New year - new timetable. First I though we have been spending less time with English in 2014, but I was mistaken. We are spending more time with the second language than according to the previous year's timetable.
Here is the new chart:
49 % English time, 51 % Hungarian time
Of course we are flexible, this is just the plan. An illness, some unexpected visitors or a change in our helpers' schedule can alter the timetable but this is more or less the main framework.
You can see two areas in the timetable (Friday late afternoons, and dinner-/bath time) which are neither clearly dedicated to English nor Hungarian, or, I can put it, they are the most uncertain periods of the week. The reason for this is D. has been working a lot and because of his long hours we never know if he is at home at these times or not. So when he can't make it we use English. This is how we compensate for missing daddy.
Our native nanny, A., comes twice a week, a total of 6 hours per week.
A. and E. are reading Berry and Dolly
The timing of the Helen Doron sessions has been moved from the mornings to the afternoons and on a different day (Wednesday) but we still have one occasion per week. To be honest, we are not listening to the CDs as often as we used to. It is mainly because E. is a little bored of them (me too...) and she knows them all by heart, so what for? Still, she enjoys the lessons, especially painting (I'll write more about it in another post) and moving water from a teapot or a dish to a cup. Playing with scrunchy balls -crumpled newspaper sheets with cello-tape around them- and pots are also among her favourite activities. We sometimes play with them here at home as well.
Fascinated by the baby paint
Even if it is a Grandma day (using Hungarian) at the end of the day I always try to fit in some English playtime, cooking time, shopping time or playground visit etc.
whisking egg yolk
The weekends are the trickiest. As I really want father and daughter to build a strong and warm relationship we (the three of us together or just the two of them) have quite a great number of programmes in Hungarian environments. I find this more important than the language development.
Daddy time
However, at weekends I always try to spend some hours with English. These are not long, and not so interactive or highly communicative activities, like watching videos in English, or reading a story in English.
I'm looking into our bilingual future with confidence and great hope. 2014 will be even more successful than 2013 was.
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:
Shape song: (I don't really fancy this one, but E. does)
We have some new favourites. While we are watching some of them she bursts out with laughter, like in case of the following:
The next video might seem very monotonous and boring but my daughter loves it and sometimes wants to watch it 4 or 5 times.
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.
I've been really busy lately: we've had some illneses and I started to learn Spanish, which kept me away from the blog. But next year I'll catch up. Promise... to myself mainly.
Of course, the last few months have been full of preparation for celebrations (Thanksgiving, Advent, birthdays, St Nicolas day - the Hungarian speciality - and Christmas). We had a lot of English usage in connection with these and in our everyday life too.
We still take part in Helen Doron English sessions - some negative, some positve expereinces. Might share with you later, too.
E. is getting more and more interested in numbers (big numbers in the first place) and letters as well. I'll also write about how far we've got and what we are doing with letters and numbers.
Advent calendar and its numbers
We've put a hold on flashcards as E. doesn't seem to be excited about them any more (sometimes we do a little revision), and as she speaks continuously and more or less fluently (3-6 word sentences) with a wide range of vocabulary, flashcards are pointless in introducing something new to her. (I have some ideas of car logos, starsigns and Christmas vocab, but she knows a lot about these things already)
Baking gingerbread was one of the highlights of this season - the time when she learnt how to pose and say 'cheese' when someone takes a photo of her.
Is it going to be a Gingerbread man?
Thank you for following us, and giving your feedback.
I wish you and your family a very Happy Christmas and a successful New Year with a lot of second (or third) language.
