February has come and we are preparing for the carnival (“Farsang” in Hungarian). Although E. keeps telling me it’s not carnival but one of her water friends’ birthday party decorations, I guess we can call these simple paper decor carnival decorations as well.
What you need is
coloured paper
scissors
glue (stick)
Ring garland:
Cut strips of paper. Make a ring (glue the two ends together) and make the next ring so it goes through the first.
Continue until you’ll get a long garland:
Square garland:
Again cut strips of coloured paper (I used A/4 sized paper but the longer the better). Glue two different colour strips together so they form an L shape. Then all you need to do is fold the strips on top of each other. If you run out of paper strips you can glue on some more.
We made both creations in 2 languages as we were working on them for several days. In English we revised the shapes, like rectangle, square and circle and colours. We also used vocabulary like glue, fold, cut, join, hang and decorate just to mention a few.
I’ll come back with a fan kind of decor. The stapler was in great use when we made it. Stay tuned.
Touching, licking, putting her finger in or on something are L.’s favourite sensory activities at the moment. With E. we created this touchy-feely sensory board from materials we found around the house.
I started to collect the Zewa moist toilet paper tops quite a while ago. Altogether I managed to collect 8.
I used a cardboard piece that came as a parcel. We looked around and E. picked 8 different textures:
a strip of white IKEA kitchen drawer mat (bumpy)
a yellow sponge wipe (squashy)
the blue side of a kitchen scrub sponge (rough)
a metallic scrub sponge (silver and shiny)
a torn orange plush onsie (velvety)
blue jeans
bubble wrap (bumpy)
shiny green and gold satin (soft)
But you can use whatever you find at home like mop head, sand paper, silk, etc.
We drew the lids around inside/outside on the cardboard…
… then we marked and cut out the materials
Finally I glued the materials on the cardboard then glued the white lids on.
I let it dry for a few days just to make sure the glue won’t let go. (And I put some dictionaries on top of it for pressure.) As for the implementation, I could have been more precise and a little more careful with the glue.
At first sight Baby Sis enjoyed lifting up the lids and touching the different surfaces. But her interest didn’t last long.
Since the first try we’ve been looking at the touchy-feely board but after a glance she moves away. Anyways, E. loved helping make it and she sometimes plays away with it for a while.Baby Sis might be interested in the board a little more in a few months time.
I can’t believe a year has gone! L. has turned 1.
We celebrated it in the circle of our extended family. I made a cake that she could eat (chestnut and cherry cake without an egg), but also ordered a raspberry mouse cake for the other family members. Both of them were appreciated, however, the chestnut cake was all gone by the next day , the mouse cake wasn’t.
A few words about our one year old:
She is still tiny. Size 74 is still a little too big. (she’s about 72 cms and 7.8 kg)
She is cute, cute and cute. She still smiles a lot, but when she’s bored, had enough or doesn’t like something she screams. She’s got a complaining tone of voice, which is very funny, occasionally annoying (mainly at dinner time).
She babbles a lot in a most varied way. She uses her hands to gesture and give emphasise to what she talks about.
No words, though. Sometimes we make fun of her when we can make some real words out of her babbling. But she’s trying. Words starting with ‘b’ are her favourite: book, boob, ball, bye. She calls them boooooo
She says something similar to duck, dog, ball . But I can’t say these are clear words. I couldn’t make out Hungarian words yet.
Her intonation is fantastic. She can copy us perfectly.
She understands everything in both languages. (She waves when we say hello, or bye-bye, she shows certain signs like ‘finished’, ‘milk’ or ‘more’)
She loves music. Sometime she cruises to her old baby swing and turns the music on and starts shaking her little bum. She also loves it and calms down whenever we sing to her. She enjoys pushing the buttons on noisy books or hitting her tiny xylophone.
She and E. take a bath together and L. imitates blowing whenever she wants bubbles. She does the same when she sees a candle, though she can’t blow it away.
Flashcards are very popular with her. After having enough of eating she points at the cards. Her favourite categories are animals and baby objects.
I’m really looking forward to this new year which, I hope, will have a lot of language development in store for us.
Here are our memories of December 2016. Every day I’ll add some picture or a story of the day. A nice memory to look back on. Some activities are in English some are in Hungarian.
1st Dec
Our advent calendar is on
2nd Dec
Activity from the advent calendar: a nutcracker puzzle. Of course we read the story too.
3rd Dec
Gingerbread party with our Hungarian friends
4th Dec Auchan shopping before Christmas. We got Auchan stickers and we made a good use of them.
Auchan Christmas tree
New play mats for Baby L. (E. put them together for her little sister)
5th Dec
Merry-go-round at the advent market with E.’s best friend. It was really chilly.
And waiting for St. Nicholas (Santa) to come. E. cleaned Baby Sis’s little shoes.
6th Dec
Opening loads of presents in the morning.
7th Dec
St. Nicholas (Santa) came to I.-Grandma too.
8th Dec
E. made a Christmas tree out of old number stickers. (I wrote numbers on a sheet and she had to put the right stickers on them. She gave it up half way, but I encouraged her to finish it.)
We walked the dog with E. and met a blind lady with her guide dog, Cloud. The 2 dogs were playing and E. was over the moon, running around, calling the dogs and giving them treats.
9th Dec E. got a new winter jacket and we went to the playground. L. fell asleep in the pushchair and there was some fun Mommy-and-big-daughter time.
E. opened the advent calendar with Daddy. They made a door wreath activity together.
10th Dec We went ice-skating in the morning but after 5 minutes E. changed her mind and didn’t want to ice-skate any longer.
The afternoon was about playing together and it was lots of fun. E. is getting better and better at Dobble:
The girls had a bath together for the first time 🙂 (no pictures of it… 😛 )
11th Dec Our pastor’s wife organised gingerbread decoration for the kids in the morning. We took some of our leftover decor pens and beads.
We had a board game afternoon. First, we played a little Dobble again, then E. found out a Fruit board game. You can read about how to play it in the instructions. Everything was her idea. I just drew the fruit. Baby Sis joined in… all she wanted to do was to eat the die.
It’s hard to read the instructions, so here they are: flower – throw again, x – miss a turn, a man – jump over, a fruit – name the fruit.
12th Dec
With my cleaning lady we tidied the kitchen cupboards and I gave away a lot of tea canisters and some mugs.
13th Dec
Helen Doron English session with L.
14th Dec
Not a very Christmassy art project, but these swans were E.’s own idea and she made the one on the left all by herself. Then I needed to follow her instruction and make a Daddy swan (on the right).
15th Dec
E. was at the grandparents and I managed to prepare for Christmas. Shopping and gift-wrapping is almost done.
16th Dec Christmassy domino game
We made a home-made Christmas present: nuts and dried fruit in a jar with honey.(In this blog post you can read about it in more detail – coming soon)
Our nanny, V. was here today and E. enjoyed her time with V. that she wanted her to stay for bath-time 😜
The girls have been enjoying their bath together so much.
17th Dec
Grandpa came and put on these 2 display bookshelves. E. wasn’t much interested as her favourite books are in her room next to her bed, but L. really enjoyed packing the books down and having a look at them.
18th Dec We did some Christmassy craft. Santa’s hat out of popsicle sticks and cotton balls.
At the beginning E. was enthusiastic, then we could hardly finish it. This was the day when the Angels stopped bringing her activities and fun tasks in the advent calendar. We hadn’t opened any of them since 12 Dec. E. didn’t want to… it took me a week to let go. 😩
19th Dec
We made Christmas tree ornaments as presents for 3 of our friends.
Then in the afternoon my best friend, B. (who talks to the kids in English only) came and we had a pre-Christmas celebration. E. got bath crayons as a present.
20th Dec
I bought a lovely teapot set for L. She loves when we sing I’m a little teapot at the breakfast table every day.
21st Dec E. and I selected some toys that she doesn’t like to play with any more and we offered it to a family where there won’t be presents under the tree for the kids.
22nd Dec No matter how hard I look for this day in my notes I find nothing 😕
23rd Dec
I selected the toys and put away 2 small and 1 big IKEA boxes of them before the Christmas presents (and Baby Sis’s birthday presents) arrive.
24th Dec
Christmas Eve
According to our traditions the Angels bring the decorated Christmas tree, then Baby Jesus puts the presents under the tree. With bells they signal when everything is ready. We opened the presents and played a lot.
25th Dec We celebrated Christmas at my Mom’s
26th Dec
We celebrated Christmas at my mother-in-law’s.
27th Dec
Chilling out and playing… not with the new toys though…
E.’s all time favourite: Water Friends
28th Dec
E. and L.’s godparents and their kid came over to celebrate Christmas together.
29th Dec We celebrated L.’s first birthday
30th Dec
I wrote an article about the present galore at this time of the year. The article is in Hungarian and published on the first week of 2017.
31st Dec
We were invited to a house party to celebrate the new year. We made some chocolate balls with coconut flakes for the “party”.
That was all our December. Next year we might be making a paper-based album with the girls.
When E. was a baby I wanted to write a post about what books we are using every 6-12 months. I didn’t. I feel it as a pity so I got a second chance with Baby Sis. Here it comes. The books we’ve been using in L.’s first year.
What you’ll be reading about:
cloth books
educational board books
touchy-feely books
noisy books
lift the flap books
+1 extra surprise
0-6 months
We mainly “read” cloth books. Or while Baby Sis was lying awake she was looking at the black and white images, like in this one. I also pointed at the pictures and said what was seen (daddy, baby, heart etc.)
It’s also important to mention that the Velcro on the book is TASTY. 😂
IKEA cloth books are great. Apart from looking at them I could make up a very simple story on the basis of the pics. They’re also interactive (you can pull out a rabbit from a black top hat)
Drugstore (DM) cloth books that crackle and rustle:
Maisy’s bedtime – We usually have a look at this booklet before bath time.
Ladybird series: Baby touch
The 2 on the top were E.’s favourite as a baby
E. as a baby, “reading”
L.’s favourite: Wiggle Jiggle Ladybird
It’s not an advertisement but I love Usborne books. Baby books by Usborne are simple, have great contrast and the images are cute. The touchy-feely books are not only pleasure to look at but also exciting for little fingers to touch the varied surfaces. Even my 4,5-year old loves to paw them. Here are what we have:
This is not the touchy and feely kind
Baby Sis is examining the fluffy bunny
6-12 months:
We on reading the books above and introduced some new ones:
Noisy books are number one (not so amusing for parents though after 15-20 minutes of quacking)
Old MacDonald will be a Christmas present
Lift the flap books are also fun to read with your little ones. My only problem is that they can get damaged easily as my kids try to peep under the flaps. Our favourites are the following:
The traditional song with a little twist. Here is a review from goodreads that I could have written:
“This time five monkeys are silly and not just mischievous. They jump on the bed of course, then they eat on the bed, swing on the bed, slide on the bed, and then spin on the bed.
Great fun for little ones and they love holding the cover with the monkeys heads made out of plastic for them to feel!”
L. loves to put her little finger through the holes. Sometimes a sing the original version. Sometimes with the funny activities like jumping,, swinging, sliding etc.
I hope you could find some ideas about what to read with your little one. Feel free to share what books you’re reading with this age group.
Non-native Mommy 