Paw patrol – the new craze (with free printable)

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Since the beginning of this year (around February) E.’s been crazy about a Canadian cartoon series, Paw Patrol. In this blog post I’d like to collect all the activities, games and fun Paw Patrol has brought to our lives:

  1. Our old nanny, L., who has unfortunately returned to America, showed E. a page online where she can watch all the seasons. (www.kisscartoon.com). I’m not sure how legal it is but she is so crazy about the pups I can’t stop her. This series is on Nick Jr. but we don’t have a subscription (we do NOT watch TV due to the millions of commercials) but there is only one episode per day filled with loads of commercials I don’t want E. to see. So she watches it online.
  2. We celebrated her 4th birthday with her friends too, in a playhouse. Her birthday cake was a Paw Patrol bone:

  3. E. was so excited and indulged in this cartoon she wanted the pup figurines for her birthday. Not only did she get them (it was Baby Sis’s present for her) , but she also received a home-made  Paw Patrol board game. (The original idea came from Daddy, who, on the basis of chess, came up with the board game idea. On the link – I’ll add it later, sorry – you can find a more detailed description of the board game)

  4. Apart from the board game I also prepared a Paw Patrol Activity Pack for her birthday. This pack includes puzzle, writing practice, counting cards and many more. You can download your free copy at the end of this post.

    E. was so excited about this activity pack that she started examining it at her birthday party. She stopped opening her other presents.

    But of course, we devoted another, more quiet time to do the activities:

Matching characters and their names
Matching vehicles and their names

If your little one can’t read at all, they can match the characters and their vehicles

Number cards

You can use different manipulatives (beans, gem stones, clips or clothes pegs) or (if you laminate the cards like I did) your child can cicle the right number with a whiteboard marker, which can be easily wiped off after finishing

Pre-writing practice

Badge puzzles with numbers

And many more fun activities….

Here you can download your FREE copy of the Paw Patrol Activity Pack

Baby Sis started a Helen Doron course

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Baby Sis is a big girl now and it was time to start her very first course of her life, where she can hear English in an organised way from other people that me or her sister.

First, there was a free session for those who wanted to see what goes on at a “lesson” on the second week of September. Then I totally forgot to take photos as L. was really tired and whiny. We had to start the day early to have time to take E. to the nursery and to get to the school by 9. It was almost impossible but we made it. Luckily, the other sessions start at 9.15 which makes a huge difference.

Next time was much better as E. was taken by my mother-in-law and Baby Sis could get a wink before we got to the school. She was more relaxed and curious. She made new friends and got familiar some teaching material.

 

There are 6 kids and their moms in the group: 3 boys and 3 girls. The youngest is about 5 months old and the oldest is about 18 months old.

In an other post I have already written about the Baby’s Best Start programme when we started it with E.

Everything goes well as for the course, though I’m a bit sad that it is not E.’s old teacher (Zs.) who holds the sessions.

Still, we’ll have lots and lots of fun, like bubble blowing, swinging, shaking noisy instruments, banging and so on.

Stomp on the grapes

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Harvest season is here and E. was very disappointed that she couldn’t take part in the grapes pressing/wine making fun at the kindergarten. Challenge accepted. We’ll press grapes juice here at home in the traditional way.

In the morning we went to the market and bought, among other foodstuff, 2 kilos of grapes (Szaszla).

We washed them together and put them in a big plastic basin.

I also prepared for her a smaller bowl of water for rinsing her feet and a towel too and waited for V., our new nanny, to arrive.

At first, she was hesitant and  didn’t want to step in. Then she did and started to cry a little. She had ambivalent feelings concerning the experience, the feeling on her feet. She got out of the basin.

So Baby Sis gave it a try too.

After some pressure and reassurance, she tried it again and this was the time when she started to enjoy it. And she stomped and stomped and stomped like a dinosaur. She clawed some of the grapes from the sides and stomped some more.

 

 

She got the hang of it and she was even willing to sing the grapes song she’d learnt in the kindergarten.

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E. tried the freshly pressed grape juice but it won’t be her favourite refreshment.

We need to do this again with more preparation from my side and some more harvest activities to follow. Maybe next year when Baby Sis can join in more actively.

Baby sign language

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Baby sign language can be a great link between the 2 languages (English-Hungarian) we speak. It serves as a third language and helps Baby Sis to understand basic ideas even if we use different languages. The sign is always the same.

If you raise your child bilingual or multilingual, or just wish to understand what your child wants to “say” before using word, sign language is a tool that can help a lot.

With E. I started to use the MAKATON sign language which is based on BSL (British Sign Language). Some ASL (American Sign Language) signs I also included as I sometimes find them easier like the sign for “more”, for instance.

American Sign Language
Makaton

 

After quite a lot of research on the net I found MAKATON the most expressive and easy to remember sign collection. What’s more, it is designed for children so one can find nursery rhymes and songs signed online, which makes it easier to learn and after a while (when your child is older) you can also watch a special BBC programme, Something Special.

In the following video you can hear about the benefits of signing to your child, no matter you have a perfectly healthy or mentally challenged child.:

Actually, I created our own sign language using a mixture of BSL, MAKATON, ASL and our own signs, too. You can make up your own sgn if you are creative enough. The key is consistency.

No matter if we are in English or in Hungarian I use the same sign for an idea or object or a family member, to mention a few examples.

Just like E., Baby Sis also enjoys whenever I sign her a song, or I show her a sign while talking to her. E. helps me with signing every now and then (if she’s in the mood).

How to introduce the signs:

  • always face your child so (s)he can see your face and the sign too
  • show the sign while you say the word
  • have cheerful expression on your face
  • introduce maximum 1-2 signs at once
  • use and repeat the same signs for 3-5 days regularly
  • then introduce 2-3 new signs every 5-6 days
  • follow your child’s lead (some children pick up signs more slowly or faster than others)

10+1 basic baby signs to start with:

mummy
daddy

baby

nappy
milk
happy
sleepy
bath
eat
drink
+baby’s name

sleep(y)
drink
eat
Baby’s name can be signed with the first letter of their name. Here is the Makaton ABC:

Here is a youtube video of two girls showing the Makaton abc:

Moving on to a higher level…

Depending on the baby’s interest you can introduce 1-2 topics with 4-5 signs per week or you can choose a mixture of 10-15 favourite signs:

  • foods
  • animals
  • more family members
  • toys
  • everyday objects
  • colours
  • action verbs

Singing and signing:

Singing to your baby and telling her nursery rhymes are the best way to familiarise your child with the sounds, intonation, tune of your language(s). While singing you can sign what you sing about. You don’t need to sign every word just the most important ones. Your child will be fascinated by the sound and the visual impact as well.

Make sure you check out Signing Hands youtube channel where you can find several traditional nursery rhymes and songs signed. (You can learn the signing from the songs quite easily)

Here is an example: – Row, row, row your boat

More resources:

You can have a look at my Makaton Pinterest board which is full of useful signs, links and videos about sign language and great number of signs.

I hope you find this post useful and interesting. Although I’m not an expert on signing, just a mom who learnt it all by herself from the net, if you have any questions do not hesitate to contact me.

Smudging paint – mess free baby painting

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I hope I will have more time to write about some baby activities we’ve been doing, just like this one – smudging paint in a plastic bag. An easy to prepare activity for a baby.
What you need is in the picture. I used baby paint but any kind will do as the baby won’t touch the paint directly.
I put dabs of paint on a white sheet of paper of 3 colours. Unfortunately, I used too much paint. In this case less is more. Next, I placed the white sheet with paint into the zip lock bag. You need to be extra careful not to smudge the paint while sliding it in the bag.
With painters’ tape I fixed it on the floor and put L. close to it. In seconds she scooted there to check what it is.

 

To be perfectly honest, she was a bit more interested in the tape than the paint blobs against the white background. Kids are unpredictable.

 

I showed her how to press her little hands on the paint then she got the hang of it… I don’t want to mislead you… her attention span was maximum 1 minute…

 

While she was messing around I was talking to her about the colours: red, yellow and blue. When E. came home from the kindergarten and she saw what we did. She enjoyed looking at the colour mixture. We talked about what happens when we mix colours: blue and yellow makes green; red and blue makes purple, red and yellow makes orange. So it’s a two in one activity if you also have a bigger child.
We might do this activity again a little later too.
The original idea comes from Jen, a Canadian mum. You can find her great ideas on mama.papa.bubba.com