Author: nonnativemommy

Starting the nursery – Mini Klub

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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 Claus 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
//www.youtube.com/get_player



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.

Dem bones – the skeleton craze

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

(Around Halloween it is quite relevant)

E. got crazy about bones and skeletons. 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
Cotton bud skeleton craft can be reached in another post in more details.

fascinated by the skulls

 

gluing

 

sticking and pushing

 

final touch
finished

Child size skeleton puzzle
I found a child-size printable skeleton on a colouring site. You need to print about eight 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 our MEC Halloween party we had.

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

Happy Halloween!

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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:

Knock, knock trick or treat who are you?

Can you make a happy face?

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!!!

Not so scary crafts for Halloween

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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. I found this easy cutton bud skeleton craft idea on a fellow blogger mommy’s site. (Q-tip is the equivalent of cotton buds in the US)

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 🙂

Some more autumn crafts

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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:
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.