Author: nonnativemommy

"Take a photo" scavenger hunt (with free printable)

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In the middle of July we went up to the mountains. We were mainly in Hungarian up there but I wanted to have some English fun with E. As she’s into taking photos a lot nowadays I made her an ad hoc “take a photo” scavenger hunt activity.

The sheet I prepared is hand-made but I created a free printable out of it, which you can download at the end of this post.

E. can take better pictures than this
We went for an excursion to a lake. E. at first wasn’t very impressed with this activity, which surprised me to a great extent. But as we went along she got more and more excited.
All the photos were taken by her. Some are blurry some are absolutely gorgeous:
a bush with flowers

 

lake

 

Ms. Photographer

 

Invisible spider web

 

“log”, which is more like a tree trunk 😉

 

roots

 

she can’t use the zoom but the ducks are in the top right corner

She told me to add green plants on her scavenger hunt activity sheet:

green plants

 

blurry dragonfly as a bug

I also needed to add “stones and rocks” as it was E.’s wish

Rock with moss

 

stones

 

the look out tower

 

oak leaves

Unfortunately, she couldn’t take a photo of a butterfly as they never seemed to land. Anyways, this project was more than rewarding if you have a look at the pictures. I think we’ll cover some other topics in the near future, like babies, playground, market, just to mention a few.

Now click on the link to print your own “Take a photo” scavenger hunt activity sheet.

Baby Sis has turned 6 months old

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I haven’t really been able to write blog posts lately thanks to Baby Sis, who has turned out to be a “sticker child”. I thought separation anxiety starts around 8-9 months but no… it started when she was born.

Our 2nd 3 months went almost the same as the first 3, though everything seemed a little easier, like feeding, sleeping, daily routine etc. and it’s true for our English usage too.

But let’s not run ahead. Here is an update on the little lady:

She is about 65.5 cms long and 6.0 kgs. She is very active, moving around all the time even in her sleep. Boobs mean the world to her and whenever she starts crying she can be easily calmed on the boob. If she doesn’t get what she wants the screaming gets louder and loader and more desperate. She still doesn’t and can’t drink from a baby bottle and use a dummy. As opposed to her Big Sister who really liked both and wasn’t fascinated by the boob that much. (This is where I’ll stop comparing the girls)

I can no longer watch TV, read or chat with someone while she’s being fed as she gets distracted by EVERYTHING. She only allows me to sit quietly and do nothing. She even hits my phone out of my hand (she might have eyes on the back of her head…)

L. turned to her tummy just one day before her 5th month old birthday. Ever since then she’s been rolling all around. So much that one Monday she fell from our bed… on her head. In the morning rush we looked away for half a minute and she rolled like 1.80 metres and fell. We spent the whole day at the emergency room where several examinations were made (X-ray, sonogram etc) and luckily she was fine. Since then we’ve been putting her on the floor all the time.

If she’s on her back she’s kicking like a maniac. So sweet. She also noticed that she’s got two feet and LOVES them. Watching them, chewing her toes and comparing them with her hands.

I’ve always been against sleeping together with a child (I was mainly scared of lying on her, but I also find it unhealthy for the marriage) but Baby Sis begs to differ. She is unwilling to stay in her crib, even if I wait until she falls asleep. As soon as her little bum touches the bed and she can’t feel body warmth close to her she’s up screaming.

Magyarinda baby carrier

Daytime sleeping is done in an ergonomic baby carrier (Magyarinda) on Mummy during the week and on Daddy at weekends (Sometimes I wish I could buckle her up on the dog. 😉 ) Once in a while she falls asleep in the pram, but only for 20-30 minutes. We’re still practising it, though.

on holiday

She’s got 2 working modes: smiley or whiny. If she’s happy and contented she’s ALWAYS smiley, she even smiles at strangers, which might change in the near future. She’s very easy to cheer up. Whenever she sees her Big Sister her little face brightens immediately. She loves chatting with everybody, looking at the books on the book shelves (or on the floor), watching me drink from a bottle, slapping her hanging toys on the play mat and last but not least screaming.

The update got a little too long, but here comes what we do in English.

We regularly try to go to MEC (Mums’ English Club), where L. either sleeps or is on the boob or both at the same time. Okay, every now and then she plays with her new buddies.

I started to introduce her board books after the cloth books. You can find a list of baby books we’ve been using ever since E. was born. She seemed interested and enjoyed looking at the colourful pages.

I try to be a lot in English when E.’s home from the kindergarten. Baby Sis listens to our conversations but surprisingly E. talks to her sister in Hungarian. I always have to remind her that she also needs to talk to L. in English. But E. entertains her a lot.

She makes Baby Sis’s mobile move 

E. involves L. in her doctors pretend play

Reads her books
sisterly bonding

She tells her rhymes:

I myself try to read them in English (simple stories and rhymes) as much as I can:

Nursery rhymes after feeding

Sign language is another topic that I’d like to write a seperate blog post about. Mainly I use Makaton signs both in English and Hungarian (the same sign for the same idea) but also some American Signs and some of our own as well. Signing to babies help them to connect the spoken languages. If I say “enni” in Hungarian I show the same sign as I say “eat” in English, just to give you an idea.

I still do a lot of singing and I tell her several nursery rhymes. Her favourites are: Golden slumbers (and other lullabies) and Open, Shut them either when I do it with my hands or I move her little legs.

She also enjoys the following:
Finger family
Ba-ba black sheep
Humpty Dumpty
You’re my Sunshine
Ride a cock horse
I love you, you love me
This little pig went to the market
Round and round the garden
Head shoulders knees and toes
Here we go looby loo
Two little eyes:

When we play together it involves some balloons

some musical instruments like maracas and jingle bells

Some balls: colours and sizes
Sensory bottles for babies (later I’ll add a post on this topic too):

Apart from playing together in English, I should also mention the everyday activities, housework (just like with E.) we do in English when we are just the two of us at home like unloading the dishwasher, hanging the clothes to dry, going to the bakery or to the market. Of course, L. just watches me do the chores but I hope later on she’ll join in.

I report everything to her. I tell her all the time what I’m doing or where we are going. Sometimes I feel like I talk to myself all the time but then she gives me a smile as if she understood everything.

Easter 2016 summary

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It seems Easter time is the busiest in our life as I’m always late with the summary of our celebrations. This is the same this year too. It’s June already and I’ve just finished writing about our Easter 2016.

A few days before Easter we decorated our egg tree (catkins twigs). E. was very excited when we opened the Eater decoration boxes. She, almost all by herself, did the whole decoration. (Baby Sis was helping her out with some cooing)

She also found some earlier egg matching activity I had written about in an earlier post. Of course, she needed to do it quickly.

At this time we had been painting eggs for weeks. Most of them were blown-out eggshells therefore rather fragile. (I broke some of them after Easter time).

We also prepared some Styrofoam eggs as well. First, we painted them red, then, as E. was quite fascinated by the pins in my sewing kit box, I let her decorate her red egg with multicoloured pins.

As always E. (and this time Baby Sis, too) was sprinkled by some family members (Daddy and Grandpa) as well as Godfather in the morning. She was well prepared in her rabbit costume.

Sprinkling from Daddy

Kisses to Grandpa

Later on we went to the playground. Daddy ran ahead and hid some presents in the grass while we were slowly walking towards the area. By the time we arrived we saw Daddy quarreling with an 8-10 year boy and his mum as the boy had taken away and almost opened one of the eggs. Nice beginning… Luckily everything was calm and quiet when we arrived and E. could look for her presents.

collecting

a bit of reading

finishing the egg hunt with swinging

This year these were the presents:

  • a Green eggs and ham By Dr. Seuss
  • a Shopkins egg
  • a Smarties egg
  • a Hello Kitty dining room set
  • a tiny stapler
  • hair bobbles hidden in a plastic egg (not in the picture)
  • gummies hidden in a plastic egg (not in the picture)

All in all, our Easter was great with lots of Hungarian and a little English, but we all enjoyed ourselves.

E. is 4 – oh my, when did she grow so much?

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Writing about Baby Sis’s growing and development made me realised that I haven’t had time to write about my big, big girl. So here is and update on her too.

E. is 104 cms and 15,5 kgs.
Her favourite colours are pink and purple.
Her favourite piece of clothing is the purple blouse with the big butterfly on.

Easter mess in the favourite top

Her favourite foods are tomato soup, pasta, millet, chicken soup and chicken’s feet, meat in bread crumbs, salmon, and cheese.
Her favourite drinks are apple juice and “sour cherry liqueur” (cherry juice), oat milk with magic milk straw -strawberry, vanilla and chocolate flavoured (in this order).

Her favourite book is “Minden napra egy kérdés” (Hungarian) and “The KnowHow Book of Fishing” in English (But this is changing every other week.)

Her favourite cartoon is Paw Patrol.

Her favourite youtube video is the singing fruits.

Her best friend is D., from the nursery.

Picnic with BF

Her favourite season is the summer.

She sleeps with her 5 toy dogs, 3 owls and 2 rabbits but skips the afternoon nap.

Her new hobby is taking photos. (Once she dropped the camera but luckily Daddy managed to have it fixed)

As for her English, she’s fluent but uses rather basic vocabulary and structures. She often searches for some words to express herself. Luckily, most of the time they come to her mind. Her Hungarian is much more varied and she can express herself more easily. (Since she started the kindergarten her Hungarian has been rocketing and her English has been falling behind or staying on the same level to say the best. Unfortunately, kindergarten – Mini Klub – English is very basic and doesn’t help her improve at all. We said good-bye to the English speaking nursery teacher, Ms. R. who really did everything to make E. talk in English but the new one. Ms K. doesn’t make the least effort, not to mention the fact that I haven’t even heard her talk English at all since May. The fact that she’s always on holiday is also worrying. UPDATE: Ms K. left the nursery in August and the new English speaking nursery teacher is Ms. I.)

She doesn’t play in English as her choice, but has no problem whatsoever to communicate with a native speaker. Since the beginning of the year we’ve  had native nannies (the American, L. and now the Canadian, V.) They have been coming twice a week for 90 minutes per session. Most of the time they play with building blocks, balls and the caterpillar tunnel, modelling clay, kitchen and cooking or they read books.

She changes between the two language without any problem, form one minute to the other.

We don’t use flashcards any more (though we should) only every now and then E. finds them and looks through a few topics. As I’m introducing flashcards for Baby Sis we’ll probably have a little revision with E. too.

Little Ms. Teacher showing flashcards to Baby Sis

She can read and write. She’s been reading since she was a bit over 3. At that time just a few words, later more difficult words and simple sentences. But now she reads fluently. Her reading in Hungarian is outstanding (like grade 3 or 4) but she can read basic stories in English as well.

reading Dr. Dog

She mostly write in Hungarian (as the spelling follows pronunciation) and occasionally in English of course with tons of spelling mistakes, which I don’t correct at all. I don’t even understand how she learnt to read in both languages… all by herself.

In this video she’s reading a part from I’m not reading  {HAHA} by Jonathan Allen (one of her favourite books and author I guess)

Every now and them E. refuses to talk in English (the reason I guess is that she can’t express herself so smoothly as in Hungarian, and the other reason is that everything happens to her in Hungarian.)

Tricks I use to redirect her to using the English language:

  • books in English (she’s a bookworm, thank Goodness)
  • songs (this doesn’t work well any more, she refuses to sing or sings VERY rarely – don’t know why, though)
  • fun activities like cooking together (I tell her the recipe’s in English so we need to change)
  • helpers (our new nanny, and my friend who speaks English only to the kids)
  • videos (she loves watching cartoons, music videos so she can watch her favourite ones in English.)
  • she can get an extra smiley on her behaviour chart if we spend a whole morning and/or afternoon in English

For a few weeks I tried to speak only English when we were at home as I was really desperate about our irregular and little English usage. We don’t have a fixed timetable as we used to have and sadly it’s also true for Baby Sis. For this reason I thought I could increase our English time in this way but it didn’t work. All of us mixed languages, there was not consistent usage (even I forgot sometimes that I needed to speak English at all times). I found that it could cause problems, for Baby Sis. So I returned to the English activities and fun tasks, English books for E., and a lot of singing and nursery rhymes for Baby Sis.

And that’s all my stock-in-trade. If you have an idea what else to do to motivate a child for the second language usage, please, share it with me in the comment section.

So here is my smart 4-year old daughter with all her beauty and shyness. I love you, Sweetie Pie!

A bit of Earth Day gardening

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Before our American native nanny left Hungary we had a flower planting last session with her. Although I wanted to do this activity on Earth Day, the weather did not favour us so we had to postpone it for a few weeks.

I bought the plants at a flower market that is close to our place: 6 flowers and  a green plant:


Verbena
Snapdragon
Marigold
Periwinkle
Petunia
Dakota Sunspot
White-edged Swedish Ivy (a kind of mosquito repellent with leaves that has special smell if you rub it, no flower though)

 

 

You can download the flower picture here. (Buttercup is also included as E. found one in a field and we needed to check what it was). The names are added both in Hungarian and in English.

 

What you need:

  • flowers/plants of your choice
  • flower pots
  • soil (we had 5 kg for 7 plants)
  • shovels
  • watering can with water
How we did it:
Best to do it in the garden or on the balcony but the weather has been very windy (still is) so I put down an old wax tablecloth on the floor and we did the planting on it indoors. In this way we did not dirt the whole living-room and it was relatively easier to clean up.
E. doesn’t really like to dirt her hands. I try to come up with ideas when she needs to do so in a fun way so she can overcome this bad feeling of dirty hands.
She touched the soil/dirt with great hesitation, though.
We filled up half of a pot with dirt.
She took the plants out of its small pot and pinched off some ends of its roots (it was L.’s advice that she’d learnt from her mom)

 

Then, she placed the plant into the bigger pot in the new soil after having created a little hole in the middle and added more dirt on top of the roots.
We have some nice blue buckets which can be hung on our balcony so the final step was that E. put the pot in the bucket.
When we were ready with all the plants she took them all out onto the balcony and hung them up.
Let’s not forget about watering the plants.

For a few days she wanted to go out and water them, but now it’s been a week she last saw her plants. I need to water them, but it’s true that a lot has been going on recently because of her birthday. Not to mention the fact that this strong wind we’ve had nowadays has destroyed the flowers and, to be honest, they are far from nice at the very moment. I can only hope a little later they’ll revive when the weather gets better and E. will show some more interest in them.

All in all, it was great fun, a nice way to have one of our last sessions with our nanny, L. I admit it was quite messy, but E. enjoyed it and learnt a lot about planting, getting your hands dirty, decorating our home and taking care of a living creature.

Her English vocabulary expanded: she learnt quite many synonyms like shoots/sprouts, spade/shovel, throw away/dump, soil/dirt. (For the Hungarian readers: when she told Daddy about our planting project she said: .” …aztán koszt raktunk a cserépbe”)

What gardening project do you do with your kids in the spring? I’m looking forward to your answers in the comment section so we can do something new next year.