Baby books 0-12 months

When E. was a baby I wanted to write a post about what books we are using every 6-12 months. I didn't. I feel it as a pity so I got a second chance with Baby Sis. Here it comes. The books we've been using in L.'s first year.

What you'll be reading about:

• cloth books
• educational board books
• touchy-feely books
• noisy books
• lift the flap books
• +1 extra surprise

0-6 months

We mainly "read" cloth books. Or while Baby Sis was lying awake she was looking at the black and white images, like in this one. I also pointed at the pictures and said what was seen (daddy, baby, heart etc.)

It's also important to mention that the Velcro on the book is TASTY. 😂

IKEA cloth books are great. Apart from looking at them I could make up a very simple story on the basis of the pics. They're also interactive (you can pull out a rabbit from a black top hat)

Drugstore (DM) cloth books that crackle and rustle:

Maisy's bedtime - We usually have a look at this booklet before bath time.

Ladybird series: Baby touch

The 2 on the top were E.'s favourite as a baby

E. as a baby, "reading"

L.'s favourite: Wiggle Jiggle Ladybird

It's not an advertisement but I love Usborne books. Baby books by Usborne are simple, have great contrast and the images are cute. The touchy-feely books are not only pleasure to look at but also exciting for little fingers to touch the varied surfaces. Even my 4,5-year old loves to paw them. Here are what we have:

This is not the touchy and feely kind

Baby Sis is examining the fluffy bunny

6-12 months:

We on reading the books above and introduced some new ones:

Noisy books are number one (not so amusing for parents though after 15-20 minutes of quacking)

Old MacDonald will be a Christmas present

Lift the flap books are also fun to read with your little ones. My only problem is that they can get damaged easily as my kids try to peep under the flaps. Our favourites are the following:

Here is a Dear zoo song:

On this link you can PEEP inside

One of our favourites is this Animal hide-and-seek. You can see how fun it is in the video below.

And the extra surprise book with a hand puppet:

Five Silly Monkeys by Steve Haskamp

The traditional song with a little twist. Here is a review from goodreads that I could have written:

"This time five monkeys are silly and not just mischievous. They jump on the bed of course, then they eat on the bed, swing on the bed, slide on the bed, and then spin on the bed.

Great fun for little ones and they love holding the cover with the monkeys heads made out of plastic for them to feel!"

L. loves to put her little finger through the holes. Sometimes a sing the original version. Sometimes with the funny activities like jumping,, swinging, sliding etc.

I hope you could find some ideas about what to read with your little one. Feel free to share what books you're reading with this age group.

Baby Sis started a Helen Doron course

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.

Baby sensory bottles

When Baby Sis turned 6 months, E. and I prepared these sensory bottles for her.
The idea was taken from pinterest, where you can find tons of variations. I tried to keep it as simple as possible.

I picked 5 Jana water bottles for babies. I peeled off the plastic cover. E. and I filled them up with all kind of things we found around the house:

• heart-shaped pasta
• rice flakes
• millet balls
• cut-up plastic straws and decor stones
• water beads

Then added water to the one with the straws and the water beads. Simple as that. I know she can't open the bottles tops just now but sooner or later she'll be able to so I glued the tops on.

You can fill them up with glitter, hair gel, pom-poms, beans, lentils, buttons, tiny plastic toys, jelly beans, M&Ms, corn, popcorn, beads, elastic bands, jingle bells, sand or you name it.

If you add oil or glycerine to the water the light objects will float slowly.

Baby sensory bottles

When Baby Sis turned 6 months, E. and I prepared these sensory bottles for her.
The idea was taken from pinterest, where you can find tons of variations. I tried to keep it as simple as possible.

I picked 5 Jana water bottles for babies. I peeled off the plastic cover. We filled them up with all kind of things we found around the house:

• heart-shaped pasta
• rice flakes
• millet balls
• cut-up plastic straws and decor stones
• water beads

Then added water to the straws and the water beads. Simple as that. I know she can't open the bottles tops just now but sooner or later she'll be able to so I glued the tops on.

You can fill them up with glitter, hair gel, pom-poms, beans, lentils, buttons, tiny plastic toys, jelly beans, M&Ms, corn, popcorn, beads, elastic bands, jingle bells, sand or you name it.

If you add oil or glycerine to the water the light objects will float slowly.

Getting familiar with the ABC

I do not want to brag, but yes... a little I do. E. is so  interested in the letters and the ABC that, I do not exaggerate if I say, within a year or two she'll be reading. In this blog post I would like to collect some fun activities we've been doing with the ABC.

-Videos/Songs

The very first favourite. E. was watching this video her mouth agape in amazement when she was 8-10 months old. Phonic Song 2 by KidsTV123

The traditional one is always the best (Upper- and lowercase) The ABC Song by KidsTV123

A song about how to pronounce the letters - Phonic Song by KidsTV123:

Since the age of 2 we have been watching a lot of Mother Goose Club songs: (ABC song with Eep the Mouse)

She could watch it all the time. Sometimes she wants to watch them all day (if I let her).


- Magnetic alphabet

I bought the first set of magnetic alphabet when E. was about 18 months old. She loved them at once.
First, it was just one pack of upper case letters. We used it on the fridge, but the letters always fell under it. So I had a magnetic word game at home (for adults, the letters are too tiny for little children) and I started to use one of its steel boards (You can also use a steel tray or a magnetic whiteboard)

Then I bought another pack of both upper- and lower case letters later when we started making up words at about the age of 20-22 months. (Frankly, we don't really use the lower case letters yet - age 2,5 years. Update: at the age of almost 4 we still do not really use the lower case letters)

At the very beginning we just put together the alphabet from A to Z. We sang the ABC song and/or the phonic song while arranging the letters.

Adding the missing letters to the alphabet with Daddy

 I told her words starting with certain letters, like  E. for her name or D for daddy, M for mummy, A. is for our nanny's name etc. As time passed I added some more words, such as E. is for elephant, egg, or A is for apple, ant and so on, not just names. I always tried to include things that she knew or she was really interested at that time. Within a few days she was the one who said the words: - B is for ball and bubble.

Next, we made up short words she was already familiar with.
Daddy, Mummy, M. (our dog), dog, cat, yes, no, hat, rat, egg, bat and so on. I have no intention to teach her how to read. She is the one who, from time to time, comes to me with the letters to play with. She'll work it out by herself.

- Matching game with the magnetic letters

What you need:

• letters (magnetic, felt, play dough, cut out from cardboard, drawn on bottle tops)
• plastic surface (e.g.: whiteboard, but I used an A/4 sheet that I spoiled while laminating. 
• markers (not permanent!!!)
• sponge or tissues to wipe the surface if you want to reuse it

First, I wrote three words on the laminated sheet (also drew some basic pictures)

I put the letters of these words mixed in a little container 

E. came and emptied the container.

And matched the letter. The interesting thing was that I didn't need to tell her toe start from left to right.

She wanted to do it with our nanny, too.

When she got bored with it I wiped the surface off and at another time I made a new one with: yes, no, love, sun, hot, rat as you can see it in the photo.

She had to start with her letter, E.

 It was summer time we last did this activity, and now sometimes she "reads" letters on her clothes or, some book's title.

- Search for the letters - sensory bin (autumn)

What you need:

• a container
• bark (you can buy it in a packet at animal stores)
• small object connected to autumn in some ways (berries, grapes, apples, pears, twigs, conkers, pumpkins, leaves etc. What I did was I chose 1 bunch of grapes made of plastic, 2 apples made of felt, 3 golden leaves, 4 pumpkins made of felt, 5 real conkers.)
• letters (wooden, foam, felt, magnetic, whatever) of A-U-T-U-M-N
• a sheet of the object and the letters of autumn shown

Throw the bark into the container and hide all your chosen objects in the bark. Put the sheet in front of your child and whenever they find something among the bark, place them in the right group, or if it's a letter, then on the right letter.

And the search can begin.

This activity gives you and your child plenty of opportunity to talk about not only the letters, but also colours, autumn fruit, trees, leaves and berries, and in this case numbers too.

I still have several activities, but I'll need to come back with them in another post. Try them, enjoy them and let me know how they worked out for you.

Home-made tools for language practice I.- Flashcards

As a language teacher I used a lot of card activities with my students to explain, identify, show or play things with them. It worked even with adults, but it's a hit with kids. They are colourful, fun to look at, nice to chew them or fold them (well, at least from E.'s point of view).

You can find a lot of ready-made flashcards on the net, for example, here. You just print them and can start using them. You can also find videos showing flashcards. I found them rather disappointing. A lot of them have strange visuals, or they use the American variation of the word I wouldn't use. But the most horrible experience is when the words are pronounce by a machine. It's scary. Plus, I don't want to make E. sit in front of the computer a lot.

I decided to make my own cards; it's more personal in this way, and sometimes E. could see when I prepared them, and became even more interested. And we can take with us if we want.

Of course I've read a lot about the method which was developed by Glen Doman and his flashcards, but I found it too much pressure on me. So I took it easy :)

What I do is similar to the Doman technique, but maybe not so thorough. I make flashcards about the topics E. is interested in. And the way I show them to her is not so systematic and not so fast. I'm not changing the cards so often as we play a lot with them and it's not only about showing her the cards.

So here is an example. When she was 8 months old, I was just showing her the cards and say what she could see in the picture. Later, on I mooed when the cow turned up and also showed the MAKATON sign for the cow. Then when she was around 10-11 months old I started to add extra information as well ("The cow gives us milk" - and showed the picture, showed the signs for cow and milk). When E. became 1 year old we started to name the colours as well ("Look - the cow is white and brown. It gives us milk" - I showed the signs - What colour is the milk? - and I answered: - "White". Now, at the age of 14 months, E. answers "white" and she moos as soon as she hears the word "cow".)

Sometimes I tell her a story or connect the cards to something that happened to us, or anything connected to real life. She loves those cards the most which she experienced in her own life (E.g.: body parts are great as she can identify them on me or on herself, what's more, the cards make her interactive; she asks D. to show his belly button. Among the flowers she adores the dandelion clock as we blew a lot of them when they bloomed in the park, but there are the fruits she can touch and taste like a banana or an apple).


I started with animals. As we don't have a colour printer I found some colouring pages on the net and selected some basic (later some more) animals, printed them and coloured them myself. (Quite time-consuming). Luckily I got a laminator from D. for Christmas, so I glued the coloured animals on colour paper and laminated each. It was a great idea as at the beginning E. chewed, folded and threw them away, so they really needed to be tough. Different topics have different background colours.

Animals



I thought at that time I won't make other cards but animals since she wanted nothing else but animals. We made noises that the animals made, named their colours, stated what they like eating, where they live, or sang a song about them etc.
 

 

Then she got a basket of soft vegetables (from IKEA) and I was "forced" to make some vegetable cards. (We play matching games with the soft vegetables and the cards). The same thing happened when we bought the wooden fruit box.

 

Fruit and vegetables


While we were walking in the park I realised we needed some flower cards, too. I just haven't had the energy and willpower to make tree cards, but I will one day. The flower cards are more 'professional' as they are photos printed in colour.

Flowers

I don't want E. to learn reading yet, so I didn't bother making word cards connected to the pictures. Except for the flower cards. And the reason for it is that I have difficulty remembering the names of the flowers so it is also a learning process for me. The names are on the back. Sometimes she wants to look at the words, so I show her. But I'm NOT teaching her to read.

Then the body parts came influenced by the Helen Doron songs and rhymes. At the moment we are looking at them when E. is sitting on the potty, as we can point at different body parts when she is half naked (belly button is her favourite). After making the body part cards, the time came when a box was necessary for keeping the cards in one place (that is next to the potty most of the time). So long time ago I saw a pinterest post about how to make a box for kids out of a Vanish plastic bottle. I made it and the cards can fit in it well.

Body parts

I also made musical instruments, but she has just started to become interested in them. We are going to begin using them later on.

Musical instruments

Below you can see the present collection of our cards. They are far from being ready. I'm continuously making new cards to each group.
Certainly there are more groups to come (everyday objects, furniture, baby stuff, means of transport, rooms, playground toys, tools, kitchenware etc).

The collection

 

Let's sum up what to play with cards?

 

1. Show then and say the name of the thing in the card

 

2. Matching cards and toys (toy animals, toy fruit or real ones can work well too)

 

3. Grouping (body parts on the head or fruit and vegetables in 2 groups, or according to colours in case of flowers)

4. Story telling (E.g.: chose few animals and vegetables and flowers, and build a story around them - the rabbit eats the carrot and hops into the field to smell flowers where he meets his best friend, the mouse, who is running away from the cat, because the mouse tried to drink the cat's milk)

 

5. Link the cards with sign language

 

6. Face down (put out 3-4 cards facing down and the child can turn them one by one, then name/show/point at the thing on the card - sounds boring but E. loves this too)

 

7. Sing a song (I put out some cards, e.g.: the lamb, the ladybird and the spider - I sing a song about one of the animals - Incy Wincy Spider and either E. picks up the card I1m singing about or we act out the song; the same with The Ladybird song or Ba-Ba Black Sheep song)

 

8. Odd one out (I show 3 or 4 cards of the same kind, but one is different - 3 farm animals and a wild one, or 3 yellow flowers and one red etc. -  then I ask, for instance, "Is the pig a wild animal?" - "No, it's not a wild animal." "Is the horse a wild animal?" -"No, it's not a wild animal." "Is the cow a wild animal?" - "No, it's not a wild animal."-"Is the lion a wild animal?" - "Yes, it is!" So the pig, the horse and the cow are farm animals.)

 

There must be much more games to play, just let your (and your child's) imagination fly.