Welcoming Fall

Happy 1st day of fall, everyone! Here in our household we have been pre-gaming the arrival of fall by learning different things about fall. I love fall in early childhood because you can really engage all five senses, which is very fun.

As usual, we started out by hitting the library to borrow some books!

We learned about the Mid-Autumn Festival a few weeks back from Grace Lin's book, and even had a little celebration the day of with some of our good friends, but sadly because of Silly Bean's allergies, he can't have mooncake. I decided to start a family tradition instead of making homemade dumplings and noodles that I think will be part of our family for years to come, even though it's not really traditional. Oh well, Silly Bean likes it! ;P

Duck and Goose Find a Pumpkin was a good read for Silly Bean as well, especially because he knows how to spell the word "no" and "pumpkin," which comes up multiple times in the book and Silly Bean enjoys pointing to the words he knows. Duck and Goose in the end went to a pumpkin patch to get their pumpkin, and the other day we went to a local farm and got to see a pumpkin patch and relate that back to what we read in the book!

Silly Bean absolutely loves Mouse's First Fall and has pretty much memorized all of the words by this point. He learned about the different shapes and colors of leaves in the fall. The other day we were walking outside around our neighborhood, and Silly Bean noticed a leaf that was green on the verge of turning red. He also found a yellow leaf which he was also excited about because he saw it in the "Mouse and Minka" book. We brought them home and I "preserved" them with packing tape, so they should last for a while and we can keep looking at them and talk about leaves changing colors.

And lastly, I was very excited to find pumpkin pie spice at our local Trader Joe's for only $1.99. Guys, for someone who loves deals, this is the best! And also perfect for the pumpkin spice waffles I wanted to make this weekend (I just substitute flaxseed meal for the eggs)!

It was also fun because Silly Bean got to use his senses of smell to smell the spice before we put it in, taste the canned pumpkin and the actual waffle, which was a huge hit. We are definitely going to make more in the coming weeks! (Though, we definitely need a bigger waffle iron and not just the mini Dash one we have!)

Excited to collect more leaves for our sensory box as the weeks go buy, make some pumpkin spice play-doh, go apple picking, and pumpkin picking! Fun times to be in early childhood, indeed :)

Easy Peasy Sensory Fun: Flour!

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! It's a cooler day today--is fall on it's way, or is it just that strange transitional period in between summer and fall? We took a brisk walk this morning, but I wanted to share a fun activity we did this morning at home!

I had read about a fun and easy sensory activity from this article I found online when I searched "sensory activities for two year olds" -- flour in a container, and let the toddler go at it! Love how the materials are so accessible--flour we had in the cupboard, a spoon and cup from our kitchen, and baking pan that we often use for cooking. No need to buy extra materials for this activity :)

  

It was a BIG hit! Silly Bean was engaged with it for at least 45 minutes, scooping, mixing, touching, pouring. We tried to use our senses to describe it (tried to do it in both English and Chinese). I think he was very interested in the texture.

After touching it with his fingers for a while, Silly Bean realized he could blow on the flour and "clouds" of flour would get everywhere, which apparently was the best thing ever. Silly Bean laughed and laughed and of course--not pictured--is how the flour got absolutely EVERYWHERE--table, floor, wall, Silly Bean's hair and face, and even Silly Bean's shirt that was covered by his long-sleeve apron (???). Oh well @___@

Love the versatility of this activity though--I can see it as a way to practice more letters / letter sounds, "writing" or drawing in the flour, or adding water to add another interesting texture! We can probably keep doing this for another week!

What sensory activity do you like to do with your toddler, or that you remember enjoying as a kid?

The Beginnings of Imaginative Play

Hello, fellow Silly Bean adventurers! I had been trying and trying to write this one post about emotional health for the past 2 months already and I guess I just wasn't feeling it... so I decided to try another topic that I have more to say about right now. In those 2 months, Silly Bean turned 2 and had a fun little birthday party with family and friends in the park.

I just love imaginative play so much, where children get the space to make believe and create their own stories, worlds, and ideas. A lot of times people say that play is "just playing" and "not really doing anything," but according to all the research and all of my observation, play is the place of a child's work. It is in play that they are making sense of the world around them, working out problems, and showing what they know.

In the past few weeks, Silly Bean has really started to do some imaginative play. Even just today before naptime, we were playing with his train set that he got for his birthday, and he said in Chinese that the trains are going to the park, and then to Target (now you know what our daily/weekly life is like :P), and the baby is going in his house (somehow, everything has become Silly Bean's house, Silly Bean's car, etc).

It's all very simple at this stage (the play will get more complex as he gets older/has more vocabulary/has more life experience/can have more direct social interactions) but it is just so fun to see how he interprets what we do and what he thinks our lives are about day to day! We should really stop going to Target 4x a week, or he'll think this is what we are supposed to do every day...

In addition to playing with his train set, Silly Bean loves "cooking" and serving everything he's ever eaten: from things he enjoys, like 粥 (Chinese rice porridge, which he ate a lot of when he was sick last week) to things he doesn't really enjoy, like oatmeal. We often have to remind ourselves to "pretend" and not really chomp on the spatulas and utensils because there isn't real food on it.

Silly Bean also has a bunny that we call "Special Bunny" because originally it was "mama's special bunny that you can play with" and immediately became "Silly Bean's Special Bunny"--funny how that always happens. Silly Bean brings it everywhere, and often Silly Bean will pretend to feed him, give him medicine, or say that he is crying because he is sad that he fell down (a common Silly Bean occurrence in our household).  The other day, Silly Bean sat Special Bunny down on the chair at the little table, unprompted, so they could both eat an afternoon snack together. He even walked over with a carrot to share with Special Bunny.

He kisses him when he goes to sleep, says hello to him when he wakes up, and hugs him anytime he finds him (on the couch, on the floor, etc.). We wonder if the way Silly Bean takes care of his bunny is Silly Bean working out how we as his parents care for him (we seem to do all the same things, hmmm), which is so sweet!

Summer Days, Part 1

I don't know what it's like where you live, but here, it's been 90 degrees the past 2 days! We've been trying to get outdoors but still not melt in the sun and heat. Who knew that shade at a playground is so crucial (or that we would pick our favorites based on that criteria)? Generally we've been going on walks or going to our complex's little playground early in the morning right after breakfast or in the evenings.

In between, our days are filled with--you guessed it--water!

This week was the first week our complex's pool has been open every day for the summer. Silly Bean loves to talk about whether the pool is open or closed, and he gets very excited when he sees the door open and the lifeguard getting the pool ready! We went swimming three times this week--splashing by the steps, me holding Silly Bean and walking around in the pool, and playing with water scoops.

But when we aren't at the pool or indoors, we're playing on the deck at the water table!

I just can't rave enough about water tables for toddlers. In preschools or daycares I think they call them sensory tables, and you can put a variety of different things in it that children can explore (water, dirt, bubbly water, sand, etc.). Young children love to learn by interacting with things in the world around them, and a lot of them love learning through the sense of touch (Ever have that kid who you tell not to touch something, and they just keep touching it and trying to figure out what it is?)--hence the word "sensory." I've also heard it said that playing with water has a therapeutic and calming effect for children, and I have to say from experience that it's pretty therapeutic for adults as well! So fun :)

We just love our water table in this warm weather! Silly Bean's 婆婆 got this particular one for him from Costco, but you could also get one second-hand in pretty good condition (we saw one on Craigslist but it was snagged too quickly!).

There's enough shade on our deck in the afternoons after nap time for it to not feel like 90 degrees, and water in summer of course is just wonderful.  Silly Bean loves pouring the water on the top part to make it rain down, "wash" his hands, and bathe his fish and dolphins. Since we live on the third floor, we have to be so careful though to not spill the water through the cracks of the deck and flow onto the neighbor's deck immediately below, but lining towels on the ground have been doing the trick so far.

Summer is such a fun time for toddlerhood! We sure are enjoying the sunshine.

Growing up bilingual, part I

A lot of people have asked me what it's like for us to raise Silly Bean as a bilingual kid, and while I don't think I can fully answer the question in one post, I'm hoping to give y'all a small picture of what it's like for us in this stage in life.

One of Silly Bean's favorite books is "Oh! The Places You'll Go!" by Dr. Seuss, which features an ambiguous-looking character that we call a baby, going through life-encountering success, failures, and building resilience throughout. I think he loves the rhymes in the text (honestly, I think it's really well written and inspiring as well!), the colorful pictures, and especially the balloons, that are in the book. We saw a bulletin board set of Oh! The Places You'll Go! at Target for $3 so we just had to get it. Maybe a month or two ago we re-vamped the wall in Silly Bean's room (the one that had the alphabet train on it from a previous post) to make it "Go Go" (as Silly Bean calls it) themed.

In addition to putting up the bulletin board set, I also took the opportunity to label some of the balloons with the numbers in Chinese, from 1 through 30.

Now, can Silly Bean "read" the Chinese numbers as well as he can "read" the romanized numerals and his letters? Not as well, but the pictographic system is also a different ball game that we haven't really gotten into yet.

In terms of oral communication, I speak to Silly Bean in Cantonese 98% of the time (with the exception of when we are singing songs in English, when I'm reading him books that have a lot of rhymes that don't just translate in Chinese, or when I just have no idea what the Chinese word is/there isn't a Chinese word for a particular thing) and we're basically talking all day long, repeating many of the same things, and I try to extend his vocabulary by saying more about the word he says. I'm pretty sure that he knows over a hundred words already (both in his receptive and productive vocabulary, though he understands a lot more than he can say or produce). Kevin speaks to him in English, and he also probably knows hundreds of English words as well. I was really amazed when one time, Silly Bean and I were talking about whether he was happy today (in Chinese) and Kevin asked what we were saying, and I asked Silly Bean in Chinese, "How do you say 'happy' in English?"and he said, "Bibi happy" in English. I think there is some awareness there that he is learning 2 languages and that for him, there are two words for everything-- a lot of the times when I ask him for both, he can tell me both! This is really surprising to me because from all of my study about language acquisition in bilingual learners, it seems as though kids often understand a lot (receptive vocabulary) in a given language, but their speech in that language (their productive vocabulary) develops more slowly. This, however, is in kids who grew up speaking one language, and English is their second language a few years later, while for Silly Bean, the language acquisition is happening simultaneously, so I'm not sure how that all fits in. I also don't remember what it was like for me at age 1-3 so I don't really know.

Silly Bean knowing Chinese is important to us because with language learning, you aren't just learning how to speak in that language, but the culture of that language is also being transmitted. It's going to be easy for Silly Bean to learn the dominant culture here in the US, and we want Silly Bean to know all the different parts of his ethnic identity, including the parts where we need to try harder to convey that part to him. But ethnic identity is another topic for another post! For now, learning Chinese and English is a lot of talking and reading, interacting with friends and family members, singing, listening to music in Chinese and in English, listening to Peppa Pig in Chinese, and generally just talking a lot lot lot!

Water, in the Form of Puddles

In the past 2 months or so, Silly Bean has been absolutely loving water play, whether it's splashing in the tub during bathtime, washing his hands, watering plants on our deck, playing with sensory water beads, dumping water out of his cup onto the floor/table/sofa, feeding his stuffed bears some water, or stomping in puddles. Can't wait til Memorial Day when the pool here opens! It's been amazing to me to see how easily Silly Bean delights and finds joy in such simple things, and I think if you're like me, you're thinking that you can take a beat from that. 

 

I felt inspired to write a poem about what for some reason felt like an important moment, so here it is to share with y'all! Hope you enjoy it!

"Hoping for Puddles (Rainboots)"

4/11/2019

“What shoes do you want to wear to Target?”

Looking at the shoe rack

pointing at each pair,

naming each color.

Then, a big smile:

“Boots!”

Outside, cloudy but not overcast—

“Are you sure?”

“Puddle!”

So much hope brimming in his eyes

so on the boots go

and off we go.

List in his hand as we walk down the aisles

swinging his legs,

hoping for puddles.

Items in the cart, checklist checked

waiting on line, reading numbers on the lanes.

Items scanned and paid, bags in the cart

then we walk toward the windowed doors

and what we hear is 

water drumming on the pavement

and shoppers complaining

about ruining their hair 

or their shoes,

how they forgot their umbrellas

and when is the rain going to stop.

I look over at him in the cart—

huge smile, eyes exclaiming:

“Puddles!”

We run to the car and drive quickly home

and even though it’s time to sleep

we look for the biggest puddle

and stomp stomp stomp.

Hopes do come true!

What he thinks is

how the puddles were made just for him

and what I think is

good thing he wore his boots.

Owls!!

After several weeks of insomnia and a more intense responsibilities with my work, I am back and finally have a chance to sit down and write about our latest adventures, which have been many! Today I thought I'd share about Silly Bean's love for owls.

I think the first time Silly Bean saw an owl was back in his infancy (makes him sound so old!)  in an alphabet board book we were given by our friends that he still loves to read.  He first expressed interest in owls back in December (Silly Bean was around 16 months old then) when he learned to say the word "owl" in English, one of the first times he was able to say two syllables clearly one after the other.  His Aunt Jenn also brought over a box of 6 different stuffed animals and allowed him to choose one, and to our surprise he chose the owl.

alphabet book and stuffed owl that he just loves

Our friend Christina had told us about the Raptor Trust, which is a bird sanctuary in New Jersey, and we had in mind to go since it was an opportunity for Silly Bean to see real live owls. However, the weather deterred us for quite a while. But in the meantime, we prepared by reading lots and lots of books about owls!

We really loved the National Geographic photographs of owls in action.

We went to the Raptor Trust back in February, but it was only about 32 degrees so we didn't get many photos.  This past Saturday we were able to visit again since it was a beautiful day and we spontaneously thought it would be a great idea.  This time we got to talk about the different species of owls that we remembered from looking in the books, which was fun.

  

    

I am thankful for the resources we have here to extend our book learning with live experiences!