10 Favourite Nursery Rhymes to Study English

Maria 3y. 7m.

 

For our English “lessons” we organized a special so called “English Zone”, where we have UK’s map, English books, an envelope with cards for articulatory gymnastics, different animals’ masks and other requisite.  This all is needed for our fun lessons, where the majority of exercises are done by performing some actions like running, jumping, drawing, modeling etc. But the most adorable part of the English studies (except for catch-up game, of course) is singing and finger-playing. Maria learns the nursery rhymes one by one and does it with pleasure remembering the words and repeating them all through the day. here is the list of her most favourite songs:

 

1. Row row row your boat

2. The Wheels on the bus  

These two songs we sing and move the respective transport mean on our UK map and then make particular exercise such as drawing or gluing or making articulatory gymnastics.

 

3. Incy Wincy Spider

4. Hockey Pockey

Excellent finger/body play!

 

5. Finger Family

6. Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
Very good when one needs to study parts of the body

7. Sing a Rainbow

Absolutely top hit when studying colours

 

And of course the lovely classics such as:

8. Old Macdonald Had a Farm

9. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

10. London Bridge is Falling Down

The most favourite songs are definitely those, which are sung by the children.

Get Active with Little Ones

Andrew 4 m.

 

At his age of 4 months Andrew is rather well-developed: swims and dives with pleasure, rolls around, stands on his fours (to prepare himself for creeping), sings and speaks with his toys and his family members, is able to play independently for some 15 to 30 min. So, what are our time and effort investments for Andrew to develop physically and mentally? Here is the list of things we do (almost) every day:

1.    5 min fit ball exercises;

2.    10-15 min massage;

3.    5 min exercise on inflatable ball;

4.    Listening to various types of music, but primarily classics;

5.    30-40min swimming;

6.    Reading and singing nursery rhymes. Also Andrew becomes active listener when we read to Maria short stories.

Gymnastics with mum is another option to be added to the list for the mum and baby to be fit.

 

Besides, Andrew and Maria enjoy speaking and playing together, which undoubtedly stimulates mutual development and learning. It is said, that second, third, fourth children develop faster than their older siblings.

Playreport: Kids want to Play with Parents!

What is a Play according to children: Building, Reading, Role play, Exercising, Creating, Thinking, Dressing Up, Cooking

 

 IKEA has undertaken a major research-driven project to investigate the subjects of children's development and play called the Playreport. 7,933 Internet-based interviews were conducted with parents and 3,116 interviews with children aged 0-12 years during October and November 2009.

The good thing discovered during the study is that the kids preferring 9 to 1 to play with friends and their parents over watching TV. However, there were also some worrisome findings:  

·         45% of parents feel they don't have enough time to play with their children

·         26% agree that they're too stressed to play with their kids

·         46% of parents admit to feeling guilty about not spending enough time with their kids

Very interesting results were obtained when asking single, wide-ranging question that invited them to tell us in their own words, ‘If you could wish for anything, what would that be?’ It's needs to be noted that a significant of children wishes are not to difficult to fulfill.

“To be an Olympic swimmer”

 “A time machine. A library”

“A TV in my room”

 “(I wish that) we lived in New Zealand - it looks wonderful, beaches are great”

“To grow up to 16”

“My own laptop”

“Liverpool to win the league”

 “A pony”

“To live in the country and have lots of animals”

“To get a good job and be happy and have lots of holidays”

“That my school friends lived closer so that we could meet up and play more, especially at the park”

“I would wish that me and my mum could spend more time with each other and go to the park and bake things. I would also like my mum to take me to places like swimming pools and the zoo and farm. I would wish that we could all eat together like a proper family (with no TV.) I would like to do art with my mum and Christmas cards and decorations. (I would like to have some more takeaways as well.)

“To go to a dance school and to be famous and rich”

 “I’m happy as I am”

“To be a professional footballer with lots of money”

“To have my nanny back from heaven as she used to play with me a lot and let me do fun things! That's it”

“A brilliant life and loadsa friends!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“I wish I could go a visit my big sister in America for a long holiday”

November Table Games

Maria 3,5 y.

We’re trying to establish family tradition – playing table games Friday evenings. It’s the moment of family unity and overall comfort as well as fun and excitement.

The ideas of the following handmade games were seen in the Internet, but they were slightly adapted to our preferences. The games we prepared ourselves and the work was mainly done by Maria (of course, the squirrel was drawn by me :)), who was really eager to start playing.

1.       Colours Memory Game

   2.      Nuts eating - a very good one for those, who wants to learn the basic colours (when playing with Maria we speak foreign language for her to expand her vocabulary in other than native language) and also for those, who loves nuts. Every player starts on the square of the same colour as his cup. Then, the player throws a dice and moves his cup. If the colour of the cup coincides with the colour of the square, then the player takes a nut, cracks it and puts it into his cup. The game stops until there are no nuts left. The winner is the one who has more nuts than the others.

 

Independent second-born children

Andrew 2 m.

Research results demonstrate that the first-born children are more likely to conform, while the second-borns appear to be more independent, rebellious and adventurous. Second born children are competitors. Though these traits of character vividly appear in the adolescent phase, Andrew being only 2 month old appears to be very independent. He can easily play on his own for some 20 min. If someone is nearby and he hears or sees smb, he can extend his independent playing time even for an hour unless he feels uncomfortable (e.g. wants to eat, to sleep).

With Maria we made a toy for Andrew that he can entertain himself, while we are cooking or running around. A branch of a pine-tree we adjusted to the part of musical mobile. To the branch we attached the strings with „handmade” sun, clouds, and „sky” with white and black stars (juice packs filled with rice and beans). So, when Andrew pulls the ribbon, this „construction” moves and makes a sound. Later, we added some bells for the better sound.

 

The toy works perfectly and Andrew is very much excited about it. Excitement makes him move again, which moves the toy. This turns into an endless excitement and playing, but at a certain point of time he gets tired and one should help Andrew to stop it. In the beginning the movements were rather chaotic, but with time passing, Andrew started to realize dependence of the bells ringing and clouds and sun dancing on his movements. So, now he moves intentionally if he want his entertainment centre to move and sound for him.

The Power of Music

Andrew - 2 m.

Here are some of the astonishing results of the famous Masaru Emoto’s water experiment, which clearly show the effect of the music.
 

The water crystal exposed to heavy metal music

 

The water crystal exposed to folk music

 

 

 

The water crystal exposed to Bach's Air for the G String

 

 

 

 

 

 

And though the „Mozart Effect” that babies become smarter after listening to Mozart sonata was not proved, anyway the beautiful music definitely has a positive effect on babies for their emotional and intellectual development. Besides, the music may stimulate baby to become more active, to relax, to cheer up... it can really influence the behaviour and the well-being.

We’re listening to the classical and nature music with Andrew 1-2 times a day for about 20 minutes. The effect of listening does not appear simultaneously, but he evidently likes it very much as he usually calms down and starts to listen carefully trying to figure out where the music comes from. We're also in process of attracting Maria (3.5 y.o.) to our regular music sessions...:)

 

To relax and calm down: flute, piano and violin; wood and sea; Vivaldi, Beethoven, Brams, Schubert, Chopin, Debussy;
To reduce anxiety: folk music, children songs, Chopin, Strauss, Rubinstein;
To reduce irritation: Bach, Beethoven;
To stimulate activity (e.g. before feeding the baby): Bach, Schubert, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky (allegro, allegro moderato);
For the well-being and activity: marches, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, List.

Baby Carrying

The single most important child rearing practice to be adopted for the development of emotional and social healthy infants and children is to carry the newborn/infant on the body of the mother/caretaker all day long...   James Prescott, Ph.D., developmental psychologist

 

It's good to have mother-child contact all day long, but in that case moms will need extra-hands to be able to do something else. When having more than one child, the case of perpetual contact is basically not real, and sometimes a feeling of guilt can appear. Some psychologists advise there should be at least 10-20 min baby carrying in every gap between baby's naps. Besides, skin-to-skin contact is important for the baby to feel safe and comfortable.

 

Inspired by Autumn

Maria 3y. 4 m.

Autumn seems to be the most inspiring season, it stimulates creativity and motivates for arts and crafts. We enjoy lots of world famous masterpieces  created by the well-known artists, we read lots of poems devoted to the autumn time. The changes in nature happening in autumn such as leaves changing their colour and animals preparing for the winter are so diverse and so colourful that one can't miss it.

We could not neglect autumn time inspiration either and indulged ourselves with the autumn crafts:

1.     Autumn in the forest  - of course none can compare with the Autumn-Artist but still we tried to reflect our autumn mood on the paper. Maria painted colourful background, glued pieces of journal paper, which were supposed to depict birch-trees, and, then, finger-painted leaves on the trees.

 

 2.     Maria was dancing all around with the rowan beads and a bracelet we made together. This was a good exercise for the little fingers when she was putting rowan on the string with the help of the needle.

 

 

3.     Making a geometry ship recalled Maria about the basic geometric forms, which she was painting with the excitement for the ship to have beautiful sails. Later we enjoyed our ship floating in the nearest pond.

Overall the ship-building process was pretty easy and fast: a) put the paper sails on the chopsticks; b) made three holes in the plastic bottle for the chopsticks with sails and a nail in the back; c) tied a ribbon for our construction not to collapse after few minutes of sailing; d) the ship is ready for grand sailing! (not to forget to tie up some string to be able to steer the vessel)

4.      Acorn man, acorn dog and some strange creature J Maria was rather a passive observer this time, but an active acorn hunter.

 

Black’n’White

Andrew 2 m.

It’s well-known that the newborn babies cannot see the objects clearly and can’t distinguish the colours until up to three months old. The best distance for the baby to study smth is around 20 cm, which corresponds to the distance from the breast to mom’s face meaning that the ideal time for studying mom’s face is breast-feeding.

What babies are fascinated by (of course, after parent’s facial expressions) are the contrasts of the dark and light and specifically, black and white. Other colours, which are the first for the newborn to recognize are red and orange.

Based on this knowledge, together with Maria we prepared a training for Andrew – coloured in black some paintings  as well as made a rattle (made out of Pringles chips box, which we filled up with macaroni and taped the top of the box with black’n’white Mary’s drawing). Andrew’s reaction exceeded all expectations! =) he was amazed by these contrast papers and could stare at them for quite a long time. It was an excellent help to keep Andrew happy on his belly (which is usually the most disliked activity of the newborns).

Big City Life

Mary 3y. 4m.

Once we went to the airport to see off our dad, who was going to the business trip. Maria was soo excited by the view from the window, by the infrastructure of the airport, by the planes taking off and landing, that I could hardly persuade her to go back home finally.. had to pay the whole fortune for the parking .. oops..

 

When came back, we studied the planes and other means of transport we could find in our kid’s encyclopedia as well as watched some youtube films on the topic. The buildings and other city’s infrastructure, however, we studied in a more interactive way. We build the whole city on the piece of paperboard: organized the traffic with traffic signs and lights, planted and painted the trees, built houses with glued windows, parked some cars (everything was done by Maria except me cutting off the trees and traffic lights, and drawing the roads). She enjoyed building the city, though less playing with it. The city, however, was valued more by other kids coming to us.

Another thing we made was an outside activity, when we were drawing with the chalks. To make it more interesting there were some tasks for Maria and her friend to fulfill:

1.       Maria and our small neighbour Nick were given some paper stuff (e.g. doctor, airplane, animals etc.). They had to find the right place where to stick them to:

·         Doctor – hospital (hint: red cross);

·         Animals – zoo (hint: cages);

·         Plane  - airport (hint: runways);

·         Vegetables – shop;

·         Train – railway.

2.       Had to find and draw waves in the swimming pool.

3.       Finish drawing the railway.

4.       Draw some traffic lights

Maria added the sun placing it near the airport and other colourful dots saying these are the planets. So, we decided it is no longer an airport but the planetarium and a spaceport.J

Touch and Feel – Baby's Whole World

80% of information about the surrounding environment a newborn receives mainly from touching and feeling something as the eyesight is underdeveloped yet. Hearing is another sense, which helps to get the information about the world, and which is quite developed compared to the sight. Thus, for an infant the favourite music is mom’s and dad’s voices and the favourite feeling is parents’ touch when massaging or  lulling the newborn into the sleep.

Development of senses is closely connected to the intellectual development, therefore, during the first year it is essential to pay major attention to the sensoric as well as to the physical development. With every touch baby is learning about the life. Besides, it provides the feeling of safety, which stimulates self-confidence and makes baby calm and happy.

 

To make our newborn feel safe and comfort, we are trying our best to stimulate the development of senses: massaging, lulling, singing nursery rhymes, speaking and commenting his funny emotions.

Besides, with Maria we prepared a magic bag with pieces of fabric of different texture. Mornings and evenings we put these pieces one by one into Andrew’s small palms for him to have various feelings.

This magic bag can be also used by Maria in the form of the game proposed by M. Montessori: to find another piece of fabric of the same texture when eyes shut.

Professions, occupation, jobs…

Mary 2y. 3m.

.. the Thesaurus shows that the antonyms of these words are Entertainment, Fun and Hobby. For Maria the mentioned antonyms are perfectly correct definitions of the time when we were diving deep into the adults’ world to study some professions and jobs. As many kids, she is keen on learning more of what grown-ups are actually doing.

·         Watching presentations and flashcards;

·         Playing lotto about professions;

·        Trying ourselves what the guys of different professions do: seamstress (were sewing a rabbit), scientist-physicist (made different experiment with liquid solubility in the water - we tried gouache, Fairy washing liquid, oil), pilot (made and painted a pilot cap, were flying all around);

·         Cutting out and gluing different attributes of each occupation.

This is what we’ve been doing with Maria about a year ago. Now, of course, when she can concentrate her attention for longer time, I’d offer her more sophisticated games to gain knowledge further.  Indeed, the topic is endless and it can be studied at any age…

"Seasonal" Musical Mobile

Andrew being almost a month old loves when his sister turns on music for him, which often lulls him into the sweet dreams. When the musical mobile is turned on, Andrew is also interested in what is going on above him and is carefully watching the characters moving.

To make his view more diverse, we decided to make another four characters for Andrew to get him acquainted with some of the attributes of the four seasons we have. For Maria it was also a good exercise when she was gluing felt details together. We did the job in less than 15 min, so Andrew was soon able to enjoy the new stuff moving and sounding above him.

Sand Art

Sand art therapy helps to express children the “inexpressible”. Playing with sand helps to express feelings and aspects of the personal life experiences. There are no borders for expression except the bottle itself (in case of bottle sand art, which we tried with Maria). One can experiment with colours, forms, combinations…

Bottle sand art turned out to be easy, fun and exciting! Maria could not help playing with the sand, despite being late for her gymnastics class. She really enjoyed the process and the result, which can easily become a nice present.

Before filling up the bottles, we prepared some sand additionally as we lacked several colours – yellow, red, brown. The preparation process enthralled Maria as well:

1.       Pour some vodka in the bowl;
2.       Add gouache;
3.       Add semolina to get homogeneous mass, which should become dry and as crumbly as the sand.

Then, you are ready to proceed with filling up the bottles, which, by the way, to a great extent resembles Montessori type exercise.

We had some sand left over, so we decided to make a dolphin sand painting as well.

Loving vs. Spoiling Child

Many young parents tend to worry how to “demonstrate” their love and care without spoiling children. Perhaps, the border between 'to love' and 'to indulge' might not be too obvious. Still it is there and it would be good to distinguish between these two notions, one of which is vital and useful, while another is destructive for child’s development.

·         Love cannot be indifferent! Loving parents always devote a lot of attention to their offsprings. And if the daughter comes with her newest drawing when dad is watching football match or playing Diablo on his PC, he will never say indifferently: “AAh, ok, nice…”, not even glancing at it.

·         Love is not egoistic! We love our children and this love should be differentiated from self-love.

·         Love is not overprotection. The latter one is done just for parents’ needs: not allowing running into the puddle (thus, no need to run after), dressing the child (to make it happen   faster), feeding the child (to make it happen faster and for the kitchen to remain clean). Love requires responsibility, while spoiling the child – does NOT!

·         Love is ready to overcome difficulties. Indulging the child avoids them. Undoubtedly, it is easier to turn on TV for the children to watch cartoons and adults to relax; than to think of some games, to play theatre, to make a greeting card for grandma together.

To be more specific about love demonstration, there are 5 areas that a child will feel loved according to Gary Chapman’s book, The 5 Love Languages. Every area is important, but usually 1 area is dominating others for every kid.

1. Physical Touch (hugging, holding, patting shoulder, wrestling around, tickling)
2. Words of Affirmation (positive & encouraging words)
3. Quality Time (making an effort to do something special, reading a book, playing a game, doing a craft)
4. Gifts (taking the time to buy a gift or giving them something special)
5. Acts of Service (doing things for them; making their bed, getting them their drink, helping them out with things.

It is a bit hard to understand what Maria is fond of more as her character still undergoes development and transformation stage. However, one can clearly see she loves to hear affirmation words and to spend quality time together with her relatives. For Andrew, as for most of the babies, physical touch is the priority now, but quality time also gains importance.