Category: books

5 + 1 tips to sneak in some English time

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With a newborn in the house it’s extremely difficult to spend time in English with E. It’s challenging to spend time with her at all when L. needs me 7/11.

Here is a few tricks we sneak some English time in our weekdays:

1. E. goes to the nursery and comes home in the afternoon. Whenever she enters the door I greet her in English. Sometimes she doesn’t want to speak English at all, at other times I tell her that Mommy has been in English with L. all day then she is more likely to give in and we spend the evening (playtime, video time, dinner, bath and bed/story time) or part of it in English.

Bedtime reading – Picture Atlas

2. I rely on her new interests., i.e. at the very moment wind types and the Beaufort scales. She got a book for Christmas from her Godparents (in Hungarian):

She loves the Beaufort scale in the book, so with Daddy’s help we made our English version of it.

3. New nanny: Although our new nanny is only temporary (for max. 2 months as she’s returning to the US) her visits have increased our English playtime.
Making snowdrops with or new native nanny, L.
4. Holidays: preparing for a birthday or St. Patrick’s day for instance has also given us a chance to practice our in English
Heart garland for Valentine’s Day
5. Helping around Baby Sister: E. helps a lot with bathing, dressing or entertaining Baby Sister. Every now and again I manage to convince her to use English in these situations.
Helping Baby Sis get undressed

+1 Cooking/baking together is always a hit with E. She is always happy to help me in the kitchen and it goes without saying we do things there in English most of the time.

String the mixture

Life seems bright again πŸ™‚

Book Advent Calendar

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Like last year we’ll have a book advent calendar, however, this year I managed to put together more Christmassy books than last year. And there are some surprises among the 24 books… read on to find out what they are.

I always go to second-hand toy shops which also offer English children books at a very low price. All through the year I’ve been collecting these books (some of them we had last year too) I wrapped them in red and green paper and stacked them up like a Christmas tree:

Β Here is the list of the books:

  1. Dear Santa

  2. A busy Christmas (board book)
  3. Mr Men – 12 Days of Christmas
  4. Mr Christmas
  5. Little Miss Christmas
  6. Here comes and Angel
  7. Dora Starry Christmas
  8. The Manger
  9. The Gingerbread Man (Ladybird)
  10. The Nutcracker (Usborne)
  11. Snappy Little Christmas (pop-up book)
  12. Reindeer- a Christmas Story
  13. Clifford’s First Christmas
  14. Maisy makes gingerbread
  15. The very first Christmas (Beginner’s Bible)
  16. The night before Christmas
  17. A Christmas Hug (Marks and Spencer)

    I also included books on some of E.’s favourite topics:

  18. The Little Brainwaves investigate… The Human Body
  19. It’s so unfair (illustrated by Jonathan Allen – author of I’m not reading, I’m not cute, I’m not scared)
  20. I like it when… (Mary Murphy)

    And 2 books in HungarianΒ 

  21. Zelk ZoltΓ‘n: KarΓ‘csonyi Γ©nek
  22. TΓ©lorszΓ‘g (Lili Γ©s Lala versei)

    And the surprise books … on a new born baby

  23. The New baby
  24. Za-za’s baby brother (by Lucy Cousins)

Yesterday we opened the first one: Busy Christmas – a tiny board book with rhymes about the preparations for Christmas. I needed to read it twice. E. wanted to open the Advent book first, rather than the Activity Calendar. I’ll write a post about that one too.
Today we’ve read the second one from the top of the pile: Little Miss Christmas – it wasn’t so very well welcome but E. liked it. The story is about Little Miss Christmas going on holiday before Christmas and leave her brother, Mr Christmas and uncle,Father Christmas finish the wrapping of Β all the presents. Of course, they couldn’t get ready in time. But Little Miss Christmas saves the day with a brilliant idea.

Would you like to get short reviews of the Advent Books we’ll be reading?

Our first dental project I. – videos, books, apps

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As we have visited the dentist with E. I looked up some videos, book and apps on dental health beforehand. This post is an appetiser before I share with you some real fun dental health activities.

English videos

Brush, brush, brush by KidsTV123

Brush your Teeth by Busy Beaver
The VERY favourite one!!!! Brush your teeth by Topsi Smile TV


Brush your teeth by StoryBots (we just couldn’t leave this out πŸ™‚ )
A Peppa pig episode: Peppa and the Dentist
Two videos in Hungarian:
FogmosΓ³ dal by Kerekmese
Bori a fogorvosnΓ‘l (11 minute short story about what happens at the dentist’s)

Now the books we’ve been reading about teeth and going to the dentist:
Here is a video in which a lady reads out Show me your smile. The quality is not the best but it gives you an idea.
Another book we are looking at is IzgΕ‘-mozgΓ³ fogaim published by ManΓ³ kΓΆnyvek.
It’s a great book with flaps to open, teeth to move and learn a lot about teeth, like parts of a tooth, baby teeth vs permanent teeth, how teeth grow, when and why they fall out, what happens at the dentist etc. It also has some interactive pages where you can pull a tooth out or glue a picture of yourself with no, one or 20 teeth. The book goes with a little tooth box for the first fallen-out teeth.

I read this book to E. both in English and Hungarian.

This is the book she took with her when we visited the dentist:

Apps for android

Doctor Kids by Budabu
It’s not just about teeth but all kinds of health problems (broken bones, rash, fever, weak eyes etc). The player needs to heal the kids by taking them to the right department.

E.’s favourite is the dental department where one has to remove plaque, clean the teeth with a brush, drill them and kill germs, plus, at the end the player can choose coloured braces as well. E.’s favourite Β part is killing the germs in the mouth. The other departments also means a lot a fun. You can take X-ray photos of broken bones, or you can injections or examine blood in a laboratory.

Kids Doctor Game by Abuzz
Just like the previous one you need to heal children with all kinds of health problems. Still, this also has a dental department. This game is a little bit more disgusting for me – not for E. (the germs has to be pulled out of the ear or off the teeth and they are not as funny looking as in the other game). What E. likes the most in this game is when you heal a child, funny animal balloons are floating down from the top that you can pop.
We’ve tried some other games too, but either E. didn’t like it or they were a little scary/disgusting for a 3-year-old.

I hope you could find some ideas to watch, read or play with your kid. Let me know if you could add any more to this list. Thanks for popping in.

What do we have to do with Australia? – Part 2.

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Our Australian friends (who we’d met on our honeymoon in Istanbul) came to Europe for a cruise on the Danube. Their ship left from Budapest and they could visit us as well. They killed two birds with one stone and it was again a great opportunity for E. to “test” her English. (You can read about E.’sΒ 1st real life test hereΒ when she met her English speaking cousin)

As soon as M. and B. arrived at our place, M. and E. hit it off. E. wanted to show her room and her kitchen and what she cooked. I was astonished to see it as she is never so open and welcoming to anyone, not to mention a stranger. There was no language barrier as such. It was absolutely natural for her to use English with M.

E. got some sweet presents (soft toys and books) from M. and B, which were all Australia related.

Presents for E. – Books

At first, she was a bit afraid of Jacko and the beanstalk (I guess because of the scary crocodile), but by now she’s okay with it.

She really loves to identify the Australian animals in the little booklet in the top right corner. As this book also includes the national anthem, we spent one evening after dinner to listen to it on youtube

(together with several other national anthems, like the British, the US, Irish, Spanish, Colombian and the German)

Toys E. received from M. and B.
Her favourite is the platypus (E. named her Platy). And we agreed they can talk in English only. She accepted it without any problem.

So our friends, M. and B., came to our place. I showed them around our area and invited them for a traditional Hungarian lunch (goulash soup, fried chicken breast in bread crumbs, mash potato plus green salad).

E. took a nap and as soon as she woke up we left forΒ Szentendre, a town near to Budapest on the bank of the Danube.

Szentendre in pictures
Just arrived
Main Square

On the bank of the River Danube

We had a wonderful time together. E. proved her great level of English again. We’ve been enriched with some books on Australia, some stuffed animals from the country and the time spent with this lovely couple.

Thank you, M. and B.! We hope to see you again!

What do we have to do with AUSTRALIA??? Part 1

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In short: Nothing. In more details: last month (April) we met a lovely elderly couple from Australia who we’d encountered on our honeymoon in Istanbul in 2011. Quite unusual.

I’ve taken Β the opportunity of their visit to Hungary to introduce Australia to E. She loves planet Earth anyway. She already knows about continents (her favourite is Antarctica) so Australia will be fascinating for her. I hoped…

Map of Australia

As E. enjoys looking at maps and our big picture atlas I made a map colouring activity for her. I just printed a blank Australia map with the states drawn on it and after naming each states we coloured them one by one.

E. is practising her A
I also wrote AUSTRALIA below the map and E. traced my letters.

ThisΒ Australian map puzzleΒ was quite time-consuming to make but the result was beautiful and E. loved it. The link gives you a detailed description how to prepare it. In my version I laminated the pieces. As Queensland and Western Australia consist of 2 parts I sellotaped them together. Then I added sticky back velcro (bought them on sale in Auchan).

The background is a big blue cardboard

 

sticking

 

FINISHED!

I couldn’t buy a big enough cardboard to fit Tasmania in the right place. What a pity!

We can also use this puzzle map in the long run (I also plan to introduce her some cities as well as animals and famous sights. We’ll use this map to pin cities, animals and sights up on it and put it on the wall to display)

She has done the Australian puzzle map several occasions. Sometimes she even said the names of its states.

Painting the flag

As the puzzle map gave me a hard time we did not twist the flag project. I printed a blank Australian flag and painted it while we were talking about what is what on the flag
  1. The British Union Jack flag is in the upper left corner – noting Australia’s ties to Great Britain
  2. TheΒ Southern CrossΒ constellation (5 stars) is on the right side of the flag. The constellation can be seen from everywhere in Australia
  3. The large, white, seven-pointed Commonwealth Star

Of course, we displayed our pieces Β on our living-room door. You need to imaging the composition as I’ve forgotten to take a photo of it.

Work in progress
Let’s start!

Animals of Australia

First, I created flashcards of the most commonly known Australian animals. (See a printable at the end of the post)

Kangaroo Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Duck-billed Platypus
Koala Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β Cassowary
Emu Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β Brown snake
Wombat Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Salt Water Crocodile
Dingo Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β Echidna
Tasmanian Devil Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Β  Frilled Necked Lizard

E. has already heard about and seen a kangaroo in the zoo, and also seen pictures of koalas. She knows the (white) wombat from the video titled Red Rabbit, Green Gorilla. She is also familiar with the look of a crocodile or a snake as well as an ostrich, which can remind you of an emu. So first, I showed her 7 flashcards out of the 12.

As most of the animals had a familiar look I decided to add some information to the flashcards on their backs.

We had a look at Australia in our Picture Atlas Of The World.

As on this map flora and fauna is depicted, I showed E. an animal, I said its name and Β she needed to find it on the map. When she found it we placed the flashcard on the map and I told her some interesting information (1 or 2 pieces) about the animal (eating habit, place of living, offspring etc.)
She was laughing at the platypus and found the Tasmanian Devil cute.

When we finished with this she wanted to see them in real life so we sat down in front of youtube and watched a few interesting videos. (I had prepared for this request so we didn’t need to waste time with searching for them)

The Cow Goes Moo – Kangaroo for Kids

Koala-la-la-la

Bindi and Robert Irwin feature huge salt-water crocodile

Platypus: Animals for Children

Bindi and Robert Irwin feature: Wombat

E. was fascinated by the platypus, mainly its webbed feet. So we needed to draw a Mommy and Baby platypus webbed “feet”

We’ll have a look at the other animals later.

In the next part:

E.’s 2nd test of her English; the lovely time in Szentendre we spent together with our Australian friends (M. and B.). – You can read about E.’s 1st real life test here
E. got some sweet presents (soft toys and books) from M. and B.