Category: books

E. is 5

Published on by nonnativemommyLeave a comment

Another year has gone and we celebrated E.’s 5th birthday last weekend. This year seemed faster than the others. With 2 kids, with many programmes the days are long but the year is short.

She has grown a lot, actually she’s grown out of all her clothes during wintertime. She’s grown not one but 2 sizes. Compared to her 4-year old self 3 sizes.

She got a “big girl” bike for her birthday. It’s size 16′.

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She’s quit taking naps in the afternoon, still she’s got quiet time for 1-2 hours, depending on Baby Sis’s nap. She reads in bed or plays with her water animals, then an hour later she sits at her table and draws (stories about Waterland, an imaginary place where fish and cetaceans live freely)

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A Mother’s Day present from E.

Likes:

  • water animals
  • reading books
  • lying in
  • talking
  • jumping on the sofa
  • games on the tablet
  • rain
  • going to the library
  • tomato soup and lentil dish
  • ice-cream

Dislikes:

  • having her fringe cut
  • being in a hurry
  • getting out of the bathtub early
  • shouting
  • Baby Sis touching her drawings
  • going to bed early
  • competitions and races
  • making her hand dirty
  • changes
  • trying unknown foods

Her main interest of this year has been water animals, mainly sharks and cetaceans – whales and dolphins. She’s been reading about them, drawing them, playing with them (made out of plush or on the tablet – Real Whales) , watching them on youtube or on TV (NatGeo).

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Real Whales game

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A book she designed on the basis on the game Real Whales (the red parts are buttons you can push and hear certain whale sounds
When she takes a break from her whales she listens to the Periodic Table Song (that she’s learnt by heart like the youtube star, 6-year old American girl Julia Barker. The only difference between her and Julia is that E. can sing it in real-time and not the slower version)

After or better to say next to chemistry, dinos returned in her life as well for a short while.

Due to health reasons she stopped going to kindergarten in November 2016. She had been ill for 6 months when we decided it was enough. After 2-3 DAYS in the kindergarten she had to stay at home for 2-3 WEEKS to recover and as soon as she returned everything started all over again.

Although she’s not in kindergarten she hasn’t missed kids’ company. We’ve regularly been meeting her old kindergarten mates either at the playground, at their birthdays, or  while going for a short excursion on Magaret-island nearby.

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We went to the Helen Doron Halloween party as well as their Carnival. Our friends’ children came to visit us before Christmas to have the usual Gingerbread Party or she’s had fun with her Godparents children.

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We’re not buying books in Hungarian any longer as we signed up at the local library and she rather borrows books. On the other hand, I buy a lot of English books online. My best source has been Kadosarok on facebook. The books are second-hand and affordable, sometimes rreally cheep indeed.

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Quiet time scene
As for books, apart from the water animals, she enjoys reading and acting out Julia Donaldson stories. We’ve read and/or acted out Room on the broom, Gruffulo, The whale and the sail, What the ladybird heard, just to mention her (and my) favourite ones. I have hidden some more J.D. books for the near future to explore.

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Apart from Julia Donaldson books she finds it fun to read Richard Scarry‘s books both in English and Hungarian.

As for her reading skills, she is absolutely fantastic. She reads fluently in Hungarian, only words with 6+ syllables can cause her trouble sometimes. In English she is a bit slower but one day I heard her reading one of her ocean encyclopedia without any problem. She’s amazing.

The love of chess has faded and slowly dissapeared this year, but taking photos is still in. Her favourite topics are nature (flowers and trees), toys, our dog (who’s passed away) and her baby sister.

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Unfortunately, I haven’t had time for many craft projects this year. With 2 kids at home, with the little one tearing, crumpling and destroying everything she touches it’s almost a mission impossible. On the other hand a lot of times E. wasn’t in the mood or wasn’t interested in what I prepared for her (like the paper plate heart activity she gave up after 2 minutes)

But here are 5 of the fun craft activities we managed to do and enjoyed a lot:

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Olympic medals and the 5 rings

Ocean picture with stickers

Painting a tree with a cork

Christmas wreath

Napkin storks

She watched only 2 animations this year: Finding Nemo (in English at home) and Deep (in Hungarian at the cinema). I looove going to the cinema but I find it too early for her to go regularly. She’s got millions of questions during the film so it’s quite disturbing for other viewers. We can stop the films and discuss whatever she’s interested in here at home.

E.’s relationship with her baby sister is getting better… quite slowly. They still cannot play together for more than 3-5 minutes. E. sometimes tries to show her books but L. gets bored within few minutes. They’ve been taking a bath together for quite a while, which is fun for both of them. E. developed a copy cat game. It starts at dinner time and she copies whatever L. is doing or saying. Baby Sis enjoys it a lot. There’s plenty of giggling and laughing in the evenings. However, there’s the other side of the coin. L. drinks from E.’s flask, crumple her drawing or scribble in her books, screams at her, pulls her hair or scratch her out of the blue. Understandably this makes E. angry.

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I feel as if her English has stagnated, although sometimes she has some utterances which I listen to agape:

“Tiger sharks are really fierce; the stronger baby sharks eat up the smaller brothers and sisters in their mommy and only the two strongest are born.”

She read this piece of information all by herself from this book:

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Our Canadian nanny has disappeared and to be honest I wasn’t pushing her coming as she had some other priorities in her life and became unreliable towards the end. So now MY priority is to find another native speaker who enthusiastically provides the native input in our language quest. I’m on it.

E. speaks English fluently at a near-native level, close to what a 5-year-old native would speak. Or I just guess as I don’t know any 5-year old native child personally. Her active vocabulary could be a little wider but as for her passive vocabulary, I think she understands everything even more academic language. I found a test online which approximated her vocabulary to more than 4000 words.

I really need to focus on a variety of grammar structures (e.g. complex conditional sentences, correlative constructions – the… the… ) as well as idioms and sayings (e.g. I’m all ears, an apple a day keeps the doctor away) I’m using more consciously as she picks them up extremely quickly and starts using them if I use them systematically and frequently. The phrases in brackets are the ones she has starteted or at least tried to use.

I cannot be any prouder of my beautiful, clever 5-year old daughter. She’s the best!

Many happy returns, Sweetie!

Baby books 0-12 months

Published on by nonnativemommyLeave a comment

When E. was a baby I wanted to write a post about what books we are using every 6-12 months. I didn’t. I feel it as a pity so I got a second chance with Baby Sis. Here it comes. The books we’ve been using in L.’s first year.

What you’ll be reading about:

  • cloth books
  • educational board books
  • touchy-feely books
  • noisy books
  • lift the flap books
  • +1 extra surprise

 

0-6 months

We mainly “read” cloth books. Or while Baby Sis was lying awake she was looking at the black and white images, like in this one. I also pointed at the pictures and said what was seen (daddy, baby, heart etc.)

It’s also important to mention that the Velcro on the book is TASTY. 😂
IKEA cloth books are great. Apart from looking at them I could make up a very simple story on the basis of the pics. They’re also interactive (you can pull out a rabbit from a black top hat)

 

 

Drugstore (DM) cloth books that crackle and rustle:

 

 
Maisy’s bedtime – We usually have a look at this booklet before bath time.
Ladybird series: Baby touch
The 2 on the top were E.’s favourite as a baby
E. as a baby, “reading”
L.’s favourite: Wiggle Jiggle Ladybird

It’s not an advertisement but I love Usborne books. Baby books by Usborne are simple, have great contrast and the images are cute. The touchy-feely books are not only pleasure to look at but also exciting for little fingers to touch the varied surfaces. Even my 4,5-year old loves to paw them. Here are what we have:

This is not the touchy and feely kind

 

 

 

 

Baby Sis is examining the fluffy bunny


6-12 months:

We on reading the books above and introduced some new ones:

Noisy books are number one (not so amusing for parents though after 15-20 minutes of quacking)

Old MacDonald will be a Christmas present

 

Lift the flap books are also fun to read with your little ones. My only problem is that they can get damaged easily as my kids try to peep under the flaps. Our favourites are the following:

 

Here is a Dear zoo song:
On this link you can PEEP inside

 

 

One of our favourites is this Animal hide-and-seek. You can see how fun it is in the video below.

 

And the extra surprise book with a hand puppet:

Five Silly Monkeys by Steve Haskamp
The traditional song with a little twist. Here is a review from goodreads that I could have written:
“This time five monkeys are silly and not just mischievous. They jump on the bed of course, then they eat on the bed, swing on the bed, slide on the bed, and then spin on the bed.

Great fun for little ones and they love holding the cover with the monkeys heads made out of plastic for them to feel!”
 

L. loves to put her little finger through the holes. Sometimes a sing the original version. Sometimes with the funny activities like jumping,, swinging, sliding etc.

I hope you could find some ideas about what to read with your little one. Feel free to share what books you’re reading with this age group.

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

Published on by nonnativemommyLeave a comment

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?

Published on by nonnativemommyLeave a comment

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!