Football To Continue!

Vuvuzelas are silent and doors to stadiums, where Football World Cup happened, are closed, but we have just opened for us a wonderful toy – a BALL! Maria is fan of it, all the time she brings a ball for me to throw it high in the sky or in her hands. We are also improvising football play by trying to push ball forward shouting GOAL!!!

Studying Colours

Uffff, that’s quite uneasy task…We started studying colors about 1.5 month ago but the results are seen just now and not always 100% correct. I recently found out the reason: children start to see clear differences between colours when they are older than 1.5 years. Maria is just 1y.2m.o. I guess, we will postpone a bit our colourful life.

But I will shortly tell you how we proceeded with colours.

1. We had two triangles: yellow and green. I explained that one is yellow, other is green and asked to give me yellow, then green. When this task was done moreless successfully, we increased number of colours to 4 basic ones: blue, yellow, green and red.

2. The game was as follows: one needed to find in our flat as many blue-coloured things as possible. Of course, we did it together, but Mary liked the game.

3. On the piece of cloth (to save space compared to paper) circles were drawn and coloured in 4 basic colours. So, I asked Mary to step in yellow, blue… etc., first doing it together. Then, we went through our toys and sorted them by colours, putting them on the according circle.

4. When being outside, I pointed out the things, which were of the colours she knows: Look! Here is a RED car coming!... Though, this is rather passive learning, anyway it should develop Maria’s understanding of the colours.

Second Language

I, myself, am fond of languages and love to study them. And I would be really happy if Maria would also have a wish to study languages. Besides, we live in bilingual country so knowing at least two (I would even say three!) languages is a must for us. So, gradually I begin to introduce Maria to her second language.

It is well-known theory that for children it is much easier to learn smth new (e.g. to speak foreign languages, to ski, to swim) compared to an adult. Knowing this advantage we started quite early (1 y. 1 m. o.) to learn second language. In the beginning I was worrying that Maria will get a mixture of native and foreign language in her head. These worries were reinforced by the fact that at the moment she just starts speaking her native language, although she understands everything what one says. So, I surfed the Internet to find the experience of parents, whose children grew in bilingual families, read articles of teachers, scientists, psychologists. The results of my findings pointed to the main principle of a successful language studying, which is a clear border between two languages: a) mum speaks one/dad speaks another; b) at home one language is spoken/in the countryside another is spoken; c) foreign language can be spoken at a particular part of the day or day of week.

We chose the time before going to bed (~15 min), when we communicate in foreign language. During this time I read poems and speak in a different language. In the beginning, Maria looked really puzzled, and thought maybe her Mum is crazy =). But now I see she starts to understand separate words and is quite interested in the process.

We will see how it goes further. Anyway, I believe, these efforts will not be in vain and everything what we do now will help Maria to develop in her future life.

Self-made Toys

Actually, pictures seem to be self-explanatory but nevertheless I will provide some comments on each.
1. For developing hands and fingers of babies. We take a piece of cloth and make a small bag (alternative: we can take a sock without a pair =)), fill it with different substances: pasta, beans, buckwheat etc. We started to workout fingers when Maria was just 7 m.o. She liked it in the beginning but now, when she is already 1.1 she feels a bit bored with this toy.

2. I found some spare covers in my kitchen and made a logics game for Maria by cutting a hole in a piece of carton for each cover. She likes this game very much and is very happy when all covers fit in the right place.

3. These beads were made by my grandmother, for which I’m very grateful to her. We noticed that Maria as all women loves to make herself beautiful and loves to be in front of the mirror =)))). She became crazy when she saw I was putting my beads on. Soon she got her own beads made out of buttons of different size. They made her really happy!!! She played with her beads (which is also very good for finger workout) already when she was 9 m.o. but they still remain her favourite toy.

4. This toy I made relatively after I spotted intention of our baby to put things in holes, to put covers on top of the bottles, jars. It was exactly what she needed at that moment. Now, I think, this game should become a bit complicated: instead of big rings, buttons will be used and the hole will be much smaller, of course.

5. Absolutely top hit!!! is a house made by Maria’s father from the pasteboard. The house was papered for it to look happier =), but one can draw smth on it, write smth etc. As children psychologists say the house is needed for child’s internal development as it helps child to become more attentive. It also provides additional feeling of safety and soul comfort as the child understands it has its own place, where no adult is allowed. Another advantage of this toy – it will be suitable for many years on.

Methods to Develop Early

Basically all authors of methods for developing children physical and intellectual potential agree that the most productive time for developing child is till he gets 3 y.o. as this is the time when brains are in their fastest growing stage. Of course that doesn’t mean that one should stop educating kid when he gets older, but the early stage is crucial for further development.

In my blog I will try to cover all most popular methods for developing a child, posting my opinion on each. Together with Maria we probably would try to implement some elements into practice and later share our experience with you.

However, I’m very cautious with all these development techniques for some reasons. First, they all have been created relatively recently and, therefore, haven’t been tested properly yet, the lifelong influence on the child seems to be not well researched yet. Second, some of these methods make child think in categories (letters, words, figures etc.) not images. Imaginative thinking is crucial for the child till he is at least 6-7 y.o. Besides, my personal belief is that, in future, economics would need people with creative thinking (advertising industry, design, web programming, entertainment etc.). Third, the ultimate goal of each parent is to make his baby happy. I really doubt that these techniques are able to make a person happy. Simple example: a really developed child goes to school – he is too clever for the current program, becomes bored and gets lazy in the end, having no any wish to study further or he becomes an outcast and cannot properly communicate with his mates.

I believe that the best way to proceed is to adopt some development techniques, and to go our own way: e.g.reading fairy tales and poems, playing together, studying the surrounding world when being ocutside, and doing other fun things for development. What is more, it is commonly believed and I fully support opinion that the best teacher is Mum, who absolutely feels the needs of her child for development.

Dance Dance Revolution

It's been a while since my last post... Sorry guys... was hardly preparing for my exam. Till results announcement it is still some time to go, so I will try to successfully combine blogging, having rest with the little one and my job. To warm up a bit I will start with the post dedicated to music.

Children are very sensitive to the surrounding environment; particularly they are sensitive to the music. The majority at the age close to 1 Y wants to move when hears the rhythmic music.

I am fond of various kinds of music: starting with world classics and finishing with modern rock and pop. When I was pregnant I used to play piano so that the baby would listen to the beautiful music. Maria did listen and later remembered the music I played to her. Now she is big fan of music and also loves to dance. We dance together crazily when listen to the energizing music. I hold Maria’s hands and she moves: bends knees, moves her head and laughs…

When I feel we are a bit bored, I turn on the music (each time different (including also old classics such as Abba and Beatles as well as music for children) so that she also gets familiar with various styles and develops her taste of music) and we DANCE,DANCE, DANCE!!!

Rainy Shower

Bathroom is Maria’s favourite room in the house. She cannot wait until evening when she has regular bathtime. It is time when she usually gets a portion of positive emotions – so much she adores being in the bath (I guess, as many children at her age (9-10 months)).

She has many bath toys: ducks, ships, fish, - but they all just 5 min to play with. The most interesting toy is shower, which I introduced to her very recently. At first, she was a bit frightened but evidently fascinated by the shower. We have even a code name for it: RAIN! =))))

• We hide shower under water,
• Sink Maria’s ships,
• Water walls and all around including mum.
• Maria is fan of catching the stream,
• She also loves to fill with water cans, plastic glasses and other emkosti.
• What is more, shower helps me to teach Maria parts of the body: “Now we will water hand…. another hand… back… belly…”. Maria knows already what I am going to do and puts her legs or hands under the rainy shower.

It really helps as the studying is in form of the game and is associated with positive emotions, which encourage instant memorizing.