New flashcards - flags

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

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: Butterfly colour song

Balloon song:

loves to watch/sing/chant the English alphabet

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 when I ask her 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  :)