Category: videos

Shapes, shapes, shapes – there are all sorts of shapes

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E. is into shapes to a great extent. About 2 months ago (when she was 16-17 months old) she already knew all the basic (and some not so basic) shape names. So it made me think what we can do to practise and play with the shapes in more varied ways.

When E. was quite small, around 6-8 months old, we watched and we’ve still been watching the following videos concerning shapes.

The Shape Song

Shape Song 2

We have some new favourites. While we are watching some of them she bursts out with laughter, like in case of the following:

Miser Maker: I am a shape

The next video might seem very monotonous and boring but my daughter loves it and sometimes wants to watch it 4 or 5 times.

What shape is it?

There are a lot more videos on shapes but I do not want to bore you. You can search for them on youtube.

E. got a shape cube for her first birthday, but she was totally untouched by it after taking a first look.

Birthday present with potentials

Mostly, I was playing with it and she was watching, or was just playing away next to me. When she was about 14-15 months old, she started to name the shapes out of the blue, much to my surprise.We also use the shapes of the cube to match shapes in a little bit more different way. I took out a piece of paper and 9 shapes from the cube (I don’t know why 9… it could have been 5, 7 or 10. It was a sudden idea.). With the help of a brown crayon I drew them around (E. was watching closely and tried to help a bit too 🙂 )

Then I gave her the shapes and I didn’t even have to tell her what to do. She started to put the shapes on the paper.

 

To initiate more talking I always asked what she was doing, what shape it was she was holding etc. Plus, she sometimes said the colour of the shape, too, all by herself.Sometimes E. needs motivation to eat. At dinnertime I prepare some ‘soldiers’ and different shapes carved out of bread, ham, salmon or veggies. It is much more fun for her to eat a pentagon or a triangle than a slice of simple cucumber.

 

When she turned 16 months we found some books in the library on shapes. This picture dictionary contains two pages of colourful shapes (solids too).

 

Before taking the book back to the library I had these (and some more pages) photocopied and used the shapes to make flashcards as well.

And a famous favourite (alas, we’ve got it in Hungarian in the library but this unfortunate fact does not keep me back to use it for other language purposes):

 

Another Hungarian one: Kun Fruzsina: Formák

Stars

 Last but not least a Baby Einstein book on shapes:

There are tons of books on amazon.com all about shapes. No matter which book you use, but it is another fun way to talk about shapes and see them in different contexts.

Baby’s Best Start (Helen Doron beginner baby course 3rd CD)  has a song about shapes. We listen to it twice a day and E. knows it by heart. Also, the book contains pages of shapes and objects of a similar kind (circle-sun, triangle-sail, square-book).

Often E. identifies shapes by herself. On the table-cloth of our dining table there are some diamond shapes and whenever she walks past she points at them and says: – Little diamond. Here. Big diamond. There.

On the basis of this experience, sometimes we just walk around the house and identify shapes. (The mirror is a rectangle, the washing machine is a cube, the socket is a square and the hair bobble forms a circle etc.) It is also a good idea to collect smaller objects of different shapes in a light box that your child can walk around with. When you have like 10-15 things you can throw them all onto the floor and group them according to their shapes.

For E.’s first birthday I also bought a second-hand  Froggy with shapes on his tummy. When you turn it on one of the shapes starts flashing. You need to push the flashing button and the Froggy starts singing a famous nursery rhyme/song (Star – Twinkle, Twinkle, Triangle – Mary had a little lamb, Circle – Pat a cake and so on). Unfortunately, the square does not work any more, so whenever E. tries to make the square work I sing the Helen Doron Shapes song.

As Christmas was here I was planning to do a little christmasy shape fun, but I did not have time to make it. You can find a lovely Christmas tree decoration game with shapes here (ketnyelvugyerek.hu). The description is in Hungarian, but the picture speaks for itself.

Or a similar activity from Super Simple Learning with a template.

Another simple 3D Christmas tree decoration fun:

http://buggyandbuddy.com/christmas-activities-kids-decorate-felt-christmas-tree/
We are going to do all these next year I am sure, as a little revision. 😉

Finally, let me show you a picture of shape chaos after an hour of playing:

 

More and more words

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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  🙂

    Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite

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    Our days are finished with E.’s evening routine:

    1. watching a little bit of videos
    2. taking a bath
    3. putting on the jammies
    4. drinking milk + reading out a fairy tale (or two)
    5. talking to the angels
    6. falling asleep

     

    Most of the evening routine is done in Hungarian. This is Daddy’s favourite time spent with E. that I would not like to take away from them. On the other hand I don’t want E. to miss the English vocabulary of the evening routine. Not to mention the fact that reading bedtime stories only in Hungarian is a heartbreak for me. So every now and then (like 2-3 times a week) I try to convince my husband to turn into English. And it works brilliantly.

    Let’s see the programme step by step (the ideal version):

    18:45 – watching videos: D. sits down in front of the computer to watch some English videos with E: (the usual collection of E.’s youtube videos, or this idiotic Meow, Meow song in the Tamil language:

    Don’t ask me why they watch it. One guess is E. LOVES it, the other is this is the way my husband rebels against the English evening routine – just kidding 😉

    In the meantime I do some things around the house, preparation for the feeding, E.’s room, jammies etc.

    If I happen to sit down in front of the computer with E., I prefer to watch a Peppa pig episode or The Going To Bed Book by Sandra Boynton or one of E.’s favourite song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with the owl:


    19:00 – taking the bath:     E. sits in the bath and the sea creatures are jumping in one by one – the crocodile, the starfish, the octopus, the whale, the turtle, and then an extra duck, some measuring spoons of different colours, sometimes a filter and more bottle caps. So she can hardly move in the water.

    We usually name the animals, sometimes we attack her with the animals, and spay her with water, of course, while we comment the happenings in English. But mostly we follow what she wants to do.

    Sometime she asks for her plastic book – one is a biblical story of the lost lamb, the other is Vizipók and his friends. I tell her the Lost Lamb story in English, we talk about the pictures, and at the end I ask her to show me the shepherd, the lamb or other things in the pictures. But I’m in trouble with Vizipók as I don’t know the names in English or they sound really silly (Ormányosbogár = Snout Beetle, Keresztespók= Garden Spider) so I rather hide this booklet when we have a bath in English.

    Another favourite is Mommy Duck and her ducklings. Mommy Duck can carry 3 little ducklings on her back. When we play with the ducks Mommy Duck is swimming around E. and when the ducks are behind her one of the ducklings is taken off Mommy Duck’s back (by D.). In the meantime we sing 5 Little Ducks (well, three in this version). E. is so cute as she is trying to turn back to see how the ducklings disappear, but usually she is not quick enough.

    Another activity is toothbrushing. E. asks for her toothbrush, then she brushes the crocodiles teeth while we are singing This is the way we brush our teeth. She also wishes to brush Daddy’s teeth or mine. Every now and then she brushes her own teeth as well. If she is not in the mood, I do it for her, which she doesn’t really like.

    When we are finished in the bath we say good bye to the toys. E. hands me the toys one by one and we say good night to them. If I tell her to look behind because there is one more toy, she understands it perfectly and turns around the grab the object. While we are putting the toys away she is waving good-bye.

    19:30 – getting dressed into pyjamas:

    We usually play the changing table games I have already posted about. D. puts on E.’s jammies and sleeping bag. He usually sings some songs. I prepare her milk. E. turns off her light, only a bedside lamp is on. Then E. and I sit down in the rocking chair to drink her milk, and D. reads a story or two. If we read in English at the moment we are reading the book: How Mama Brought the Spring by Fran Manushkin. It’s for kids around the age of 5, but E. adores the pictures in the book. Before E. finishes her milk, D. says good night to her and leaves the room. Then we turn off the light and talks to the angels. I say thank you for the nice day and recall the lovely happenings of our day. E. often repeats the words she can also say like, baby, happy, her name or grandparents’ name, Daddy, Mommy etc. SO actually she thanks for everything that happens to her. Then I put her down into her bed (she says ‘bed’) and I give her dummy (she says ‘dummy’) and I give her a textile nappy and her doggy she always sleeps with. I kiss her goodnight and leave the room. Most of the time she falls asleep within 5-10 minutes. Sometimes she chats to herself a little. If it’s an English evening she talks to herself in English.

    So here are some expressions how to say good night:

    • Sleep well
    • Sweet dreams
    • Nighty-night
    • Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite (you can find the origin of this phrase here – quite interesting, worth reading the theories. The one I like the most is the rope idea.)

    Have a good night!

    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.

    Our daily activites – mornings and changing table time

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    When E. has woken up in the morning and I go into her room singing the following song while pulling up the blinds:

    Good morning, good morning, good morning to you
    Good morning Ms E…. cock-a-doodle-do
    Good morning, good morning, good morning to you
    Good morning Ms E…. cock-a-doodle-do
    Cock-a-doodle-do, cock-a-doodle-do
    Good morning to you.

    http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/1Ziku4FLka4&source=uds
     

    In the original song there’s Mr Rooster, but I changed it to Ms E.’.
    Even if D. goes in to her first he sings this song too. Though he continues talking to her in Hungarian.

    If E. wakes up late and D. has already gone to work we start the whole day in English. So, for instance, I change her nappy and night clothes while talking in English to her:

    • asking about what she dreamt (I always wait a little for her answer)
    • what the problem was during the night (if she was up)
    • tell her milk is on the way
    • while changing the nappy we have a rhyme that I always chant several times:

      Baby’s got a dirty nappy
      What shall we do? (What shall we do?)
      Clean it up, clean it up
      For Mommy and for you
      She likes it a lot and smiles, what’s more, stays on her back patiently instead of turning onto her tummy or standing up. The rhyme is from here. You can find other games you can play, songs or rhymes to chant while your baby is on the changing table.

    • we play peek-a-boo with her textile nappy (I cover her with the nappy then ask “Where’s E.? Where’s she gone?” then she takes the nappy off – or I do it) “I see you.” or “There you are.”. Another variation is I hide behind her feet and ask “Where’s Mommy?” or “Where’s Mommy gone?” Then I open her legs and say: “Here I am” or “Peek-a-boo”
    • there’s a shelf over our changing table and at the bottom of it I stuck up wooden, painted animals, so I name them, make the sounds they make, or sing a song about them. E.g.:

      Ladybird, ladybird fly away home,
      your house is on fire, your children are gone
      All, but one her name is Ann,
      and she has crept under a frying pan.

      (I couldn’t find the tune online,but I’ll link it as soon as I do or please put it in a comment if you know where to find it)

      or

      Five little ducks went swimming one day
      Over the pond and far away
      Mommy duck said: quack-quack-quack
      But only four little duck came back

      Four little ducks went swimming one day
      Over the pond and far away
      Mommy duck said: quack-quack-quack
      But only three little duck came back      (on the changing table I usually start with 3 ducks and by the time I finish changing the nappy or clothes we’ll get to the end)

    • still on the changing table we play “This little pig went to market“. E. likes this most on her toes. I grab each of her toes on one foot one by one and wiggle them a bit as I say the rhyme.

      This little pig went to market;
      This little pig stayed at home;
      This little pig had roast beef;
      And this little pig had none;
      This little pig cried, “Wee, wee, wee!
       All the way home      . (I tickle the bottom of her foot)

    • While I’m putting on her clothes I usually name her body parts and what clothes go where:
      “Here’s your left arm, it goes into this sleeve”
      or
      “One foot goes into the tights, then the other foot goes into the tights” etc.
    • at the breakfast table we play with the coffee cup and the matching teapot. Both have four fruit on them and I name them; she loves the grapes and screams with joy when we get there. And of course, we can’t miss singing “I’m a little teapot” (4 or 5 times – in fact, this is MY favourite song)
    • E. didn’t use to like brushing or combing her hair, but when we sing along she enjoys it:

      This is the way we comb (or brush) our hair
      Comb our hair, comb our hair
      This is the way we comb (or brush) our hair
      Every day in the morning      (I sing it twice as she expects me to comb my hair too)

    • she often watches me brushing my teeth while she is sitting in her high chair after breakfast. Then we brush her teeth (or rather she just plays with the toothbrush) and I sing “This is the way we brush our teeth” (same as the combing song, the tune has several verses – see an example here )
    • she sometimes watches me clear the breakfast table. I always tell her the name of the objects I put into the dishwasher, and I also tell her what I put into the fridge (the latter is more fun for her as I see because of the colourful things she can have a look at)
    • if E. is whiny in her high chair then I put her into her playpen where she plays alone. This is the time when she listens to her collection of music (compiled from youtube and added the Helen Doron songs). In the meantime I can do some housework.

    Yeah, I sing a lot and keep talking all the time. Sometimes by the afternoon I can hardly talk, am totally tired of speaking, not to mention singing. Thank Goodness for coffee. It always gives a little energy back.

    When we have our Hungarian sessions we do more or less the same. The morning routine is the same, the games are the same, only the songs are different. Sometimes I sing the combing/teeth brushing song or “I’m a little teapot” in English as I don’t know any good Hungarian versions of them.