Our First St. Patrick's Day - the Irish flag and symbols

Last year we didn't celebrate St. Patrick's day as a Hungarian national holiday (March 15) is very close  to it. This year I decided to celebrate both with some fun activities as E. can take more.

Irish Flag

First, we talked a little about Ireland. We took a look at the Picture Atlas E. likes so much. She pointed at the flag and the capital. We also talked about what animals she could see there on the island. (I also mentioned to her that I lived there for a while but she was totally unimpressed)

Then we went on to the flag. She got excited as soon as she saw the colourful stickers. I made the flag and I found some price tag stickers in a One Euro shop.

She immediately started to do the sticking saying: - G is for green and the Os are for orange.
At first she didn't understand what she would stick on the white part of the flag. She was a little disappointed when I told her to leave it white and there would be no sticking in the middle.

Some white parts are left among the stickers so it gave us a great chance to colour that E. doesn't like that much. I made sure that she needed to practise a little sharpening too.

She was really happy when she finished colouring. I must admit I had to help her a bit.

However, she proudly stuck it on our living-room door.

St. Patrick's Day Cutting Practice via Welcome to Mummyhood

Using scissors is a new skill we've been trying to practise lately.

I had a very easy task with this: print and cut. I just needed to sit back and watch my daughter focus really hard on cutting along the lines.

Of course, we discussed what the things are in the pictures (pot of gold, rainbow, shamrock). I really hope that the book about the leprechaun (that I'd ordered via bookdepository.com with free delivery) will arrive before or on St. Patrick's Day.

Mosaic paper shamrock (via Happiness Is Homemade)

I myself drew and cut out a shamrock of cardboard that I found at home. I would have been better off with green construction paper or cardstock and a template, but the result was okay.

I also prepared cut-up pieces of all kinds of green paper (old wrapping paper, leftover construction and scrapbook paper etc). If you have an older child you can do the cutting together. Mine turns 3 in May so I decided on cutting the squares myself.

When she saw the layout she was delighted. She could stick all day.

You can also use glue stick that dries clear but I like the idea of E. using her hand muscles when squeezing the liquid glue bottle.

Final results: the left one is mine the right one is E.'s

 As in the morning we were drying Rabbit's hair (-pretend play I'll write about later) the hairdryer came handy to dry excess glue.

Before sticking them on our living-room door I turned the shamrocks upside down and trimmed off the overhanging edges.

Was it fun? ;)

More to come in the next post:

• Rainbow name puzzle
• More shamrock sticking out of heart and triangle shapes
• Book review on St. Patrick and the Leprechaun
• St. Patrick's Day Patterning

Over 100 words

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 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

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...