

the skeleton puzzle

after mixing the puzzle E. put the bones in place

"I'm a skeleton"

The book - The skeleton inside you

It's a funny book with a lot of information on bones. When it says "your skeleton helps you run, jump and stand", I added some more actions (squat, walk slowly, sit, roll, make a bridge, kick, clap etc.)
and E. needed to do what I said. She enjoyed it a lot.

You have 32 bones in your arm

the rib cage and the skull protect important organs

Halloween costume skeleton

"Look Daddy, this is the femur"

Skeleton as food
E. was absolutely amazed when she saw this snack on her plate. Since then I need to cut skeletons out of everything.

Last but not least: Skeleton costume for Halloween

These are H&M skeleton pyjamas and gloves

I do not need to comment this. Or if you wish you can read about the Halloween party we had.

I hope you found some ideas useful if your little one is also obsessed with bones and skeletons.

E. started nursery in September (at the age of 27 months), but I haven't had the time to finish a review on this issue. Here it comes:

Hello, this is my first day in nursery

We decided on a private nursery as opposed to a state one because of our bilingual journey. This option puts a greater financial burden on our family in the long run but hopefully it'll be worth it.

Mini Klub is a bilingual nursery. There are two nursery teachers who speak Hungarian to the kids and one who speaks English only all day long. Although the English speaking nursery teacher is a native Hungarian, we are lucky enough, as her English is on a high level and her pronunciation is native-like. She is also a dedicated teacher and prepares a lot to entertain and "teach" the kids English.

We first met her (Ms. B.) in August before the official start when every week in the afternoon we visited the nursery's playground. E. could meet all the children and nursery teachers.

Ms. B. played with E. in the sand pit and I also had a chance to chat with her a little about the routines and English usage in the nursery. I made it clear to her that the reason why we come to this nursery is because of E.'s bilingualism.

After almost three months now, Ms. B. hasn't been talking to E. in Hungarian at all, although in some emergency situations Ms. B. needs to talk in Hungarian to other kids. Another relevant point is E. likes her a lot. (So much that in October we had several evenings when I had to play Ms. B.'s role during bath time at home.)

On the first official nursery day they hit it off. (sorry about the quality of the photos, most of them were taken secretly)

Exploring the nursery garden with Ms B.

The first few days and weeks went without any problem. I guess I was more worried and nervous about the transition than she was. Evidently, she enjoys playing there, loves the teachers and some of the kids, too.

On the first day with Ms. L. -

Of course, we couldn't avoid the initial illnesses, which gave me more possibility to increase the English time (at home).

Look, Daddy this is my box. My sign's on it.

There are quite a lot of educational activities every single day (crafts, learning shapes, colours, rhymes and songs, circle games, story time etc.) on the basis of the Montessori Method that keep them busy and occupied.

Weekly routine:

Every day:

doing exercise
developing movements

Monday:

shapes, colours
feeling by touching
concentration
improving perceptibility
numbers 1-10

Tuesday:

communication
rhymes and story telling
learning verses and poems

Wednesday

circle games
songs
auditory development
developing rhythm and a sense of music

Thursday

fine motor skills
arts and crafts
modelling clay, painting, gluing, threading etc.

Friday

love of nature
exploring our environment
plants and animals

Until the end of October every Tuesday the kids went pony-riding in the other premises of the nursery (Duna Ovi). From the middle of November (next week) they are starting ice-skating. E. just can't wait. I hope she'll like it. I'm not sure if she has understood what ice-skating means exactly.

The nursery also has a daily routine:

7.30-8.45 arrivals, free play time

8.45-9.00 doing exercise

9.00-9.05 changing nappies or toilet time

9.05-9.30 breakfast, teeth brushing

9.30-10.15 educational sessions (20 mins in English, 20 mins in Hungarian)

10.15-10.30 snack time (fruit, vegetables)

10.30-11.30 playtime in the playground (depending on weather conditions)

11.30-11.40 toilet time

11.40-12.15 lunch time

12.15-14.30 quiet time, sleepy time

14.30-15.15 waking up period, snack time

15.15-15.45 educational session (15 mins in English, 15 mins in Hungarian)

15.45 - free play time, departure

Food: healthy and varied (Daddy asked me one day looking at E.'s weekly menu if he himself could sign up for lunch at the nursery ;) - we receive the menu every week.

Educational sessions:

crafts

Look, that's my horse

preparing for special occasions like grape harvest festival, Halloween, Santa Clause day (Dec 6) or Christmas

I have a video about the educational session in English (and in Hungarian), but E. was ill and didn't take part. What's more, I should ask the nursery for permission to put the video up on my blog. So it might come later on.

-----o-----o-----o------o------o-------o------ Permission received----o-----o

Play time - if it doesn't rain cats and dogs they go out to the playground for at least an hour in the morning and another hour in the afternoon.

All in all, I am more than satisfied with this nursery and the English language input E. has been experiencing there. She plays a lot with Ms. B. and sometimes when I go to pick her up she tells me that we are in English. Every now and then, Ms. B. comes to the same direction as we do on the way home and we chat in English. E. has already made friends with another English speaking kindergarten teacher (Mrs. M.). She asked her the time in English (as I went to pick her up a little later that day).

I hope everything will go on like this in the future. My expectations were high but this nursery managed to meet them. If you have any questions about daily life in Mini Klub, just feel free to contact me.

I'm not sure if E. understands the concept of being thankful, though one night when we talked to the Angels I wanted to say good night and she said:

- Wait, Mommy!
- Yes?
- I want to say thank you.
- What for?
- For the skeleton costume.

So I might be wrong. She can also say thank you whenever I give her some food or a toy. Sometimes she reminds Daddy to say thank you.

I told her the Thanksgiving story very basically though we focused more on being creative this time.

Colour your turkey - letter recognition

I mentioned to E. that American people celebrate Thanksgiving with turkeys, like we celebrate Martin-day with geese.

So we coloured a turkey. I printed an image of a turkey from the net, but before we started I added some letters to different parts of the turkey. With some of the dot markers I signed orange, yellow, red and purple next to the turkey. She immediately understood how to colour it. We have no brown dot markers so I used a crayon.

identifying the letters

staring with yellow

our colourful turkey

Bubble wrap paint turkey

I found this idea on craftymorning.com . I'm not going into details as you find easy-to-follow instructions on the site.

It looked great, so we tried it. It's a little too complicated with a 2 and a half year old. You need to wait a lot for the paint to dry. E. had no patience. But she enjoyed the painting. I had no dark brown coloured paper so we painted the body too. (The thermo-hat is due to an ear infection)

painting the body

adding the eyes on the stool - where else?

finished with the beak too, though there's no snood

I cut the feathers - she did the sticking

Turkey without legs and snood

Autumn tree variations

The first tree idea came when E. enjoyed me punching leaf shapes with this.

So while she was asleep in the afternoon I punched some more leaves (yellow, red, orange, brown and creamy colours) and I put them together with some real dry leaves next to a drawn tree. With the help of some glue we put the leaves onto the tree's branches. She wasn't interested in the real ones.

Broken leaves had to go on the ground, under the tree

Our nanny arrived and they went on together

Have you noticed that some leaves are falling down ;) ?

"Nice tree. Can I pee on it?"

The second tree is based on the same idea as the dot marker turkey. I drew a tree and on the branches I wrote the first letters of some colours. Dotting fun.

I'm planning to make some more Thanksgiving activities. So come back for the autumn tree and turkey of gratitude.

A green box with stuffed animals, a stethoscope, some gauze, a medicine box, a rope, cheese and a flower. Story box - reading fun.

I can't remember where I found the idea but Pinterest is full of it.

I picked a book from the Ladybird series (Little Workmates) - Vet Vicky.

The story is about Vet Vicky's day in her surgery treating a dog, a cat and a mouse. Then she goes to Farmer Fred's to have a look at Daisy, the cow, who is not eating well, but the cow has gone. Vicky finds her near the school munching on some flowers. Vicky takes Daisy back to Farmer Fred and suggests feeding Daisy with some flowers every now and then.

It was a hit at once. E. likes playing doctor, and loves animals, so even without the story box she would have loved the story. However, with it she was thrilled and did everything like Vicky in the book.

checking the dog over

giving him a pill

checking the cat over

She enjoyed following the activities in the book - five times in a row. At least I could take some photos...

Finally, she matched all the characters with their images in the book.

We'd spent nearly an hour reading the book, playing the story, when our nanny arrived.

E. wanted to do it with her too.

Ssssh! - showed Vicky to the school children when she went behind Daisy with a rope

Some body parts, like the udder, the hooves and the horns, were identified on the cow.

What's this? - This is the cow's udder.

E. is very interested in the other booklets of the series.

We have some of them, like Farmer Fred, Builder Bill, Hairdresser Hanna. Unfortunately, the stories are not the best for the story book idea as there can't be so many easily available and varied props. I'll try to do my best.

Tree of Thanks - a great idea for Thanksgiving came from Jen, a blogger mum whose posts I've been reading on a daily basis nowadays.

The main idea is an autumn tree with brownish, yellowish, orange leaves. The extra is that we write down a few things that we are thankful for.

We didn't have much time to do this activity (I needed to prepare for Daddy's birthday too), so it is not as elaborate as in the original idea.

What you need:

colour paper (red, brown, orange, green - or you can paint as Jen suggests)
scissors
a bigger sheet of sticky paper (contact paper or sticky book jacket)
markers

I quickly cut red, brown, yellow and green leaves out of colour paper and drew a tree on the sticky paper (on the non-sticky side). The latter I sellotaped (sticky side out) on the balcony window. (Unfortunately you can't see much on the photos as it got dark, but tomorrow I'll add some more pictures taken in daylight)

naming the different colours and counting how many leaves she has

When we arrived home, E. sat down and I told her that we should collect people and things we love and we feel thankful for. (Much to my surprise she understood and immediately said : - Daddy!) I came next: - I love Mommy so much. :D

First, we tried to write the words together, but when she added snowman and chicken thigh I wrote them on the leaves myself.

When we'd finish with our collection (cheese, Grandmas, Santa, doggy, antibody hat, i.e. her thermo-hat against ear problems) we moved to the balcony door and E. stuck up the leaves on the tree.
She was really proud of herself and also, gave a kiss to Santa :) (then to me)

collecting

sticking

I love you, Santa

Unfortunately we didn't have time for the Turkey of Thanks wreath. Well, we need something for next year, too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

If you want some cute and funny Thanksgiving songs, here is a small collection:

It's been 23 months with her. It's more than I've ever dreamt of. A special bond has been formed among us. But now our native nanny is leaving. It is difficult for all of us.

I'd like to pay tribute to our time together with this post.

We met A. in January 24, 2013 for the first time. E. was only 8 months old. The last 23 months have been full of great moments. Here is a collection of our memories:

Flashcards - E. is 11 months old

We had some lovely trips like to the zoo:

Look, a butterfly

Flamingos - E. is 15 months old

Our nature hunt with a muffin tray in the park:

on the way to the park

The usual question: "What's this?"

We've done it!

A great birthday party:

Story time - reading together:

Story box - Vet Vicky

Fun presents from A.:

Easter present: Bunny soap, bubble mixture, "headless" marzipan figurine ;)

watermill

Mini 3D animal kit

Solar system poster

A. could make a dog out of a balloon

and a flower

Fishing in a tub - Nőtincs Adventure Park

Our outings in Gödöllő and Nőtincs-Seholsziget:

A walk in the woods

Some educational activities with A.: (Video about the bottle cap calculator)

Making big numbers and basic additions

letter recognition with magnetic letters

Silhouettes and object matching game

And some crafts:

These are just a few of all the fun E. and, I can say, we all have had since A. was around. As for our language journey she was the best person we could meet. I hope we can stay in touch in the future too, as E. and A. has had a strong bond between them and I have to admit that she wasn't just a nanny, but has become a friend.

I wish her all the best wherever life will take her.

Good-bye cake

You will greatly be missed.

Daddy's birthday always goes together with the start of our advent. This year there's a little extra. The Book advent Calendar.

First of all, here is our traditional, bought in a shop (Tchibo) advent calendar:

horrible photo, but I don't have any other

I always put it on the door frame. Each shape has a pocket and I put in some surprises:

some treats (dried fruit, nuts, crackers, marzipan - E.'s favourite, etc.)
advent activities from Időtetrisz (you can download the cards for free - Christmassy crafts, acts of kindness, gift giving, funny. If you want something similar in English you can download Jen's advent calendar activity cards from this link. Időtetrisz offers some blank cards, so I wrote some of my own in English. E. can't read yet anyways, so I can read the Hungarian cards in English if she is in an English mood)
a small animal (I bought these last year in a secondhand toy shop - they were really inexpensive)

The animals are for putting together the stable where baby Jesus was born. We've just stated it, but I'll add a photo of it when you can see what it looks like.

Extra advent book calendar - a book a day

I saw plenty of great advent present ideas on Pinterest, however, the best is the 24 books wrapped up. Your child can open one a day up to Christmas. It's great if you can collect 24 Christmas stories. I couldn't. I had about 12-15 book I'd bought earlier but there was no occasion to give them to E. So I bought some more discounted books, and some more new ones from Book Depository (if you order from them there's no delivery fee). This is how I collected 24 books. (The cost of the books altogether was between 6-10 thousand HUF = 19-33 EUR)

Here is about half of the books:

I didn't take a photo of the other half but I will after we have opened all of them. I'll also put together a list of the titles, authors and E.'s reaction to them. This post will come after Christmas.

My Mum helped me wrap all the 24 books. I made the stickers out of cheap, circle-shaped post-its and a white gel pen. (It took a while until the white gel dried on the post-its)

We've already read two of the books:

Me and My Dad
Dora's chilly day

Both of them were bullseye.

Let's not leave out our unconventional advent candles. I can't call it an advent wreath because they are made up of 4 porcelain cups, Christmassy washi tape, fake grass, 4 Christmas tree decorations stuck on the cups, 4 sparkly, red balls and 4 long, claret candles. No wreath whatsoever.

But it's easy and fun to make it even with a smaller child.

Last year E. helped me make it

So our advent has begun and we are very excited about opening little pocket on our advent calendar and reading a new book every day. Only Christmas Eve can be more exciting than this.

I do not want to brag, but yes... a little I do. E. is so interested in the letters and the ABC that, I do not exaggerate if I say, within a year or two she'll be reading. In this blog post I would like to collect some fun activities we've been doing with the ABC.

-Videos/Songs

The very first favourite. E. was watching this video her mouth agape in amazement when she was 8-10 months old.

The traditional one is always the best (Upper- and lowercase)

A song about how to pronounce the letters - Phonic Song:

Since the age of 2 we have been watching a lot of Mother Goose Club songs:

She could watch it all the time. Sometimes she wants to watch them all day (if I let her).

- Magnetic alphabet

I bought the first set of magnetic alphabet when E. was about 18 months old. She loved them at once.
First it was just one pack of upper case letters. We used it on the fridge, but the letters always fell under it. So I had a magnetic word game at home (for adults, the letters are too tiny for little children) and I started to use one of its steel boards (You can also use a steel tray or a magnetic whiteboard)

Then I bought another pack of both upper- and lower case letters later when we started making up words at about the age of 20-22 months. (Frankly, we don't really use the lower case letter yet - age 2,5 years)

At the very beginning we just put together the alphabet from A to Z. We sang the ABC song and/or the phonic song while arranging the letters.

Adding the missing letters to the alphabet with Daddy

I told her words starting with certain letters, like E. for her name or D for daddy, M for mummy, A. is for our nanny's name etc. As time passed I added some more words, such as E. is for elephant, egg, or A is for apple, ant and so on, not just names. I always tried to include things that she knew or she was really interested at that time. Within a few days she was the one who said the words: - B is for ball and bubble.

Next, we made up short words she was already familiar with.
Daddy, Mummy, M. (our dog), dog, cat, yes, no, hat, rat, egg, bat and so on. I have no intention to teach her how to read. She is the one who, from time to time, comes to me with the letters to play with. She'll work it out by herself.

- Matching gamewith the magnetic letters

What you need:

letters (magnetic, felt, play dough, cut out from cardboard, drawn on bottle tops)
plastic surface (e.g.: whiteboard, but I used an A/4 sheet that I spoiled while laminating.
markers (not permanent!!!)
sponge or tissues to wipe the surface if you want to reuse it

First, I wrote three words on the laminated sheet (also drew some basic pictures)

I put the letters of these words mixed in a little container

E. came and emptied the container.

And matched the letter. The interesting thing was that I didn't need to tell her toe start from left to right.

She wanted to do it with our nanny, too.

When she got bored with it I wiped the surface off and at another time I made a new one with: yes, no, love, sun, hot, rat as you can see it in the photo.

She had to start with her letter, E.

It was summer time we last did this activity, and now sometimes she "reads" letters on her clothes or, some book's title.

- Search for the letters - sensory bin (autumn)

What you need:

a container
bark (you can buy it in a packet at animal stores)
small object connected to autumn in some ways (berries, grapes, apples, pears, twigs, conkers, pumpkins, leaves etc. What I did was I chose 1 bunch of grapes made of plastic, 2 apples made of felt, 3 golden leaves, 4 pumpkins made of felt, 5 real conkers.)
letters (wooden, foam, felt, magnetic, whatever) of A-U-T-U-M-N
a sheet of the object and the letters of autumn shown

Throw the bark into the container and hide all your chosen objects in the bark. Put the sheet in front of your child and whenever they find something among the bark, place them in the right group, or if it's a letter, then on the right letter.

And the search can begin.

This activity gives you and your child plenty of opportunity to talk about not only the letters, but also colours, autumn fruit, trees, leaves and berries, and in this case numbers too.

I still have several activities, but I'll need to come back with them in another post. Try them, enjoy them and let me know how they worked out.

In Hungary we have a special day called St. Nicholas Day on the 6th December. St. Nicholas (=Mikulás) is depicted like Santa Claus and more or less they are very similar legendary characters.

As Mikulás is a big day for Hungarian kids, our local Helen Doron school also organised an event: meeting Santa on Saturday (6 Dec). Alas, I left the camera and my phone at home as we were in a hurry to leave for the school, so all the photos were taken with the HD school's camera.

10-12 kids signed up every half an hour on the big day. (FYI: Financial contribution of the event was 500HUF/family). When we arrived the previous group was in with Santa so we had time for some snacks, cocoa and some crafts. It was very simple but a lot of fun activity with a cardboard ring, some black circles, white hearts and some orange scraps. Our teacher, Zs. was preparing the materials and helping the kids with the crafts. And what did we make out of them? This door wreath of penguins:

Then our time came to go in Santa's room, where Santa was sitting on the sofa with a thick book. In the corner there were some props for a Christmas story. The starry sky, a stable with a new-born baby in the manger.

Santa read out the story of a tiny, sad star, called Starlet, who grew big and hot when she needed to give light and warmth to Baby Jesus. The story was read in English, one of the HD teachers' (Z.) partner played the role of Santa. Although his English wasn't perfect, but good enough for the occasion.

After the heart-warming story, the kids needed to sing (together) a Christmassy song for Santa (luckily with the help of the HD teacher - Z.). We sang "We wish you a merry Christmas". E. was really quiet, so I whispered into her ear that she needs to sing louder, as Santa can't hear it. Then she started to sing REALLY loudly. She took it seriously and she was so cute.

Next, Santa pulled out tiny presents for the children (szaloncukor - the Hungarian traditional Christmas candy and a tangerine) from his bag. We could take some photos with Santa and also the director lady (O.) took some (Thank Goodness!) so this is the only reason why I can include some in this post.

After meeting Santa, we went back to the crafts room to Zs., where we could eat some more or do some more crafts. A Christmas card this time. The reindeer inside are E.'s finger prints.

After having finished two Christmas cards, we thanked O. and Zs. for the nice and well-organised Mikulás party and left for home to tell Daddy all the exciting details about meeting Santa.

As Christmas is getting closer we are doing a lot of Christmassy crafts. They give us the chance to talk about a lot of things in English, like colours, decorations, presents and E. has already learnt plenty of Christmas vocabulary (like candy cane, gingerbread man, angels, advent, wreath, candles, sparklers, baubles, tinsel, gifts etc.)

Here I'd like to present you 2 ideas in connection with decorating a Christmas tree.

Sticker decorations and letter recognition:

I searched for a Christmas tree colouring sheet and I copied it in WORD, then I added the letters and a little table at the bottom. In the table I put the letters and above them you can see a Christmas related word. (We didn't read them I just wanted her to see the words written down. I can send you the word document if you wish to use it)

I had some Christmas stickers from last year (I'd bought this sheet in KIK for 300 HUF) and I added an angel, a star, a candle, a bauble and a gingerbread man. These stickers are really cool. They easily come off the paper, so I took off the candle and the gingerbread man, just for fun. Later, E. put them back.

One afternoon after her nap this was the scene waiting for her.
She needed to search for a figure and stick the right sticker on the starting letter of the word.

But first she coloured the tree green, the star on the top yellow and the trunk brown. A little more colour talk.

artist at work

Then searching and sticking started:

peeling

sticking

I had to add some more letters as she wanted more baubles and stars.

When she'd finished we displayed it on the door of our living-room.

2. Dot marker decoration

We got a box of DO-A-DOT markers for E.'s birthday in May and ever since we've had so much fun with them. Actually, I saw this dot the letter Christmas tree activity online, though we've done a similar dot marker activity at Halloween with a pumpkin.

This time I drew a Christmas tree with some presents below it. I wrote the beginning letter of the colours, like G for green (a lot of them, though I should have written even more), R for red, Y for yellow, P for purple, B for blue.

I prepared all the dot markers well in advance. I took off the lids so E. didn't need to although it could be a nice fine motor skill practice. There were quite a lot to do with the Christmas tree and I didn't want her to get bored with the opening of the markers.

First, she tried almost all of the colours, then she stuck to one colour and finished dotting all of them on the sheet. As I'd always been telling her to put the lid back on the markers she decided to put it back and pack away the marker when she'd finished with a colour.

packing away

red baubles

She mentioned that she was putting red and purple baubles on the tree. When she was doing the yellow decoration she said they were candles. I asked quite a lot of questions to make her talk while she was working. We even sang the "Oh, Christmas tree, oh, Christmas tree" song:

Then we put the finished Christmas tree next to the other.

I have some more Christmas tree ideas from paper plate with some painting and sticking, however some snowy crafts are on the way too. We'll see what we have time for.

Also, I'd be happy if you let me know in the comments what Christmas tree projects you have with your little one

I had another Christmas tree craft on mind through which we could have practised some English and had fun. Well, E. wasn't in the mood. At first...

Earlier I read about a Jen's Christmas tree decorating creative table and I thought it would have been great fun with E, too. I was wrong...

I found a Christmas tree template online and I cut 4 pine trees out of green construction paper. I also prepared different kinds of decorations: cotton wool balls, beads, mosaics, stars, buttons, pipe cleaners, tinsel etc.

This scene welcomed E.:

I thought she'll be over the moon if she can use the glue and stick like millions of shiny decorations onto the Christmas tree.

At the beginning she enjoyed it, but wasn't so much interested. I was trying to talk about the cotton wool balls and the shiny starts of two kinds; silver and gold. But, very unlike her, she was speechless.

She did a little gluing...

The dark green tree is what I made

but she ended up like this:

Well, maybe it wasn't such a good idea. I should have come up with a snowmen or a snowflake art project. She might have had enough of Christmassy crafts. But I loved the idea about talking about how the angels decorate the Christmas tree, what the texture of different decorations feels like, what shapes they have (round, square, star-shaped), counting bead and button baubles and sticking on tinsel...

I still love this activity... she doesn't. At first I was disappointed, then I just needed to accept this is not so much fun for her. So I packed everything away and I've already started to think about some snowy projects.

Then much to my surprise, the next day she was looking for the blank Christmas trees: - Where are the Christmas trees we made? Where are the empty ones?

I was more than happy to serve her with the set... but you need to wait for the next blog post to find out about its outcome.

When E. asked for the Christmas tree set (construction paper cut-out Christmas trees and decorations, like tinsel, buttons, stars, cotton wool balls etc.) I was more than happy. It took me a while to prepare this Christmas tree activity but at first it seemed to be a failure.

nicely prepared set

E.'s choice instead

But at the second time it was a hit. E. was chatting away (in Hungarian this time), sticking and encouraged me to decorate my tree too. I did as she told me and didn't take many photos. We just enjoyed being creative, being together, being full of Christmas spirit.

busy with decorating

Our final results (done in Hungarian)

Our first try (done in English)

In both cases E. made the light green trees.

If you give it a try you can widen your little one's vocabulary in the field of

Christmas: tinsel, bauble, star, snowflake, beads
colours: light green, dark green, silver, gold, shiny
shapes and sizes: round, star-shaped, snowflake-shaped, long, tiny
texture: prickly=stingy, soft, fluffy, hard, velvety, silky, rough, sticky

The Solar System craze started about a half a year ago (August 2014). Planets caught her attention while having the usual pre-dinner-youtube-video-watching session. Since then she's been an expert in this field just like we needed to become.

The very first song in the line:

She liked it so much that we had to watch it several times and of course more came:

She quickly learned the next one, so at bedtime I had to sing this song 7/11:

After What shape is it? here is another video from the same youtube channel with the title: What planet is it? Annoying for parents, fascinating for kids :) You can also learn about some dwarf planets like Pluto, Ceres, Makemake, Charon etc.

E. loves the next video too, although the colours of the planets are not so accurate. She mentions it every time we watch it. I guess it is an Indian video, and the pronunciation is a little funny. Still, we watch it a lot. She knows exactly how to pronounce the names of the planets and I want her to listen to as many different accents as possible.

These videos are not only about the names of the planets in our Solar System but also give some interesting information about them.

Then, we found Storybots on youtube. It's hilarious. Even for parents. At last something I and Daddy love watching, too. Well, the next videos are not typical children videos. First: The Solar System Rap
(For a week we were playing the "Microphone game" i.e. throwing a microphone to each other - E. was the Sun, I was Mercury, Daddy was Venus (!) and Doggie was Mars. The game always ended with Mars as the dog couldn't catch the microphone :) By the way, Daddy made the microphone out of a kitchen roll tube, a deodorant cap and some duct tape.)

I'm hot - the Sun song

Beautiful Earth

I could go on and on adding more videos in the topic. But if your child is intereted in the planets you'll find them anyway through the above mentioned examples.

After the videos, I had to make the Solar System on her plate. The following is just one occasion. The Solar System made out of frankfurters, but I've already made it out of fruit, cheese and bacon, vegetables etc.:

Here is a link where you can find a fruity solar system snack for kids together with a colouring sheet of planets.

I love the asteroid belt :)

If something is in the middle of E.'s attention, she recreates it in all fields of life - like drawing:

(While she was drawing the picture below she was in English, later we changed languages and she asked me to write the names of the planets in Hungarian)

Why did she put the cotton buds on the planets? - It beats me...

I prepared a pom-pom colour sorting activity for her one afternoon (in September), which turned into a Solar System activity again. (It's a kind of size comparison as well.)

Here is a video about her naming the planets in English and at the end she also sings one of the planet songs.

At the playground (at the beginning of October) we made the Solar System out of sand. It wasn't my idea, but hers.

Sand Solar System

Destroying the Sun

Destroying all the planets

I made her a magnetic Solar System to play with. I found the following printable online at 2teachingmommies.com. You can find their Planet shadow match in their Space unit. (After downloading a zip file you need to print the Planet_shadow_match.pdf)

I printed and laminated the shadow sheets (2 x A/4) and the planets (1 x A/4). I cut out the planets first then I laminated them and cut them out again. In this way they are more durable. Adding Velcro is recommended in the explanations of the original planet shadow matching task but I used small magnets (you can buy them in Creative Hobby Shops) which are sticky on one side (I couldn't glue the Velcro on the laminated sheets)

Sometimes we play with it on the floor, but nowadays the Solar System is on our fridge:

Here is a video how we play with it in Hungarian

Last, but not least - salt dough planets. I'm sure the time comes in every family when they make salt dough, or some sort of home-made dough but you can use any kind of modelling clay as well. In this way E. could see the sizes compared to the sun (which is a yellow plastic ball). Originally we wanted to paint them, but somehow they disappeared during Christmas time.

E. wanted Pluto added. It's made out of kitchen foil

For Christmas, E. got a Solar System Model Making Kit.

On Boxing Day the three of us were working on it all day.

mixing the right colours

We needed to paint and assemble the planets, then hang them on rods with fishing lines placing them around the sun in the centre.

drying the planets

putting the planets together needs concentration

"hooked"

Let's read how we should put the whole thing together

measuring the fishing line

I added some glow plaint (which was included in the set. The planets glow in the dark.) It was a great family activity (in English). It looks nice in our living room hanging from the central lamp. (Sorry, the photo was taken with my mobile phone.)

This post has turned out to be a long one, but my main aim was to show you how many different activities you can do around a subject, let it be the Solar System or fruit or cars. You don't need to spend a lot of money on buying props or toys (see the sandpit or the pom-pom or the drawing fun). And there are just a few activities which needs preparation (planet shadow match or the model making). So let your and your little one's imagination fly and build the topic of interest in your everyday playtime.

E. has an unquenchable thirst for the letters and the alphabet. Here are 2 more activities we've done recently.

1. Giant alphabet puzzle
2. Salt dough letters

- ABC giant puzzle

I was lucky enough to get hold of this giant alphabet puzzle in a secondhand toy shop. No piece is missing. There are one or two pieces that are a little stained but otherwise it is in great condition.

When E. is putting the puzzle pieces together she is singing the ABC song or we need to listen to it. (A money-saving trick: you do not need to buy a lot of English music CDs. Just turn the youtube videos into mp3 music files with a converter)

While we are putting the puzzle together we name the pictures like A is for apple (like in the picture) and add some more words starting with that letter: ant or angel or antler. (I usually come up with words that she knows but if not we always have paper and pencils around to draw the unknown thing, or if we have it at home we go and have a look at it)

We have some foam letters which are the same size as the capital letters written on our giant puzzle. In the picture below E. is placing the foam letters on the puzzle. It was her own idea.

I use this alphabet puzzle even with adult students; it helps a lot with spelling and pronunciation.

- Salt dough letters

When E. turned 2 and a half last November we made her the very first home-made salt dough (1 cup of salt, 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of boiling hot water). And it was a hit.

I found this cheap set of ABC cookie cutters in a One-Dollar shop. It has just one problem: letter S is the other way round.

spooning the ingredients

Not only was she learning/pracising words like kneading, rolling pin, mix and stir, add, measure but also strengthened her arms and hand muscles.

my little helper

First, the letters need to be in the right order of the alphabet

Cutting

E. helped to put the letters on a baking paper that I'd place on a tray and we put them all in the oven to dry (at 50 °C).

Next day the painting started:

We used one colour at a time, but when we did this project this year colour mixing kicked in to make new colours like purple, brown or orange.

Ever since we have been playing with the letter as they are lying on E.'s shelf in the living room.

If I've got the time and energy I'll also write about our letter search in the "snow" and an activity called Bottle Top Matching (lower and upper case letters).

E. is quite excited every time she can spend some time in the kitchen with me. For me it's rather a challenge and I need to be extra relaxed, plus in a good mood to shoulder all the mess and fuss around it.

Whenever I pull myself together and dare to enter the kitchen with a 2,5 year old hurricane to do some cooking or baking projects, it's always fun and the result is fantastic, though.

Cooking and baking together together with your child/children always gives you a great chance to learn and practice new things. Not only kitchen activities like whisking, stiring and pouring but also your second language.

This is what we did a few months ago when E. made her first pizza.

Today I wasn't prepared for the kitchen mess so I only entered into the spirit of painting.

While doing it we practiced a lot of food names:

salami
fish
tomato slices
corn
olives
pineapple
mushroom
pizza dough
salt (shake)

As well as colours and how to get certain colours by mixing two:

red + blue = purple
yellow + red = orange
red + green = brown

The kitchen stayed clutter- and mess-free and we were all happy.

I've already written a post about how I made our weather board which also includes some emotions too. I've made some changes to it and added some more details.

I wanted to include days, months and seasons as well. So I repainted the board (the old tray) like 6 times as the paint didn't want to cover the black letters I'd written on it earlier. More or less I managed with the painting and on the top, I wrote DAY, MONTH and SEASON. I also made laminated cards. The days are hand-written both in English and in Hungarian, the months are printed but I decorated every month according to what's typical in that month. I found 4 pictures depicting the four seasons. I printed some more varied weather pictures you can find on the link. In this way, the many sources and styles make it more eclectic and more eye-caching than one kind of template (although you can find several of them online - see links later). Of course, I laminated them all and also added sticky magnets on the back.

The weather display is in the middle and at the bottom of the board you can find the feelings.

On the side of our book case next to the weather board, I printed a monthly calendar where every day we can leave a dot with our much loved dot markers.

Before:

After:

As you can see our day turned bad (have a look at the feelings section -silly and sad... it was true for both of us... so sorry for the poor quality of the photos.

started as a fun day

making a mark

I don't think I'll change this calendar and weather station in the near future but here I collected some links of how others do it. There are some real professional ones among them:

Our classroom calendar - from Counting Coconuts

Alas, we do not have such a great wall to use.

Calendar Activities (Photo from Discovery Days and Montessori Moments)

Our calendar routine - from My Montessori Journey

Free printable weather chart for preschoolers - by Paint On The Ceiling

I really liked this one, but unfortunately the whole thing is on an A/4 sheet which would be too small for us. The design is beautiful.

Weather chart - by Rowdy in Room 300

Easy to use, colourful but it's only weather

My weather station - by boys GERMS

It's a showpieces, I love it! Though not for my little one. She would destroy it within seconds.

Homeschool Room Organisation (Calendar and weather station) - by The Princess and the Tot

Wow!

The links above contain quite a lot of free printable materials.

Our calendar and weather display is rather modest compared to the others I linked in but it serves great fun and supports our bilingual learning process.

Fun with Flupe - the new Helen Doron package

Some more autumn crafts

Not so scary crafts for Halloween

Happy Halloween!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!!

Dem bones - the skeleton craze

Starting the nursery - Mini Klub

Crafts for Thanksgiving - Chapter 1.

Story box - Vet Vicky with props

Happy Thanksgiving! - Crafts: Chapter 2.

Goodbye, A. - our nanny is leaving

Our Advent - 2014

Getting familiar with the ABC

Santa visited the Helen Doron School

Christmas tree crafts and some more ABC

Christmas tree - fail

Christmas tree fail - or success?

Planets and the Solar System

More fun with the ABC

- ABC giant puzzle

- Salt dough letters

Pizza time

Before - after: Our new calendar and weather station