Author: nonnativemommy

Month of goodbyes – our nanny is leaving too

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Farewells follow one another. In the middle of May our American nanny has left us, too. She’s spent just a few months with us still her native presence can be felt on E.’ s English improvement.

E. mixed in a lot of Hungarian at the beginning. After a few weeks she did not try to talk to L. in Hungarian; she ran to me instead and asked me if an English word for something didn’t come to her mind.

We also prepared a little farewell present for L. as well.

L. helped E.’s creative side to soar; they drew a lot together, we did some flower crafts, they also created their own planet. The tally mark race was one of their own inventions.

We used most of the drawings and other colouring sheets they did together and I printed some pictures I’d taken while they were playing. Out of all these we put together a little memory booklet for L. to take it home with herself.

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves:

E. coloured the farewell note for L., too

L. is looking at the cover of the booklet that E. decorated with stickers
The snowdrop craft we made together

The “Lemia” planet they made up 

Secret Garden colouring page

 E. got some small presents from L. Some candies, a pup and two little figurines: a dolphin and a parrot.

Thanks L. for being with us. Take care and good luck wherever life takes you. We’ll miss you.

Goodbye, Ms R. – a farewell note

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Another heart-rending event has entered our lives. E.’s English speaking nursery teacher is leaving the nursery this May.

Ms R. was great with the kids. She’s taught them tons of English rhymes and songs. With her help the kids have made a great number of art and craft projects in English, too. She’s been always full of life and had a smile both for the children and the parents. (It was rather strange that Mini Klub nursery did not organise any farewell party for her… actually we were not officially informed about Ms. R.’s leaving. She herself told the parents. But this is another matter.)

We are really sorry that she’s leaving (for Ireland – good for her). This is the way we said good-bye to Ms R.

I printed a Farewell note (click on the link to download it) and E. coloured the animals. While colouring we were talking about these funny phrases that can be said instead of good-bye. She herself signed her name at the bottom and added some heart.

When I was in Ireland bought a really good guidebook and I thought Ms. R. would make a good use of it so together with E.’s good-bye note we put it in a gift back.

On her last day E. said good-bye to her in a sweet and shy way:

Bye, bye Ms R. Good luck in Ireland! We’ll miss you!

Irish for a day -St. Patrick’s Day Parade

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I know it’s already May but I owe a post on our St. Patrick’s Day, which was great fun with some activities at home and a parade in the city centre.

St. Patrick’s Day was on a Thursday this year but we didn’t have time to celebrate it on that day. Our celebration was left for the weekend.

We started our Sunday with some St. Patrick’s day activities I found online on totschooling.net (nowadays it’s easier for me to find something ready-made than making my own material like last year the St. Patrick’s Day patterning printable.)

Here is a part of the totschooling.net’s St. Paddy pack activities:

Do a dot rainbow:

If you do not have dot markers you can use cotton buds to paint the circles.
Making a rainbow as a writing practice:
Shamrock do-a-dots:
Puzzles with Irish symbols and numbers:

 

a horseshoe and shamrocks

 

leprechaun

Shape matching with pots of gold:

After the activities we got dressed in green,of course, and set off to the Parade in the city centre:
Family ready to go – all in green

Last year we made a shamrock out of all kinds of green scrap paper so this year I added a stick to the back. E. could take it with her and called it Mr. Shamrock.

And she got a clover on her face too.
Let’s not forget about the paper beard and Jameson balloon. (Daddy definitely enjoyed his free whiskey too 😉 )
Baby Sis was a good girl and on arrival at the Parade’s location she fell asleep.We did not join the parade as E. got really tired of the excitement and happenings. Instead we went to a playground nearby to swing a little:
E. was so dead on her feet that she fell asleep on the way home. It was a great family day out in English with fun activities and some culture involved. I hope we can repeat it next year as well.

Peony petals suncatcher

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I’ve seen tons of suncatcher ideas on pinterest and I’ve always wanted to try it with E. As the bunch of peonies I’d got from my mum for Mother’s Day started to lose their petals, the right time came to make our first sun catcher.

As it was a sudden idea when E. started to play (collect and cut) the fallen petals I didn’t have time for too much preparation.

I took out our sticky paper (originally it’s self-adhesive school book cover) and drew a flower on it (the transparent backside) with a permanent marker. (You can cut a flower shape outline out of paper and stick on the sticky side but I needed to be on the double). I pulled off the white part and fixed it on the table (with cello tape). I also presented some leftover yarn and green leaves on a tray apart from the petals.

E. did the sticking.

 

I wanted to talk about the different parts of the flowers but she wasn’t interested. Maybe at another time. She was too busy with the sticking.

Then when she told me she’d finished I put another sticky sheet over it (sticky side facing down) and cut along the flower outline.

The last thing E. needed to do was to stick the suncatcher on the window (with some Cello-tape, but you can also hang it)

I’m sure we’ll do some more suncatcher crafts.

Sorting rubbish – free printable

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Much to my surprise E. remembered last year’s home-made selective rubbish collection activity and asked for it again. I didn’t plan to do this sort of activity this year, but I was kinda gently forced. However, I prepared a follow up activity for her. (You can find the free printable at the end of the post)

So just like last year I collected some recyclable rubbish like plastic bottles, old newspapers and leaflets, egg carton, dog food cans and beer cans, bottles and containers made of glass etc. It wasn’t too difficult as we hadn’t emptied our own selective bins. I printed selective bin signs (plastic, paper, glass, metal) and stuck them on 4 shoe boxes. I prepared the recyclable rubbish in a plastic container (originally used for storing toys in it)

 

 

E. wasn’t as fascinated about it as last year but she did the selection (I might have given her too many items to sort.) This year we added a little twist.

I asked her how she can decide what is made of which material. She didn’t know.
I asked her while she was checking the objects:

– Can you rip it?
– Can you crumple it?
– Is it hard or can you squash it?

The bold words were new to her so when I asked these questions I showed her the actions.

So she tested every piece and then threw them in the right box. (Cartons were hard to rip but she tried anyway 🙂  )

While she was doing the sorting I told her how we use these materials to make other things, like new paper out of old cardboard and newspapers or shoes and backpacks out of plastic. She wasn’t talking much but I hope she listened.

 

To reinforce selective rubbish collection with another activity that is different from the one last year I made a worksheet for her.

She needed to place recyclable rubbish in one group and non-recyclable in the other one.

We needed to discuss that dirty napkins cannot go to the recycle bin but should be thrown into the households rubbish bin.

 

Done!

Download free printable for the sorting rubbish task. Just click on the link.