Big Kid Skills: learning to whistle, learning to knit, learning to read

I've spent this morning brainstorming birthday/Christmas/knitting ideas for my soon to be five year old.

Birthday and Christmas because, well, they're coming up. Knitting because this weekend K asked me if she could please learn to do that thing with the needle thing where you make things, which I determined to be either knitting, crocheting or sewing based on her hand gestures.

I was already thinking of getting her a children's knitting kit, actually, but then I would also have to get her a person who knows how to knit in order to teach her. I like the idea of knitting but am not very, ah, coordinated. I also have my doubts as to how well she would handle the needles. She is currently learning to tie her shoes but hasn't mastered it. (Though she has only had shoes with laces for a week or so.)

Then I had the inspiration of finger knitting! No needles and a relatively fast payoff, right? I remember doing it as a child and making endless chains. If and when she masters that we can look into something more involved.

Is that a good idea?

Is there anything else in this area that would be suitable for a five year old with an unskilled parent?

I'm also considering getting a learn-to-read book (we have some workbooks but they are more about individual letters or doing mazes and other tasks) or some other kindergarten materials. This is still a problem, but I hope that in the next year it will be easier to find a few minutes here and there for some English learning activities.

Is THAT a good idea? Does anyone have a recommended book/curriculum or should I not even use a formal curriculum and just continue freestyling and/or letting K learn to read on her own?

Anything else I should buy while I have the chance?

Linkfest

Bilingualism Carnival!

And a series of articles on fun ways to improve a second language (for adults) that I did a while ago and totally forgot to mention here:

One
Two
Three
Four
Five

Check them out if you haven't seen them before!

A Book Lover's Tragedy

I wrote the other day about how my daughter seems to prefer being read to in English. Part of it is of course that she understands English best. Part of it is probably that she prefers ME to read to her and I usually (but not always) read to her in English. But there's another aspect that I suspect may play a role, and it annoys me:

I think half the problem with preferring English books is that the English books are more INTERESTING! I have the hardest time finding CZ/SK children's books that are worthwhile. You can have a big children's section in the bookstore but it is made up of:

1) dictionaries (usually board books like "My First 100 Words", often "My First 100 English Words")

2) nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Usually the same ones in different combinations.

3) some Czech originals for much older children - pages full of words and few pictures. I'll read these to K when she's older, because there are some nice ones, but they're too complicated for any 3 year old.

4) translations. Often from English, such as Winnie the Pooh, Disney Princesses, Cars, etc. Not often ones I'm that keen on even in the original.

We have a small collection of CZ/SK books that we're hoping to build further now that we're back in the country, but it is composed of 1-2 dictionaries, 5-6 books of nursery rhymes, 2-3 books of fairy tales, and 1-2 Czech originals for older children (Ferda Mravenec and maybe one other). It's looking like I'm going to have to lift my 'no translations' rule.

There is also a big jump between board books for the under-2 crowd and chapter books for competent readers: nothing really between those two extremes.

What I do NOT see in bookstores is exactly the kind of books we have so many of in English. Storybooks, lots of pictures with a few sentences per page (not one word, not whole page of text), original characters and plots that you can read to a non-reader and a beginning reader can read alone. It's a huge gap in the literature in my opinion.

Some of our favorites from UK are The Night Pirates, Knight Time, Usborne Illustrated Fairy Tales, and recently (birthday present) You Can't Eat a Princess.

We have tons of fun books like this in English and just can't find Czech or Slovak equivalents. So when I compare our book collection in the different languages, it does occur to me that I can hardly blame K for wanting to read about ALIENS AND PRINCESSES (seriously, how awesome of a book premise is that?) rather than going through My First 100 Words again.

Anybody familiar with CZ/SK children's literature is VERY MUCH INVITED! to offer me some recommendations for books to engage a preschooler. Anybody?

Moving, Day 2

K: "Mami, daj!" (Mama, give me that!)

Made me slightly nervous until I realized which language she was speaking. "Daj" sounds like English "die". Cheeky child.

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Me, discussing fitting houseful of things into an apartment: "We're going to have to využívat the sklep." (take advantage of the basement storage area)

I could have also said it the other way: "Budeme muset jůznout (n.b. use-nout) ten basement." The Slovak of my dreams would have understood me either way. How awesome is language mixing, anyway?

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K and I watched some Bořek Stavitel and Prasátko Pepinka on the internet yesterday. That is, the Czech versions of Bob the Builder and Peppa Pig. I am slightly mystified as to why they went with "Bořek" for Bob's name instead of something alliterative like "Standa Stavitel". That will not, however, keep me from singing "Znáááte Bořka? Všechno staví!" for the next few days at least.

I totally should have thought of that before - the problem with finding traditional Czech children's entertainment online is that a lot of it has no words or, all too often, words that I wouldn't want my preschooler hearing! Or else it's just over her head, like the classic Czech fairy tale movies we have. K isn't quite old enough for Pyšná princezna or Princezna se zlatou hvězdou na čele yet...although come to think of it, maybe I should try them out soon. She IS very into all things castle and royal lately.

We also watched some (more) videos of Czech and Slovak kids' songs. I particularly look for songs K knows, sung by children, like home videos of someone's two-year-old singing a barely recognizable Prší, prší. I think it's good to see the language and the songs K hears at home from Apo also being used and sung by real children like her. Plus she really likes babies.

September Carnival on Bilingualism

We took a break for the summer, but the Blogging Carnival on Bilingualism is back this month, hosted by Fab Mums! Take a look at my submission, Parenting Now, if you missed it. Maria also linked to my post on Multilingual Mania earlier this month.

Enjoy!

Multilingual LEGO Reading

Got Legos at home? Take a look at this simple idea from Filth Wizardry and think of the multilingual possibilities! Basically it's just putting letters or words on individual Lego bricks (with stickers or labels) and stacking the resulting words and sentences. Like a DIY magnetic poetry set, but for kids and customized to your tastes - and languages. I'm just disappointed my daughter isn't reading yet so she won't get immediate use from this. :)

There is a version for readers with sight words to build sentences, and a version for younger kids with one letter (or cluster, i.e. "ee", "th", "ck") per brick to build words. We are just starting some letter recognition when K is in the mood, and we do have a bunch of blocks, so I'm pretty sure letters will be making an appearance on her Legos sometime soon.

Since our languages use the same alphabet, we can use the same blocks for both if I add some with the added letters (š, č, ť, é, and so on) and extra v, y, z, and other letters that are used with more frequency in CZ/SK. I'm excited about the possibilities.

Preschools and a few more bilingualism resources

I met with the director of one preschool last week and am currently being blown off by the one I'm more interested in. Both are private bilingual preschools. Private because every regular preschool in our area of Prague is full. Bilingual because if I have to pay for a private school, why not go bilingual?

The theory is that this will help ease K's transition into Czech society and school system, being taught partly in Czech and partly in English, so she doesn't have the shock of all Czech, all the time when she doesn't understand the language very well. I also wonder if it may slow her acquisition of Czech, especially given the dynamic of Czech kids trying to learn English. However, I ALSO wonder if a gentler transition to a new language environment - avoiding trauma related to language or going to school - will make the slower rate of acquisition worth it in the end. Maybe we could then merge into a regular school next year.

I guess I'll have more information once school #2 bothers to respond to my e-mail. I called them last week while in Prague but they said they were out for the week and call back this week. This week's phone conversation:

"Hi, I called you last week about a place in your school..."
"OK, send us your CV."
"My what? You want me to send you my what?"
"Your CV."
"Whyyyyyyy....should I send you my CV??"
"So we can see what kind of experience you have."
"What does my CV have to do with my daughter attending your school? HOW EXCLUSIVE ARE YOU PEOPLE ANYWAY???"
"...so you aren't applying for a job?"
"Erm, no. Not this week."

*sigh*

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Just a couple of links I thought might be of interest:

Multilingual Mania is a fun blog I've linked to once before. The blog author is a bilingual education coordinator in California, so it's from a US and Spanish language point of view, but you've got a lot of good information and principles on bilingual education, schools, teaching, and so on.

Multilingual Living is a very nice resource by an American mom raising her kids with her non-native German (and their dad's native German), but the site covers a whole range of family and language patterns. I was particularly intrigued by bilingual homeschooling. I can't quite picture convincing the Czech authorities to go for that, but I can at least follow this advice at home.

Also, this isn't exactly related to multilingualism, but Filth Wizardry is full of absolutely amazing projects with and for preschoolers. The rocket is so wonderful it makes me cry a little. And start saving boxes.

Some bilingualism resources

I thought I would highlight some of the links I'm about to add to my sidebar. Some of the sites I found while obsessively googling bilingual and trilingual child-rearing back in those pre-BabyK days were actually useful and made their way into my bookmarks. :)

Multilingual Children is one of my favorite general sites. It has a range of informative articles and a forum with some great family stories and discussion.

The Bilingual for Fun blog is not currently active I believe, but L - an Italian raising her child with English - has some more really interesting articles if you click around a bit. I've been reading through some of them this week.

This blog is a bit more technical and research- and news-oriented. It deals a lot with America and Spanish, but also discusses other languages and countries. And of course many things can be generalized to any language/country combination.

More good articles if you go here. I've only read a few so far.

Or then there is this site that I have only found just this minute so will be reading through in the near future.

I've also put up several individual blogs that I really like for your browsing pleasure:

Sarah is raising her son Griffin with non-native French in America. As a former French teacher she has lots of information on language learning and bilingual upbringing of children. I love the profiles she posts of multilingual families and their circumstances, what works for them, etc.

Eve is an American raising two French-speaking children with her French husband in America. She also has a great list of resources as well as valuable insights (to me) as a mother of older children.

Emi is a Japanese mom married to a Chinese dad raising a trilingual, tricultural son in Hawaii. I find her descriptions of her 2-year-old son learning to read Japanese and English to be particularly interesting. I've also gotten some cool activity ideas from her.

Sarah is a British mother raising an English-Italian son in Italy with her Italian husband. I just started reading her recently, but she is pretty funny. And spot on. My favorite so far was this guest post she wrote about realizing your child's cultural outlook is completely different from yours. Being seen as Other, the Foreigner, by your own child. I laughed, I cried. I think about this topic sometimes, as the Foreign Mother in our long-term family plan. Check it out.

L is an American married to a Japanese dad raising kids in Tokyo. Her thoughts/experiences on culture shock and reverse culture shock are pretty interesting, if you go back through her archives. Not to mention the cultural differences and misunderstandings between Japan and America.

This blog is by a German mom married to an American, trying to convince her children to speak German while living in America. I like reading about what works for her and what doesn't, since I know I may face a similar situation later myself.

Clo is an Italian mother married to a Belgian father, who speak English together between the parents, living in France. Check out that family language diagram! Her transcripts of family conversations are great.

Here is another German married to American, living in UK, with thoughts on intercultural relationships in general as well as raising children. I liked the one about in-laws...

Jan and Souad are German and Algerian (Arabic and French) raising their family in UK. They also have a pretty sweet family language diagram. Both parents blog so it's great to get both perspectives.

Reb is raising an American-French family in France. Reading about her family I can see what my own might be like in a couple of years. Also, her baby is cute.

I'll try to do a post eventually linking to some specific articles on various topics that I thought were particularly useful. I may make it a weekly thing. Happy reading!