Category: colours

Not so scary crafts for Halloween

Published on by nonnativemommyLeave a comment

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 🙂

Over 100 words

Published on by nonnativemommyLeave a comment

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 🙂

New flashcards – flags

Published on by nonnativemommy1 Comment

I have created another pack of flashcards: the European flags. The pack is not full yet, but quite a lot is done. First, I just wanted to check if E. is interested in them or not. As they are very colourful, she loved them at first sight.



I tried to concentrate on countries which are neighbouring countries of Hungary, or I have some information about, or we have already been to etc. I, myself, coloured them AGAIN. (I hope baby Jesus will bring me a colour printer for Christmas). To make the flashcards more durable I laminated them (that was the easier part).

Activities  you can do with flags:

  1. just have a look and say the name of the country
  2. name the colours on the flag
  3. say if the stripes are vertical or horizontal (E. loves long words)
  4. tell your child the capital
  5. talk about the country if you know it (in our case for instance: Ireland, Mommy lived there for a year a long time ago, the U.K. – this is where A. (our native nanny) comes from, Turkey – this is where Mommy and Daddy were on their honeymoon, Hungary –  we live in Hungary etc.
  6. show two flags and ask: which one is … ? and your child can pick the right one (E. likes this activity not only with cards, but also with soft toys, building blocks, flowers or coloured pencils…. whatever)
  7. turn down three cards and let your child turn them up one by one, then say the name of the country (and the capital or the colours – combination of 1.-2.-4.)
  8. spread all the cards on the floor and tell your child to choose his or her favourite one (maximum three – E. would give me all the cards 🙂 )
  9. pick the flags with the same colours and group them (red–white: Switzerland, Poland and Austria, blue–white–red: the Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands, Russia, Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia, red–white–green: Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, black–yellow–red: Germany, Belgium)
  10. if you make 2 sets you can play a memory game (I had neither time, nor energy to make two sets)

More flags are on the way:

  • I want to make England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
  • I cannot leave out the USA and Australia as they are among the most important English speaking countries
  • Countries of Asia, Africa and South America  are coming too

I wish a day would be about 36-38 hours long…

More and more words

Published on by nonnativemommyLeave a comment

Just a short post on how our language development is going. E. is 15,5 months old and about a few weeks ago I stopped counting how many English and Hungarian words she knows.
Now here are some random interesting features of her language knowledge:

English:

  • she knows all the main colours (in both languages)
  • loves saying 3 (or more) -syllable words (aubergine, apricot, butterfly)
  • started to say combination of words (green peas, red rose, purple plum, yellow balloon)
  • she says what she really wants in both languages (more-még, drink-inni, bread-kenyér etc.)
  • her functional language is outstanding – she says thank you, Mommy – when she gives something back to me or when I give her something, here you are (not clearly though – it sounds like: heeyaa), please – when she asks for something, don’t like it – if she doesn’t want to eat something
  • sometimes she sounds like saying a sentence that she doesn’t do in Hungarian (it’s incomprehensible, though)
  • when she points at a spider she says: incywincy
  • potty time is mostly in English so she rather says poopy and peepee
  • prefers songs in English

    Favourite songs now:

http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/RPAZHVNVJp0&source=uds
http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/hr3jtrXc_hU&source=uds
  • loves to watch/sing/chant the English alphabet

    • http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/qux8CbHPlgw&source=uds
  • E. likes certain books in English, though I “read” most books in both languages

    • Still, her favourite is Fran Manushkin: How Mamma Brought the Spring

    But she also takes pleasure in Great Day for Up! by Dr. Seuss and Goodnight, Spot by Eric Hill nowadays.

    Hungarian:

    • she is trying to say long words (more than 4 syllables) – palacsinta
    • prefers the countries in this language (her favoutite one to say is Svájc, and her favourite flag is the Belgian – because of the black in it -, though she cannot pronounce it clearly)
    • when she sees the Turkish flag she starts to chant: pont, pont vesszőcske, készen van a fejecske, kicsi nyaka, nagy a hasa, készen van a TÖRÖK basa – her utterence is 50% right, but the intonation is perfect
    • prefers rhymes in Hungarian (Boci, boci tarka, A török és a tehenek)
    • she says tetszik  if she likes something or someone (doesn’t say it in English)



    Some cute details:

    • her favourite animal is the penguin at the moment
    • out of nowhere she calls out her native nanny’s name
    • her favourite colour is black, though she says pink or purple
    • her favourite body part is her belly button (when she has a look at her own, she makes us show ours)
    • her favourite flower is carnation
    • she claps after pooping
    • she loves drawing (onto the parquet, at the playground, on sheets of paper, on the door – but not on the wall yet)
    • she pronounces Peppa Pig as if she were a little native British girl  🙂

    Home-made tools for language practice – matching colours

    Published on by nonnativemommyLeave a comment

    E. LOVES colours and all the games in connection with colours. One of her first words was a colour (red in English, kék -blue- in Hungarian). So I though I should make some fun activities with the colours. Here is one of them:

    I drew circles and coloured them on two white sheets. Just to be on the safe side, I laminated them to make them more durable. On one sheet there are the basic colours: red, blue, green black and white. On the other one: brown, pink, orange, yellow and purple.

    From the kitchen I picked some bottle caps, lids of different colours, but I didn’t have black and orange so I took off an orange and a black magnet from the fridge.

    I put all the caps, magnet and lids into a box and put it in the living room. E. went there and took it off immediately. Without me showing her what to do, she started to match the colours. She can concentrate on it for few minutes only, but she always says out loud the name of the colours. Most of the time she uses one language, either English or Hungarian. Only very rarely does she mix them.
    Sometimes I pick the caps from the box and she shows me where to put them.

    We never get to the end of the matching, though. Either she gets tired of it, or runs away with the two favourites: yellow and purple. 🙂