Author: nonnativemommy

Merry Christmas

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I’ve been really busy lately: we’ve had some illneses and I started to learn Spanish, which kept me away from the blog. But next year I’ll catch up. Promise… to myself mainly.

Of course, the last few months have been full of preparation for celebrations (Thanksgiving, Advent, birthdays, Santa Claus day – the Hungarian speciality – and Christmas). We had a lot of English usage in connection with these and in our everyday life too.

Santa arrived on 6th December

Shapes are in – a post will be comming soon on the topic.

Food shapes

We still take part in Helen Doron English sessions – some negative, some positve expereinces. Might share with you later, too.

E. is getting more and more interested in numbers (big numbers in the first place) and letters as well. I’ll also write about how far we’ve got and what we are doing with letters and numbers.

Andvent calendar and its numbers

We’ve put a hold on flashcards as E. doesn’t seem to be excited about them any more (sometimes we do a little revision), and as she speaks continuously and more or less fluently (3-6 word sentences) with a wide range of vocabulary, flashcards are pointless in introducing something new to her. (I have some ideas of car logos, starsigns and Christmas vocab, but she knows a lot about these things aready)

Baking gingerbread was one of the highlights of this season – the time when she learnt how to pose and say ‘cheese’ when someone takes a photo of her.

Is it going to be a Gingerbread man?

Thank you for following us, and giving your feedback.

I wish you and your family a very Happy Christmas and a successful New Year with a lot of second (or third) language.

At night

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Teething is a hard period both for mommy and baby. Still, some sleepless nights are spent with a little English.

It started two months ago when E. first started to call me in English at night. Her tooth didn’t let her sleep, so she cried out for Mommy: – Mommy, coming, E. get out.
When I went in I asked her in English what the problem was. She replied in English: – Drink.
So I gave her water. Then when she stopped drinking, said: – Enough. She also asked for her Doggie and nappy, which she always sleeps with, in English.

So after this experience, whenever she wakes up during the night and asks for me to go into her room I use the language (either Hungarian or English) she talks to me. (It’s about 50-50%)

She’s had some funny night comments since we “speak” in English during the night:

  • She is so heavy it is easier for me to hold her while we are sitting in the rocking chair. I was holding her once and she said: – Not comfy. Then I changed her position and she was satisfied.
  • Another night I was holding her but she wanted to get away from me, and when I asked her what she wanted, she pointed to the floor and said: – Dummy, there.
  • I was singing to her one night – English songs -, but when I wanted to sing something else she said: – No, no. Every time I wanted to sing something else she said no-no. So I had to sing two songs for half an hour:

    Lavender’s Blue

http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/WEcumL2mtcM&source=uds

          Stars shining (I couldn’t attach the video but you can find it on youtube if you search for “Stars shining – a lullaby”

Mind you, I do not talk to her during the night if it is not necessary, but sometimes a little communication is important, and if we do not sleep at least we have a little language practice.

More flashcards – clothes, dogs, birds and more

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I coloured the clothes flashcards, but that was the end. I’m not going to colour more cards… I’ve had enough. So I asked D. to have them printed on the way home from work. And here they are!
I just needed to laminate and cut them up. It was easy-peasy. What’s more, they look more professional 😉

So here are some ideas what to do with the clothes cards:

  1. just show them one by one saying their name
  2. show the real items and match them with the card (once I lay down and E. put the clothes cards -the items I was wearing- on me. It was a little chill-out time for me 🙂 this is why I have no picture of this activity)
  3. group them according colour, sex or where we put them on (upper-body/lower-body, feet etc.)
  4. put together matching outfits: white and red hat, red jumper, blue jeans and red boots or orange blouse, yellow skirt and brown sandals (she got some weird combinations too: bra, slippers, tights).
  5. select the ones you can wear in the swimming pool, or what daddy wears at work, what we wear when it rains etc. – kind of situational usage of clothing

I was fed up saying “It’s a doggy” while we were walking in the street and saw different breeds of dogs. It must be strange for a child to see a Westie and a Bernese Mountain dog and hear that Mommy calls both of them a dog.

And what we do with the doggie cards:

  1. just show them one by one and say their names
  2. identify the size, colour and length of their fur
  3. group them according to colour, having a tail or not, met them in our area or not
  4. give them dog names (we have the picture of our dog, M. and at Grandma’s place she’s got a plush dog called Bobby, and a sleeping toy called Morzsi, so after naming all the dogs we know we give the other dogs different names. We’ve got a lot of Bobbies, some Georges – after Peppa Pig’s brother etc.)
  5. pat and stroke (E. picks few dogs and pat them or stroke them, nowadays she started to kiss everybody and everything, so the dogs cannot miss her kisses)

Bird cards: – we haven’t used them, but I plan the following activities:

  1. just show them one by one saying their name
  2. identify the colours on them
  3. listen to the sounds they make on youtube (I put together a playlist on youtube with the sounds of the birds – She loved the sound of jays so much she laughed out loud)
Bird cards in autumn light

    Household appliances:

    I cannot add anything new to the activities we do with these cards. Sometimes E. takes the washing machine card to our washing machine and throws it inside. 🙂

    Insects:

    The ‘nice’, not too disgusting insects

    I have made some more cards in the topics we already had as well as new ones. E. loves them but gets bored of them quickly (she knows all the dogs and clothes already…) so we have baby objects, furniture, vehicles and famous building flashcards too. If I have time I’ll take photos of them too. However, we do the same things with them. And there are more to come: tools, kitchen utensils, geographical features, famous people, paintings – just to mention some which are on my mind.

      What’s the weather like?

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      The weather is getting more and more changeable. So here is how we deal with it.

      I found some really inspirational ideas on this blog about displaying what the weather is like in a child’s room. So I’ve made it myself too, but I’ll do the date and days later on, introducing them gradually, just like the feelings.

      In the mornings we look out of the window (She points at the window and says “window”) and look at the sky. I tell her if it’s sunny or cloudy, rainy or windy.

      First, I drew some of the weather features on the window pane with special Crayola Window Crayons On the other window we have some other pictures: a butterfly, some fruits and bugs etc. E. loves to look at these as well, so I don’t want to wipe them.

      To make the weather display a little bit more interactive, I made this:

      I printed the weather pictures from this blog and laminated them.

       After that I glued them on  special magnet sheets that can be cut (and one side is sticky).

      We had this old and rusty steel tray (lucky I didn’t throw it away) and its back served as the display surface.  (With two sided sticky tape I fixed it on the wall.)

      I put green and yellow stripy electrical tape on the sides because of the rusty edge. I placed the weather board in the living room next to E.’s toy boxes and books. I wrote: Today it’s … and E. is … with a permanent marker.

      Location

      Every morning after looking out of the window and checking the weather (“It’s rainy today” or “It’s sunny, but there are some clouds in the sky”, “Look at the trees, it’s very windy today” etc.) we go to the display and E. puts on the weather signs and how she feels (mostly happy). She needs time to understand the concept of changing weather and feelings (I have more heads showing feeling I’ll add them gradually)

      First, she put all the magnets everywhere, but the time will come when she can do it on her own without my help.

      When we have time and the weather changes we go back to the display and add or change something if it’s necessary. She enjoys it a lot. Whatever involves magnets, she is into it.

      

      Final result

      Days and the date are coming soon.

      Over 100 words

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      E. turned 16 months on Monday and I am not exaggerating if I say she can use much more than 100 words in each language (Hungarian and English).

      The calculation was done by D. He added up all the functional language (thanking, asking, giving, objecting, greetings etc.) and words of different topics we’ve been dealing with (see the collection bellow) and the sum must be over 100 words, getting closer to 200.

      Now I’m collecting the ones that E. uses confidently in the right context (and not just parroting them or not the ones she understands because in this case there are a thousand words, I guess). Of course, these words and expressions are not 100 % clear. (She tends to pronounce the “k”  sound  “p”, the “g” sound “b” or the vowels sometimes melt into one another). Still, it’s her great achievement.

      Now I’m trying to focus on her English only:

      Peek-a-boo

      Functional language:

      • Thank you
      • Please
      • Pick it up
      • Here you are
      • There (if she wants to go somewhere)
      • Let’s go
      • Come on
      • Bye-bye
      • Hi/Hello
      • Don’t like it
      • Like it
      • Cheers (when drinking)
      • Up
      • Out (of the playpen or high chair)
      • not comfy (on the potty)
      • Oops (when something is fallen)
      • Oh, no! (when something goes wrong)
      • Peek-a-boo (when she hides behind the curtain)

      Family members:

      • mommy
      • daddy
      • granny
      • papa (for grandpa)
      • baby
      • + names of our family members (7 people), our native nanny (A.) and my best friend (B.)

      Animals: (if she doesn’t know the name of the animal she says the sounds they make)

      • doggie
        Our poor mixed-breed
      • froggie
      • cat/kitty
      • cow
      • sheep
      • kangaroo
      • hippo
      • bear
      • mouse
      • rat
      • panda
      • butterfly
      • ladybird
      • bee
      • pig
      • duck
      • ant
      • turtle
      • whale
      • dino

      Fruit:

      Window pictures
      • apple
      • pear
      • grapes (a bunch of grapes)
      • banana
      • kiwi
      • orange
      • plum
      • lemon
      • cherries
      • strawberries
      • apricot
      • peach
      • tomato
      • berry

      Vegetable:

      • aubergine
      • onion
      • potato
      • broccoli
      • mushroom
      • pumpkin

      Other foods:

      water
      • cheese
      • bread
      • salami
      • sausage
      • honey
      • water
      • milk
      • mayonnaise
      • ketchup
      • butter
      • yogurt
      • coffee
      • ice creme
      • ricecake

      Flowers:

      • peony
      • lilac
      • begonia
      • pansy
      • daisy
      Flag of Portugal – E.’s favourite right now

      Countries/Flags/:

      • Norway
      • Belgium
      • Portugal
      • Hungary
      • the European Union
      • Turkey
      • Italy

      Colours: (the clearest utterances)

        • red
        • orange
        • yellow
        • green
        • blue
        • purple
        • pink
        • black
        • white
        • grey
      Bubbles
      • brown

      Shapes:

      • oval
      • triangle
      • heart
      • star
      • pentagon
      • rectangle

      Everyday object/Toys:

      • spoon
      • plate
      • knife
      • fork
      • bottle
      • kitchen
      • teddy
      • book
      • playground
      • sandpit
      • bath
      • colour pencil
        drawing a star
      • crayon
      • paper
      • drawing
      • nappy
      • creme
      • toothbrush
      • man (a plastic figurine)
      • clock
      • high chair
      • door
      • playpen
        Sandpit
      • video
      • dummy
      • potty
      • poopy
      • pee pee
      • peg
      • mill
      • car
      • choo-choo train
      • ball
      • puddle
      • big
      • bubbles
      • bin
      • balloon
      • sun
      • cloud
      Hat and jeans

      Clothes:

      • jacket
      • slippers
      • hat
      • trousers
      • jeans
      • shoes
      • cardigan
      • boots
      • pyjamas
      • socks

      Body parts:

      • head
      • pinkie
      • nose
      • ear
      • knee
      • mouth
      • toe
      • eyes

      Musical instruments: (she’s not so intereted in this topic although she is quite musical)

      • drum
      • piano

      Breeds of dog: (I introduced some dog flashcards 3 days ago)

      • Westie
      • Shar-pei
      • bulldog
      • puli
      • mixed breed

      E. is making up more and more combinations, like big puddle, red pinkie (for polished fingernails), purple plum, pencil drawing, banana yogurt, black doggie etc.

      If it goes like this, in two more months she’ll say sentences. She’s amazing, a little genius. Am I proud? Hard to say how much 🙂