Silly Bean ABCs

Letters are our favorite nowadays and we see them everywhere--books, magazines, signs in stores, traffic signs during our walks, collegiate sweatshirts, t-shirts, and even where they aren't intentionally (doors or signposts, sleepy dogs eyes, clothing racks)--literally EVERYWHERE.

Silly Bean started noticing letters about a month ago and becoming very interested in them, so I put up a few bubble letters that I cut out by hand.  He loved them and liked to touch them as he walked by and I said the letters.  After a while, I noticed that he learned those few I put up very quickly.

During this time he also really liked standing behind me, my husband, or my mom, and taking our hands, saying "choo choo" and chugging around with us around the condo.  So naturally, I made an alphabet train for his room, which he absolutely loves! Most days when he wakes up from his nap, you can hear him reciting his alphabet and see him pointing to the letters in the baby monitor.

the alphabet train snakes around Silly Bean's room (front of train not pictured)

Silly Bean was learning the letters quickly so I had to add more bubble letters! I also had to keep moving the bubble letters up every day because he would pull them off and rip them up.  He was also getting confused initially between letters and numbers, so we decided to simultaneously learn our letters too and make some bubble numbers. Silly Bean also learned those both in English and Chinese quickly, so 1 through 10 isn't enough anymore!

ABC books have also been really fun to look at. Silly Bean absolutely loved the Llama Llama Loves to Read book, as well as the Hungry Caterpillar ABCs book (not pictured). Having a variety of ABC books has also been helpful, as some have the alphabet in upper-case letters while others have the lower-case ones. Silly Bean mastered them rather quickly.

Another activity station that we set up for Silly Bean was magnetic lowercase letters with this metal box used to hold valentine cards that I had saved from my own childhood.  The letters stick on the box, and Silly Bean enjoys adhering the letters, saying them, and putting them back in the small basket where we store them. Unfortunately the letters get everywhere and many have gone missing at this point, but we still have it out.

What's next? We shall see! :)

A Silly Bean Snow Day

I was going to make a post about Silly Bean's recent ABCs learning, but yesterday we had a SNOW DAY :)

Silly Bean looooves snowmen! Our friend Jamie brought him this stuffed snowman when she came to visit us back in early November, and even though he had never seen an actual snowman at that point, he loved (and still loves) it so much. When he wakes up, he runs to the living room and yells, "Man man," picks it up, and kisses it.

The first snow of the season was in mid-November, and Silly Bean was not a big fan. After about 5 minutes of standing outside and watching the snow falling he cried to go home, so we took some snow to explore in the warmth of our condo. Silly Bean doesn't touch very many cold things (except for maybe frozen groceries when he helps to put them away), so he was very interested in poking/holding/mashing the snow around with his hands.

Silly Bean was very curious about what it tasted like, and ended up eating most of it before dinner (don't worry, it was clean snow!)!

We began reading books about winter in anticipation of more snow to come, which never really happened throughout December and January. Silly Bean's favorite was one about a snowman of course, called Snowman Magic, by Katherine Tegen.  We didn't get a photo of it, but here's the Amazon photo and link to it:

click HERE to purchase (links to Amazon)

We learned about the magic of snowmen, how many of them have carrot noses and button eyes, and how they inevitably melt when the weather gets warmer.

After that, we just never really saw enough snow to do much with, until yesterday! As we watched the snow fall from the window, we talked about how it was a snowman day!

This time, Silly Bean had a grand old time in the snow, which I think just goes to show that sometimes kids (and even adults, I daresay) may need to try something multiple times before deciding that they actually enjoy it. Included in the list of Silly Bean-approved activities was trudging through the snow wearing several pairs of socks in rainboots as well as chucking snowballs at the sidewalk and watching them break. We also built a tiny snowman, to which Silly Bean loudly and gleefully exclaimed, "Man man!" every time we walked away and walked back to look at it. He thought the carrot nose we had given it that we had pulled out of the refrigerator was especially delightful.

Now that the little snowman is all melted and all that remains is a baby carrot in the grass, we can't wait for the next snow day!

Ringing in the Year of the Pig, Silly Bean Style

Silly Bean is a multiracial little guy- Cantonese from my side, and British, Irish, and French from Kevin's side. We want him to grow up knowing who he is and how he was created, and so holidays are an entryway into teaching him about his cultures. Now while he is so young, it's more about awareness about what particular people groups do/eat/celebrate than about teaching him about ethnicity or differences among them. These past few days, we've been learning about Chinese New Year (in addition to receiving red envelopes from family members).

Silly Bean loves picture books, but they need to have pictures that are appealing to him, and contain some words but not too many. Here are some of the books we've been looking at that he has enjoyed "reading" and learning from:

In particular, Grace Lin's Bringing in the New Year (and all of Grace Lin's books for that matter) was a big hit with Silly Bean. I think he remembered the lanterns from the other book we read by her about the Midautumn Festival, so we created some mini lanterns out of red envelopes that he enjoyed holding in his hand and helping to put up on the door. 

One of the other joys of Silly Bean being 17 months old is the new discovery and fascination with eating--Silly Bean learning how to eat, being introduced to new foods, and for me, cooking healthy foods that he might like and seeing how he reacts. It was really fun to make these dumplings while Silly Bean watched (and tried to help), just like we saw in Grace Lin's book about the new year.  Though Silly Bean only liked the dumpling skins sans filling this time around, I hope this will become one of our yearly traditions!

新年快樂 from our family to yours!

What traditions/holidays do you celebrate with your little one to teach them about who they are?