E.’s list is a little shorter as we’ve started to read chapter books. What’s more, we read them like 3-4 times as she couldn’t get enough of them. A real bookworm. Little L.’s list is longer as she enjoyed the many books she got for Christmas and hadn’t had time to read them due to the busy holiday seasons.
I read for E. before the afternoon nap time when she’s home and before bedtime. L. doesn’t hear these stories as she is too young for these books. But E. is present when I read the books for L.
Colour codes: E.’s favourite, L.’s favourite, Both loved it
E., 5 y 8 m old
Gulliver’s Travels (Usborne)
The story covers only Gulliver’s travel to Lilliput. The story is divided into chapters. It is large print and the language is quite easy so E. could read it for herself. We read it twice and I suppose instead of getting dressed in the morning before leaving for the kindergarten she read it once more.
Jack Frost by Kazuno Kohara
A classic winter story about a little boy who hates winter as he misses company. But then he meets Jack Frost and they have lots of fun. There is one rule only, he shouldn’t mention anything warm or Jack will disappear. Can he manage?
Stick Man by Julia Donaldson
Another winter story. Unfortunately E. didn’t enjoy as much as I did. What a pity as it is a really funny book about Stick man who gets involved some dangerous adventures when a dog wants to play with him or when a boy uses him as an arm for his snowman.
The Wizard of Oz (Usborne)
Another chapter book for E. The same applies here as in case of Gulliver’s travel. A classic story in an easily readable form. I needed to read it 4 times and E. read it another 2. I think her interest escalated when I told her the story of one of my carnivals when my whole class got dressed as the characters in the Wizard of Oz.
Quarks by Ruth Spiro
As we live together with a scientist, I had to buy this book at full price. But it was worth it. It is a baby book but not so much. In a very simple way and with wonderful illustrations atom and molecule structures
The Giraffe, the Pelly, and Me by Roald Dahl (the absolute favourite of the moths!)
An absolutely fantastic and a typical Roald Dahl book. The story is about 3 window cleaners who get the best job in the world. While starting to the job they catch a burglar. We read it 3 times and I was about to make some activities to elaborate some outstanding vocabulary of the book, but alas I had no time. I might try to do it at another time.
L., 2 y 1 m old
Tough Trucks by Tony Mitten
As Little L. is into vehicles this book is the absolute favourite for her. But E. liked it. I can’t recall how many time we read it but approximately 50-60 time minimum. The book presents big vehicles like trucks, articulated trucks, refuse trucks, tow-away trucks and so on. The description is rhyming and the CD that goes with it is really handy. I was especially delighted as the book uses British English vocabulary. After a while L. could finish the end of each line (the rhyming pairs mainly). E. knows the whole book by heart.
The Snow Storm
I love Usborne book, and this farmyard series is so close to my heart. Not for my kids. E. was not interested in it after the first read. Little L. wanted to see only the lamb in the bush (that was born under the hedge). Nice illustration and a fun snowy book though.
You can do it, Sam
L.’s other favourite after Tough Trucks. The story is about a little bear who prepares cakes early in the morning with his mum and deliver them to their friends as a surprise. The little bear needs to be very brave as he hast to take the cakes from the truck to the doorsteps in the big snow. Mama Bear say “of course” several time during the story. Every time L. added “second course” because for her these 2 phrases sound so similar. 🙂
Maisy goes shopping by Lucy Cousins
Maisy is still in. Read it a million time. As much as they don’t like Peppa Pig, they adore Maisy. l. compared herself and E. to Charley and Maisy. Charley who’s got a bike in the story was E. and she, herself was Maisy. She rides a tricycle.
10 chuckling ducklings by Sally Crabtree
A typical count-backwards board book with plastic 3-D ducks on each page. There is also a button to push to hear the quack-ing. For me it was too much for the kids… well, they were fighting for the button to push or to finger the ducks.
Getting dressed (Mark and Spencer)
A board book teaching kids the order of getting dressed. You can touch different items of clothing. The story is in rhymes. Both kids like the sensory books so a lot of argument was involved around this book too.
A birthday for boots
L.’s been interested in counting lately hence the second count-backwards book. This was E.’s first favourite Dora book. She liked the stories I told her about the time when we’d read it together. L. learnt some of the Spanish numbers from this book. And of course, the shout at the same time: Swiper, no swiping!
This is my puppy (Usborne)
Touchy-feely puppy board book that examines every important dog parts: ears, paws, tail, nose adding a touchy-feely experience and the joy of making the doggie woof-woof with the button.
Fox’s Socks by Julia Donaldson
Little L. enjoyed this board book as well. Julia Donaldson’s rhymes are so easy to learn that she could say the rhyming pairs after a few reads. Lifting the flaps adds to the fun. No wonder the fox finds his clothes in strange places. E.: – Mommy, this fox is very untidy.
Last December E. made some bird feeders at her one-day winter camp. She loved the idea of feeding the birds when they have real difficulty in getting any food during winter so much we needed to make some more.
The first bird feeder idea came from our Helen Doron school.
PINECONE+PEANUT BUTTER BIRD FEEDER
What you need:
pine cones (you can buy them but easier to collect your own)
peanut butter (of any kind)
seeds (you can buy canary food in a pet shop, but we mixed our own: corn, sunflower seeds, millets, smashed walnut, sultanas, dried cranberries)
knife
thread
bowl
How to make it:
Mix the seeds, dried fruit, nuts in a bowl
Spread the peanut butter with the knife between the scales of the cone
Roll the cone into the seed bowl
Tie a string or thread so you can hang it up on bushes or trees
Go to your garden, balcony or, as we did it, into a park nearby and hang out your bird feeders
We went back to check on the bird feeder and seeing the seeds and the peanut butter disappear gave E. tremendous joy.
We made the pinecones with our native nanny, N, in English. We spread them around E.’s kindergarten area with I.-Grandma in Hungarian. When we went back to check them we were in English again. So we covered a lot of vocabulary in both languages. (bird feeder, seeds, corn, hang out, hide, quiet-busy, visible, don’t migrate, robin, blackbird, finch etc.)
TANGERINE RIND BIRD FEEDER
What you need:
The same as above except for the pine cone and the thread. After pressing some orange/tangerine juice for the girls I kept the rind. Quite a lot of seed mixture remained from the previous bird feeder project so we used it.
How to make it:
Take the pressed out tangerine (or orange) rind and line it with peanut butter.
Sprinkle the seed mixture in it
Place it on and under bushes or just in your patio or on your balcony.
Return to check how fast the seeds are eaten up.
In the second case again we made the little feeders in English and the next day we went out into the snow to play (we were in Hungarian) and put out the tangerine bird feeders.
It’s a lovely winter project even with little kids and you can save the tiny song birds that do not migrate in the long, cold winter. Through this topic you can build your children empathy and teach them how to take care of nature and its creatures.
We do NOT really celebrate New Year’s Eve in our family. The reasons are numerous, but for the kids I wanted to make it a special day.
For Christmas both of them got a magnetic wand with some colourful discs. I printed a 2018 do-a-dot sheet, one for each girl. They helped me separate the discs according to colours.
They started to put the disc on the numbers.
Well, Little L. was not very interested in this activity… within 1 minute she started to throw the discs away. Therefore I decided to give her the dotmarkers and she painted for max. 2-3 minutes.
As for E., she placed the discs very accurately on the circles. She chose to use different colours for each number.
When she finished, she collected her discs with the magnetic wand and coloured her 2018 with dot markers.
During the evening we played a lot together with the toys they got for Christmas and for L.’s second birthday.
Lucky, we have Baby Sis’ birthday at the end of December. We had plenty of balloons to play with. Even in the bath. (Not for long though as E. freaked out about the fact that the balloons might pop)
Instead of the balloons we had sparklers during their bath-time, which also made the day a little different from the others.
(No pictures, sorry)
We had a fun evening that finished at about half past 10.
Last year I started a hopefully long tradition: taking note of daily memories of December, the advent period, our Christmas itself, the days between holidays and New Years Eve too. Here is the last year’s post.
Now come all the memories of December 2017 day by day in one long post. (This year we’ll be making a paper-based memory booklet as well.)
1st December
The kids were at their grandparents and the Angels have brought us the advent calendar.
This year the main theme is decorating a Christmas tree with stickers. It’s great as both girls can do it and enjoy it.
Our advent “wreath” is ready. It’s evident we didn’t have much time for it this year either. Perhaps next year.
2nd December
In the morning we had a family photo shoot in our home. See the photo collage a little further down.
Our annual Gingerbread Party was in full swing by the afternoon. Friends came over and we made and decorated more than a kilo of gingerbread (this time it was dairy- and egg-free. If you’re interested in the recipe, just drop me a line. It’s really tasty and soft.)
Gingerbread teamIn the making
When all our guests were gone E. did the washing of the cookie cutters all by herself.
Mommy’s little helperAnd we had some more fun at the dinner table. E. made sure L. can’t take out her hair clip(s).
3rd December
In the morning we went to buy winter boots for E. as this week it’s started to snow.
We lit the first candle on our Advent wreath today.
E. has been singing 12 Days of Christmas all day in birdy voice. (Check out this short video if you want to hear how a bird sings 12 Days of Christmas)
We’ve been playing with the choo-choo train nearly all afternoon.
E. read The Gingerbread Man for L.
I read How the Grinch stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss to E. as a bedtime story.
This was a quiet day. E. was in kindergarten and I was running errands. Little L. spent the whole day at her Grandma. We picked E. up from kindergarten together and we immediately changed into English.
At home E. found an old English writing practice book and started to work on it.
L. was walking around in her pretty red shoes the heels of which light up.
Of course, more stickers got on our Christmas tree.
5th December
In the morning Little L. and I went to the Helen Doron English session (Toddler’s Best Start is the name of our new course) which she enjoyed a lot because our new topic was vehicles (trucks, cars, trains, planes) L.’s been crazy about them lately.
But the highlight of the day was the play performed by E.’s kindergarten teachers – St Nick’s glove. It was a cute and loveable show.
My Mum was taking care of Little L while we were watching the play in the kindergarten. After having arrived home the kids opened some presents that St. Nicolas had brought to their grandma’s house.
In the evening the girls cleaned their boots and put them out into the window waiting for St. Nick to fill them with goodies. E. was really excited. She wanted to stay up to have a look at Santa.
6th December
I didn’t have to say twice to the kids to get out of bed in the morning. Within a blink of an eye they were in the living-room checking their boots.
They opened their gifts with great excitement. Although we were in Hungarian, they got books, and activities in English, some toys and sweets.
Our native nanny, N. was here in the morning and they tried to paint a magic booklet L. just got from Santa.
E. met “the real Santa” (as she put it) in her kindergarten.
In the afternoon Little L. met St. Nick in our main square. At first she was a little scared but then she got a candy (szaloncukor) and she kept saying she wanted to go back. We were in English but Santa and his helpers, of course, spoke Hungarian, still Little L. talked to me in English.
We didn’t stay out much as it was very cold and windy. All the way home L. buried her little face in my shoulder. At home we made Santa’s beard out of cotton wool balls.
7th December
We had some healthy snacks, like raw broccoli in the market and dried cranberries at home.
Our native nanny was here and E. showed her what she got from Santa.
In the advent calendar we found an instruction to put some Christmas lights on the windows. (If I can take a photo of it I’ll attach later on)
8th December
I was brave enough to give E. our paper-based Days of December album. She was cutting out some photos and I glued them in, but what she enjoyed the most was putting stickers all over the album.
9th December
In the morning we went shopping with E. as she’d grown so much that all her leggings are short, her socks are too small.
Fooling around in the changing room
We were invited to our Helen Doron school to make some advent crafts. I’ve written a separate blog post on it.
10th December
We lit the second candle on our advent wreath.
The girls improvised dot-market painting. The end result looked like Christmas lights.
The girls had been eating so much sweets all day that I made them an obstacle race field in our living room where they could burn their energies.
We’ve started to prepare some Christmas presents and cards with E.
We received our Christmas photos. They turned out pretty well.
11th December
Our Advent Christmas tree is getting nicer and nicer with all kinds of stickers.
We finished some greeting cards for Christmas with the girls. (I’ll be writing a separate blog post on the cards and the baubles.)
12th December
Gingerbread party in the kindergarten. L. is a little snotty so she didn’t come but enjoyed the company of her grandma and grandpa. We could spend the day together with E. in her kindergarten.
What she enjoyed the most was she could show me her favourite toys and we could play together both inside and outside, in the playground. After lunch we came home and took a nap. Next we prepared some Christmas baubles we’ll give to her teachers and friends.
13th December
Last Helen Doron lessons of this year for the girls.
Little L. surprised her teacher, Z., with Christmas presents (a Christmassy pen and a Christmas card that we’d made with her hand-and fingerprint) and she said Merry Christmas in the morning.
E. gave her Christmas present to Zs. (her Helen Doron teacher) in the afternoon after her lesson. It was a Christmassy pen, the green-yellow bauble we’d made the day before and her hand Christmas tree card. She wrote Merry Christmas inside.
Zs. sent me how her bauble looks on her Christmas tree.
In the afternoon we went on to make some more Christmas presents.
With Little L. we made Christmas tree decorations out of air-dry clay and sequins.
With E. we made a clay hand-shaped , which I’d been planning to make for a long time but we didn’t have the time for it (see the source and step-by-step instructions of the idea on the link above).
They are all waiting to dry:
14th December
Our English-speaking friends visited us. In the morning my friend, B., who speaks only English to the girls, came over and played with E. and L.. She also stayed for lunch too. The kids were excited and a little ill so the whole morning was chaotic and tense. Still, we survived and spent the morning in the company of a much-loved friend.
After nap time N, our native nanny came to have our last session this year. On Tuesday E. invited her for dinner, so she stayed to dine with us. E. gave N. our little mainly home-made Christmas presents
E. is explaining what she put in the bauble
and the girls also got a really pretty Christmas card with N.’s poem written directly to E. and L. How sweet is that?
15th December
I was preparing for Christmas while the girls spent the day at their grandparents. Both of them have a runny nose. I and my hubby are coming down with the same illness. At least we’re done with it until Christmas. (Fingers crossed)
I was lucky enough to buy white and silver lackmarker with which I’ll be able to decorate out Days of December album.
16th December
L. was really early bird, got up at 5, I managed to keep her quiet and in bed for an hour, hoping for her falling back to sleep but she didn’t. So we started cooking together. She woke up talking to me English. What a nice start, only if it had been at about 8.
When E. got up we prepared her best friend’s present for Christmas. She wanted to save the tatoo for herself, and of course, I needed to apply some body art immediately for both of them (Actually this was L.’s first tattoo ever.)
What’s more, we found some self-adhesive earrings. The girls got all pretty when they went to the library with their Dad.
In the afternoon we went out to buy infrared heat lamp as we are not getting better as for our health. And of course, we just couldn’t miss out on the choo-choo train in the shopping mall.
Late at night I put together the yearly photo book gift for the grandparents.
17th December
Literally, nothing happened today apart from lighting the 3rd candle. Well, it not totally true. In the afternoon I went to meet my friends. A little bit of me time is a big thing around here.
18th December
We went on creating more Christmas gifts, like this pine cone Christmas tree.
Two small snow globes were waiting for the girls in the advent calendar.
We read Maisy makes gingerbread about 15-20 times. Little L. loooooves it.
E.’s bedtime story was Angel Mae:
19th December
In the morning we “had to” make some more gingerbread. It was a family project. In the making Daddy needed to read Maisy makes gignerbread a few time. L. matched her rolling pin to Maisy’s.
As E. is into the periodic table again (I’ve already written a few words about her craze for the chemical elements in the post when she celebrated her 5th birthday) she and Daddy made the letters for the elements and Little L. and I were making more Christmassy gingerbread.
Today was the Christmas party in the kindergarten. We just went to give the presents to E.’s kindergarten teachers. We didn’t stay for the party due to our viral illness.
We also met E.’s best friend and gave her our Christmas present too. She also got some surprises for E. They played a little outside but it was terrible cold so we soon said our good-byes.
As we got home we finished the ring holder presents for grandmas and prepared our door wreath.
The girls used their second waterbomb at bath time.
20th December
The angels decorated the bedrooms with lights and window decor while the girls were away.
I started to prepare our very first home-made Christmas candy. (If I have time I’ll add the recipe later on)
21st December
Our cleaning lady was here today and we gave her our Christmas present. The girls got 2 beautiful baubles from her.
E. is into the periodic table again. We were listening to it all day instead of Christmas music.
In the evening we finished the Christmas candies with E. We dipped them into hot chocolate and put them in the fridge. There are 50 of them altogether. In the meantime L. was riding on Daddy’s back.
Our mistletoe is hung finally, and there’s been a lot of kissing under it.
22nd December
We celebrated Christmas with my best friend, B., who talks to the girls English only. It was a fun party with really nice presents. (a clever bug, jewellery boxes, snug slippers, just to mention a few) . Below: Clever bug called Cutie came to have lunch with us. She eats only fruit as she’s allergic to veggies – according to E. 🙂
B. got here quite early, so she and E. helped me to wrap the Christmas candies. Just like my Mum.
And we tested them too. Yum!
23rd December
In the morning we made pizza.
In the afternoon Daddy took the girls to their training.
While they were away I was cooking the Christmas dinner. This year there’s no fish. E. and L. like it more or less, but we’d decided that I’d cook their favourite: chicken soup, and stew with noodles.
24th December
In the morning the final touches were done before Christmas Eve, cooking cleaning and decorating. The girls opened the last pocket in the advent calendar where they found the star (in 2 pieces) and stuck it on the top of our paper tree.
Later we played a snowflake matching memory game we’d accidentally found.
While the kids took their afternoon nap the Angels brought us our gorgeously decorated Christmas tree. Nobody could enter the living room, where the Angels were working, until the sound of their bells.
While we were waiting for the jingle we made chestnut balls for dessert and got dressed in pretty clothes.
Around 5 o’clock the door could be opened and the kids were amazed by the sight.
The whole evening was about opening presents, playing together and having a wonderful Christmas dinner. According to E. this Christmas is not simply great but divine.
She said the best present was the chemical element cards, which she immediately put out according to the periodic table.
Linda loved everything she got she didn’t know what to play with suddenly. Maybe her very favourite one on Christmas Eve was the little pink scooter.
25th December
We celebrated Christmas at my mother-in-law’s place.
26th December
We celebrated Christmas at my Mom’s. Finally I could have a good use of my new camera.
27th December
The girls’ Godparents and their kid came over in the afternoon so we could surprise one another with presents.
28th December
E. went to the Helen Doron School for a one-day winter camp, where she had English sessions, arts and crafts, film watching all in English. Her favourite activity was making this bird feeder out of pine cone, peanut butter and seeds. As we don’t have a garden we hung it in the park near to our flat.
29th December
LITTLE L.’S 2ND BIRTHDAY PARTY.
In the morning we went to buy balloons for L. with E. We were in English and the lady in the party shop was amazed that E. understood both languages.
On the way we checked out the bird feeder and this scene waited for us:
The seeds had nearly been eaten up
We saw a robin, a finch and a blackbird that suddenly took wing as we were getting closer.
Update——-09.01.2018—-
We went to see the bird feeder with Little L. and we saw this:
Few seeds left, even the peanut butter was gone too
At nap time I picked up L.’s birthday cake (dairy and egg-free chocolate cake because of E.’ diet) and decorated the flat for the afternoon birthday party. It was just for our extended family.
Little L. was amazed by the balloons and all decoration but she was over the moon to see presents again, I’m not sure if she understood why there were so many gift at this time of the year (St. Nicolas Day, Christmas and now her birthday)
30th December
We were playing and playing and playing in English with all the toys and games the girls received for Christmas and L’s birthday.
31st December
A quiet New Year’s Eve. The girls cannot stay up until midnight so we celebrated in the evening with New Year’s Eve activity, sparklers and balloons in the bath and paper trumpets. They went to bed at about 9.30 and fell asleep immediately.
Sticky board notes in connection with the new year
HAPPY NEW YEAR FOR EVERYONE!
I wish you all the best, loads of second language exposure, fun and happiness in 2018.
We’ve had some fun Thanksgiving activities from the Internet in the last couple of years, but I wanted something new for E. that involves a little reading. I didn’t know she’ll be so excited about the cootie catchers that she’ll make her own. But let’s not run ahead.
Recently I’ve found this great blog: brendid.com where you can find a free printable section. There are many cootie catchers to make for several occasions, like Thanksgiving, Valentine’s day, St. Patrick’s day or Halloween to mention a few.
Bren even explains how to fold a cootie catcher if you happento be as ignorant as I was in the field of cootie catchers.
When I handed E. the cootie catcher I was taken aback how excited she became.
She was reading the questions and jokes by herself and running around the flat to ask everybody (even her 23 month old little sister.) I wish I had taken some photos.
So the following day we made our own cootie catchers, which was totally E.’s idea. So we took out some coloured paper and started to fold our own cootie catchers.
E.’s cootie catcher
Then we numbered the outside and wrote on the inside. I decided to make a fortune-teller concerning the winter holiday season with Christmasy, snowy pictures,
E. was writing questions about her imaginary Waterland and drew fish, dolphins, whales and anglers on the inside of her cootie catcher.
Then we played with each other’s cootie catcher, then our native English nanny needed to answer the questions, after that Little L. too.
E. loved the idea of cootie catchers so much we definitely do it again and again and again.
(If you can’t read the questions in the pictures – she wrote them I didn’t help her at all!:
left pic: Why did the angler catch the shark?/Why did the whale get scared of the hypodoo? – hypodoo is an imaginary fish)
right pic: What kind of dish do anglers make? / Why is the sun gone in Waterland?
Your answers can be submitted in the comment section. And you can win whatever you ask for if you know the answer 😉 )
![download_20171203_231055[1]](https://nonnativemommy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/download_20171203_2310551.jpeg?w=760)
![download_20171203_231108[1]](https://nonnativemommy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/download_20171203_2311081.jpeg?w=760)
![20171202_190043[1]](https://nonnativemommy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/20171202_19004311.jpg?w=423&h=484)
![20171202_190121[1]](https://nonnativemommy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/20171202_19012111.jpg?w=553&h=356)
![20171202_201040[1]](https://nonnativemommy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/20171202_20104011.jpg?w=760)
![20171202_210414[1]](https://nonnativemommy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/20171202_2104141.jpg?w=343&h=320)
![20171203_172242[1]](https://nonnativemommy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/20171203_1722421.jpg?w=409&h=727)
![20171203_194136[1].jpg](https://nonnativemommy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/20171203_19413611.jpg?w=760)
![20171204_175032[1].jpg](https://nonnativemommy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/20171204_1750321.jpg?w=344&h=612)
![20171205_100750[1].jpg](https://nonnativemommy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/20171205_1007501.jpg?w=369&h=656)
![20171216_171628[1].jpg](https://nonnativemommy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/20171216_1716281.jpg?w=303&h=539)
Non-native Mommy 