Ice-water / Jégből víz

It was high time to clean my fridge+freezer, so I emptied both and unplugged it. I invited Karina to help me breaking the ice and had this idea meanwhile to make it into a lesson. We compared how long it takes for a small piece and a big piece of ice to dissolve, also we saw how fast ice melts if we pour hot water on it.

It turned out to be a fun way of cleaning. And, the bonus is, that while I was taking the kids out sledging, my husband cleaned the freezer. Isn't he dear?!?

At the bottom you can find two short videos of our experiments.


Rászántam ma végre magamat, hogy leolvasztom és kitakarítom a hűtőt+mélyhűtőt. Karinát is doacsaltam, és közben kémiaórává vált a takarítás. Megvizsgáltuk, melyik jégdarab olvad el hamarabb szobahőmérsékleten: az icuri-picuri, vagy a jó nagy darab. Aztán azt is megnéztük, mi történik, ha forró vizet öntünk a jégre, és akkor, ha hajszárítózzuk a mélyhűtőt, szigorúan csak kintről.
Jó kis móka lett így a takarításból. Ja, és a hab a tortán: míg én este megszánkóztattam a gyerekeket, apa kitakarította a leolvasztott hűtőt. Hát nem drága?!?
Két kis videó a megfigyelésünkről:

After Christmas / Karácsony után

We had a lovely Christmas - again. After lots of preparation we started the celebration as the small family Király in the morning of Christmas eve. We sat together under the Christmas tree, which was on our chest of drawer, far away from Barni's reach:-) While Daddy read the Christmas story from Luke 2, Barni was busy walking around the room. Ever since he has started walking on his own last Sunday, he can't stop:-)

We opened our gifts afterwards - Karina has received a family of four dolls, Barni a toy where you can open up "windows" and then close them. I have no idea what its name is, sorry.

I was surprised with a baking sheet that you can use up to 300 times (we'll see...), and Imi has received the book of Proverbs, a new Hungarian translation of it.
Also, some dear friends posted gifts to the kids. You can see Barni's book in the photo. It is That's not my lion . Karina has received a box of Bible memory game.
Today we had bonus gifts - a packet has arrived from Grandpa Jim and Grandma Gaynor, with a dvd for Karina: The snowman and a bunch of sockes for Barni. Thank you!!

We spent times with our families around the tree and around the table, too - delicious meals everywhere. For those who are not familiar with Hungarian Christmas traditions: at Christmas we eat stuffed cabbage, a dish made of crescents with poppy seed, pastry rolls and lots of other yummy food:-)
We had church services twice, where my bunch of musicians were playing the bells, and Karina was sharing her Christmas poem with two other girls (cousins of hers)


That's it for now. I need to write all these in Hungarian now...


A képeket és a videót már tuti megnézted:-) És láthattad, hogy idén is nagyon szép karácsonyunk volt. Karina egy babacsaládot kapott, Barni egy fejlesztő játékot, amiről fogalmam sincs, mi a neve. Kinti barátoktól kaptak könyvet, memóriajátékot, dévédét. Imim a Példabeszédek könyvének egy új fordítását kapta, én pedig egy 300-szor (!!) újrahasznosítható "sütőpapírt" kaptam.
Szűk kis családunk már szenteste reggelén együtt ünnepelt, hogy aztán minden meghívásnak eleget tudjunk tenni. Szenteste délutánján az én családommal, első nap délelőtt apósoméknál, délután a gyülekezetben, másnap délelőtt ismét istentisztelet, délután anyósoméknál voltunk. Nem unatkoztunk, de azért nem is volt borzasztóan zsúfolt. Jól éreztük magunkat a nagy zsongásban.
Már advent óta sokat beszélgettünk az Úr Jézusról, aki a karácsony lényege. Énekeltünk rengeteget, olvasunk mindenfélét, és esténként is karácsonyhoz kapcsolhatóan meséltem Karinának, a Jesse-fa képeivel.
És ahogy ma olvastam a Mai ige angol változatában, Jézust nem akarjuk elcsomagolni a többi dísszel egy évre, hanem azt akarjuk, hogy köztünk éljen minden nap:-) Word for u today
A Mai igét magyarul itt olvashatod!

Ez a kép a Ficsor családi karácsonyon készült:

Spell Outloud

Spell Outloud
It will be good for next Christmas / Jövő karácsonyra jó lesz az adventi lánc

Jesse tree / Jesse fa

Our Jesse-tree / A mi Jesse fánk.

I just found this idea of a Jesse tree here. I think it is a great idea to do it, maybe instead of an Advent calendar. Check it out! You find free download here
I have made a Hungariana  version of it.

Sosem hallottam még ezelőtt Jesse fáról. Jó ötletnek tűnik adventi kalendárium helyett... Érdemes rákukkantanod! Letölthető képecskéket itt találsz!
Eltelt közben 3 óra. Próbáltam magyarosítani, de a képek nem stimmelnek. Azért itt megnézheted. 

Thanksgiving day / Hálaadás napja

Here in Hungary we don't celebrate Thanksgiving, but this month we keep talking about what things we are grateful for. Karina is very grateful for her brother, Barni. She just loves him - though sometimes her acting of love looks more like hurting him:-) But he adores her, too, and when he had enough of her love, he would start protesting outloud. He can be quite noisy...
Reading is very important part of our life. Both my husband and I love reading, and it looks we passed the love of books on to both our kids. They can both spend long minutes with "reading". Karina can actually read lots of words, both in English and in Hungarian.
Books are another theme of our thanksgiving - we are so happy there are good Christian books around now. There used to be no Christian literature, even when I was a kid. They were banned. So I am very grateful my kids have loads of Christian books:)
With the following photo I enrolled the 'My Thanksgiving Photo Contest' at Uprinting. If you like this photo, please leave a note here.

I want to read that book, too!

Bár itt Magyarországon még nem ünnepeljük Hálaadás napját, november folyamán sokat beszéltünk arról, mikért is vagyunk hálásak. Karina nagyon hálás a kisöccséért, Barniért. Borzasztóan szereti - náha már túlzásba is viszi a szeretetét, annyira nyúzza... De Barni is nagyon szereti őt, és ha elege van nővére szeretetözönéből, hangosan tiltakozik. Van hangereje...
Az olvasás fontos helyet foglal el az életünkben. Férjem is, én is nagy olvasók vagyunk. Úgy tűnik, sikerült ezt szerencsésen átörökítenünk. Mindketten hosszú perceken át olvasnak, néma csendben. Karina sok szót ismer is, angolul is, magyarul is.
Hálaadás révén a könyvekről is megemlékezünk - nagyon hálásak vagyunk, hogy vannak jó keresztyén könyvek.  Régen nem volt keresztyén irodalom, még az én gyerekkoromban sem. Ezért aztán különösen is hálás vagyok, hogy gyermekeinknek már rengeteg keresztyén könyve van:-)
A fenti képpel beneveztünk egy Hálaadásnapi versenyre ( 'My Thanksgiving Photo Contest'). Ha tetszik a kép, kérlek, írj egy bejegyzést ide!

Using two languages.../Kétnyelvűség...

... means you have friends speaking in two languages. So I decided I would blog both in English and in Hungarian. At least I will give it a try :-)
Yesterday evening, after having put Barni to sleep, I decided to give our plastic animals a nice bath with some detergent. Karina has found them, and volunteered to help. So I had her move the animals into clean water. It took a lot longer to bath them this was, but it turned out to be excellent fun + learning activity. She started picking out farm animals firsts (because she just loves the animals at Grandpa's farm). So I encouraged her to continue choosing only farm animals first. Then we put them on a try to dry, and colelcted the wild animals into clean water afterwards. Meanwhile we talked about mammals, what makes an animal a mammal, we chose which ones were birds etc. So it was a very valuable time: cleaning, learning, playing PLUS quality time with my daughter:-)

A kétnyelvűség automatikusan hozza magával, hogy barátaink némelyike angolul beszél, a többiek magyarul. Úgy döntöttem hát, eztán két nyelven blogolok. Legalábbis megpróbálom... (Nem szó szerinti fordítás lesz, de ugyanazt mesélem el magyarul is, mint amit fent angolul.)
Tegnap este, miután Barnit lefektettem, rászántam magamat, hogy lefertőtlenítem a műanyag állatkáinkat. Amint Karina meglátta a fürdőző sereget, tüstént jelentkezett, hogy segít nekem. Felajánlottam, hogy átpakolhatja őket tiszta vízbe a mosdókagylóba. Mikor láttam, hogy csupa háziállatot választ először, bátorítottam, hogy akkor most első körben csak háziállatokat hozzon. Közben szépen megbeszéltük, melyik emlős, melyik madár, és hogy mitől emlős valami, vagy mitől madár. Miután az összes háziállat (vagy ahogy ő mondta, kezdetben, tanyai állat - jé, most esik le!!! hát azért tanyai állat, mert angolul "farm animals". Tegnap még nem értettem, miért tanyai állatozik annyira...)
Szóval a háziállatok után következtek a vadállatok, ahol bizony néha elakadtam. Egy állatról még most sem tudom, mi lehet... valami nyestféle... Itt meg kitértünk a hüllőkre, és megkülönböztettük egymástól a tigrist, párducot, leopárdot és oroszlánt.
Nagyon hasznos időtöltés volt, több: megvolt a fertőtlenítés, de közben tanultunk, játszottunk ÉS RÁADÁSUL minőségi időt töltöttem a kislányommal:-)

For Christmas...

I just found this today. Is it not cute? We must try it, Karina will love a set of these babies on the tree! Thanks, Zakka.

Chocolate balls with coconut

Break some sweet biscuits into crunches. Add some grinded walnuts, jam, cocoa powder and some grinded coconut. Mix it well. Make balls of the mixture, and cover them with grinded coconut.
This was the first time when karina made the balls on her own. They are quite big, I always make them samller, but this was the comfortable size for her, I suppose. And I was happy for her not giving up:-)
Look how happy she is:

By the way, we both had our hair cut short:-)

Karina loves singing

She would make up songs and sing for 10 minutes or so. You can listen to her here - oh no, it won't give me an option to upload an audio file. Any idea anyone???

New blog for selling Christian books within Hungary

You can follow me on my blog. Most things are ordered from the States, from Christianbook.com. If you follow my blog, you can get ideas regularly about what is useful for teaching English to toddlers/preschoolers.

Some more English learning

We were very active today. After having prepared potato cakes for lunch, and watching some English movies, we did some learning until Barni was napping.
1. Potato cakes:

2. Playing Lotto with a Board game, in English (but it has no words on it, so it is good for any language)

3. Some preschool writing activities in her I Can Read Words activity book

Earlier, in the morning, Karina went to Kecskemét with her daddy. Barni was keeping busy with his stacking cups, a gift from Grandma Gaynors, while in the background Your baby can read was on. He loves watching that, too. And he is getting very good at putting his cups into eachother:-)

Times tables

I just found an excellent method to teaching the timestables. I am so excited!!! And so is Karina, she can't wait for me to tell her about it. I need to go now, becasue she won't let me live without my sharing it with her:-). Hopefully I can let you know about this piece of great news soon:-) Come back later!!

Looking at the pictures

Telling me the story. Barni just woke up.

Trinity Snowman

I just found this excellent poem + craft for teaching about trinity on Spell outloud. Check it out!

Babyfaith series dvd

This is our favourite, but there are about 6 movies altogether in the series. We have only 3... so far...

God Made Babies
The perfect baby gift!
The award-winning babyfaith® series continues with God Made Babies. This baby-sized version of the story of Moses teaches that God loves, cares for his children and has great plans for them. Children will laugh at the fun puppet shows, delight in the images of babies, and be enthralled with the hymn-music videos. This DVD will help your baby thrive developmentally and spiritually. Narrated by Jodi Benson, the voice of The Little Mermaid.® Ages 3-36 months.

I found them on christianbook.com, and fell in love with them. You can watch free prewiws on their original homepage

Poor health

Barni was feeling very poorly these last two days, so we haven't done much schooling:-(
However, we did read lots of books. We have three of the That's not my... series. Karina's favourite is the train one (but I don't have any photoes. sorry.) You can check out the whole series here.
She is getting ready to record her reading of this very book:-)

Win an excellent pack for teaching English!

http://www.ingles360.net/ is having a giveaway! It is extra worth checking it out! You can enter today, but this is the very last day...
Go here to enter the contest!

Italian lesson

We did some Italian, we practised the colours. I have made some very simple printable flashcards, when Barni was only two months old or so, but I can't attach a word/pdf file here. Any idea?
Some photoes of our lesson:

Labelling our home

I got this idea from Cariseto label our house. She has made beautiful printable cards, so I only had to print, laminate and cut them. We started with the kitchen, today was the third day we read the words, and now I  blue-tacked the cards to appropriate places.
Barni loves the word 'clock'! As soon as he sees any ot these cards, he would go 'kkkk':-) He is just watching so far, except for 'kkk',  but Karina is active, she pronounces the words and she has sticked the cards to their places.

One side of our labelled kitchen

Barni, after lunch, with 'kkk'

Looking at me_booklet

We made this little booklet downloaded from Carisa's site this afternoon, and after having read it together one time then, I asked her at bedtime if she wants to read it again. She said yes. I asked her whether she minded if I recorded her reading, and she agreed. That's the story of the video above.

Colours and shapes

We did colours and shapes today. Karina was plaing with some memory game (we have had it for a long time, but we don't have it's box, and I have no idea what it is called...), then I gave her a book printed from Carisa. She cut the printed material into the pages, then I let her staple the booklet. She was flattered!

Meanwhile, I was playing with Barni and his basket. I had collected a few favourite items of his in a basket, and I let him unpack everything. Then I brought out his sequencing little buckets, and we did colours and numbers. Occasionally we cuddled eachother, then played some more, cuddled, played. And he started playng the keyboard again and again. He just loves it!! Karina volunteered to take photoes, so I have quite a series...

Parts of the body

This week we have started learning (B) / practising (K) the parts of the body. I have lots of flashcards printed back from the time I started learning with Karina, plenty of them, and also this set, is from Free ESL Flashcards. I typed the words for lots of sets, so that I can print them on the back. You can find them here.

Barni is sorting out his cards, and Karina is being very happy for her new baby Moses. I am proud of her, for she is working with her scissors quite neatly finally... We found all body parts of Moses:-)

We are going through the Candle Bible cards again. They just love them!!

For a lapbook on Human body go to Carisa's site!

Contest

I have made a little book about Karina and Barni with Grandpa Jim. It was meant for a contest, but when I showed it to Karina first, she loved it so much, that she has been reading it several times since. You can download it from here

Off topic from Tot school / Lapbook lányoknak

I just managed to put together a teaching material I used last year in kids' camp. I had 4 girls between the age of 8-12, and we learnt about Girls in the Bible. The material is in Hungarian, but I know there are some moms out there who teach Hungarian, too. I had lot of things from the internet - thanks to anyone who shared things with me. Most things can be done with young girls, too. You can download the pdf file from my website

Évi and Enci with front and back of their lapbook

We made a lapbook during the days. For real, extragood lapbooks go to Carisa's site.

A képen látható lapbookot először egy gyerektáborban, később Bibliaköri foglalkozáson készítettük el. 4 leckében foglalkoztunk olyan lányokkal, akiket a Bibliából ismerünk: Evódia és Szüntükhé, Mirjám, Naámán szolgálója és Ródé. Nem sokat tudunk meg róluk, de azok mind nagyon fontosak. Az óravázlatokat és felhasználható anyagokat egy pdf fájlban gyűjtöttem össze, a honlapomról ingyen letöltheted.

Ha ti is elkészítettétek, kérlek, írj róla nekem a lillaficsor@gmail.com címre!