Category: park

Autumn leaves are falling down

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My favourite season has arrived and it seems E. is enjoying it a lot, too. On the way home from the nursery we always collect some things (leaves, berries, conkers, bark pieces, stones etc.) to play or to do some craft projects with.

I put some contact paper on the window (sticky side out) and on a tray I prepared all the leaves we’d collected. And the sticking started.

Daddy assisted the little artist.

Art critic: Doggie. He sniffed the leaves then moved away.
Final art piece: Autumn leaves are falling down (and some petals)

Another project of ours with the autumn leaves was making a hedgehog. I saw this ideas here. (You can find a hedgehog template there that you can easily print.)

I drew three hedgehogs (as this was also a family project) and we glued the leaves on their backs.

Serious gluing in process

Final pieces of art

Another leaf craft we’ve made with crepe paper:

More gluing and more sticking

End result 🙂

More autumn crafts are on their way. Stay tuned!

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Spring nature hunt with a muffin tray

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Spring has arrived, together with some rain but luckily today it’s been sunny so we went out for a spring nature hunt.

I got the idea on mamapapabubba.com. This blog is written by a Canadian mum, Jen and she’s got great ideas I love stealing. The spring nature hunt is one of them.

So I was in a rush to prepare everything, because in the park where I was planning to do the nature hunt the grass is growing very high and it is likely to be mowed in the near future. Then we would lose all the wild flowers, high grass and our fun activity.

I’ve got and old muffin tray. It was in a very poor condition, so I sprayed it gold. This served as the receptacle (= a new word for me meaning: a container for storing or putting objects in) Then I asked Daddy to print the pictures of some nature items that I’d put together the previous night.

Our native nanny, A. arrived at 10.30 today and we were ready to set off.

E. is identifying what to look for

At firs E. was carrying the tray around, then we put it in the push chair.

E. is not a great fan of walking (she prefers to be carried), but this time she was running around looking for the items on the list, filling up the tray.

I thought it wouldn’t be easy to find seeds, so I took some wheat seeds with me from home, but A. was very attentive and found some. I didn’t need to fake anything 🙂

wheat heads

I knew exactly where we could find some moss. (E.’s favourite word from the list)

We also bumped into some bees and beetles we needed to observe closely.

 

One of E.’s favourite flowers is the dandelion and its clock. Now she didn’t blow the seeds away, but collected them in the tray.

 

E. succeeded in tucking a big horse chestnut tree leaf in the hole. Well done, girl!

We found a shamrock with four leaves. We’ll be lucky 🙂

Finding soil fascinated E. the most.

It was hard to find buds, but we managed in the end.

At home A. and E. went on to read E.’s nature book she got for Easter.

 

I’d like to thank Jen for the great idea. We spent a lovely hour with searching, enjoying the sunshine and learning a lot about nature.

Swinging up and down – games in the playground

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Swinging and seesawing

When we go to the park, we always visit one of the playgrounds nearby.
As I didn’t know a good swing song in English, I asked a good friend of mine, K. and she recommended the following:

Swinging up and down in my great big swing,
Swinging up and down in my great big swing,
Swinging up and down in my great big swing,
Won’t you be my darling?

Looking all around in my great big swing,
Looking all around in my great big swing,
Looking all around in my great big swing,
Won’t you be my darling?
Swaying back and forth in my great big swing,
Swaying back and forth in my great big swing,
Swaying back and forth in my great big swing,
Won’t you be my darling?
Swinging up and down in my great big swing,
Swinging up and down in my great big swing,
Swinging up and down in my great big swing,
Won’t you be my darling?

By the way K. is on facebook with her Rhyming nursery. She’s got lots of great ideas to have fun in English with kids.

Another playground game that an 11-month-old can enjoy is the seesaw. Here is a song to sing along:

See Saw Margery Daw,
Johnny shall have a new master;
Johnny shall earn but a penny a day,
Because he can’t work any faster.

 

I really like the Gracie Lou character, so here is a version of it.

This song has been made into a swing song by Helen Doron. I don’t want to breach any copyrights so here is the lyrics only:

 

See Saw Margery Daw,
Johnny is swinging with granny;
He is swinging and it’s lots of fun
And it can be very funny.

 

Well, I sing it with “mommy” instead of “granny” and I, of course, replace “Johnny” with E.

I also know some other seesaw rhymes:

See-Saw Sacradown,
Which is the way to London town?
One foot up, the other foot down,
That is the way to London town.
or
See-Saw, up and down,
Tommy goes up, Tommy goes down.
I’ll be back with more playground stuff.

Walking in the park in Enlgish – birds, trees and flowers

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Every morning we go out for a walk. E. is the most attentive at this time of the day. At the beginning I was rather tense talking in English while we were walking and meeting other people, but by now I’ve got used to it.

On our way I name whatever we see. I try to pay attention to which direction she looks and what she sees. As I’m behind her, it’s not easy. So what I say is:

“Look, there’s a pigeon. She’s eating.” or “The pigeons have flown away.”
“The pigeons have flown away.”

“Can you see that big tree? The leaves are all green.”

Pansies in the flowerbed
“Let’s smell the flowers. Atishoo. Atishooooo.” (Here she smiles or even laughs at this.)
“Look, this flower is purple, and this one is white. And your favourite colour is here. It’s yellow.”
“What is buzzing? It’s a bee, flying from one flower to the other.”
We were blowing dandelions: “Look, mommy’s blowing the dandelion.” (minimum 10 times 🙂 )
“I’ll taste this blowball.”

If we see a dog: “Look, what’s coming? A doggy. (She screams or says da-da)

If we go on a bumpy road I make it even bumpier and shake the pushchair a little: “Bumpy, bumpy, bumpy” (She enjoys it as well and grabs the sides of the pushchair hard)

 

Two pigeons

Today we have counted three pigeons and two doves: “One pigeon, two pigeons, three pigeons.””Are those pigeons? Nooooo. They’re doves. One dove, two doves”

These are some of the example, but as usual I’m talking to her continuously about what we see around us. She likes touching (and picking) leaves from the bushes. She is pointing at things so I name them (flowers, animals, people etc.)

Of course, I don’t know a lot of flowers and tree types, but I’m working on collecting some of the most common ones, which can be found in our area. I don’t like the long lists of vocabulary which include ALL the plant names. We need a small part of them only. The other thing is that I, myself, really need to learn them.

I don’t believe saying only “flower” or “tree” when we name plants is natural. In Hungarian I name them exactly (the ones I know, as I have deficiency in this field even in my mother tongue).

So here is a small collection of useful vocabulary concerning nature or rather wildlife in Budapest parks:

Birds:

crow
dove

 

blackbird
house sparrow
great tit 😉
swallow
woodpecker
magpie

 

English
Magyar
magpie
szarka
sparrow
veréb
crow
varjú
swallow
fecske
pigeon
galamb
dove
gerle
blackbird
feketerigó
great tit
széncinege
woodpecker
fakopáncs
warbler
énekesmadár

Trees:

acacia
willow
horse-chestnut
poplar
beech tree
oak
sycamore
English
Magyar
chestnut tree
vadgesztenyefa
acacia
akácfa
  beech tree
bükkfa
oak tree
tölgyfa
willow
szomorúfűz
sycamore
platán
pine
fenyő
birch tree
nyírfa
poplar
nyárfa

Flowers:

forget-me-not
daisies
daffodils

 

dandelion or the so-called “blowball” or “clock”
dandelion in full bloom
geranium
flowering almond
golden chain
hyacinth
lavender
grape hyacinth
violet pansy
peony
of course, tulips
lilac
English
Magyar
lilac
orgona
golden chain
aranyeső
dandelion
gyermekláncfű, pitypang
daisy
margaréta
forget-me-not
nefelejcs
pansy
árvácska
begonia
begónia
tulip
tulipán
flowering almond
babarózsa
daffodil
nárcisz
hyacinth
jácint
geranium
muskátli
peony
pünkösdi rózsa
lavender
levendula
grape hyacinth
fürtös gyöngyike