Knock-knock – knock – the music of the rain comes from the windowsill. The weather is cloudy and foggy at the beginning of winter. Waking up is difficult, but mom’s double kiss helps a little. We can listen to the rhythm together; we knock and will start to prepare for the day. Noises that we know show the way. Listen!

Dad is shaving; let’s watch him while we brush our teeth. Nice smells are coming from the kitchen and inviting us to take a sip or grab a bite. I wouldn’t like to repeat myself, so I will not write about this. But it is important to praise the kids for their own independent actions; this makes them proud for the entire day and life. Having breakfast together, the sleepy sentences or words, that connect the world of dreams and reality, strengthen the joy of being together for the little ones. Let’s find the umbrella and the face masks. Here is my nose, here is my mouth, but the others’ nose and mouth have gone. Take care of each other! Let’s go to the kindergarten, to the school, let’s wave goodbye. And there is the curiosity of growing as old as to go alone and play and learn with the other kids. This question pops up really often, right? These are just some of the beautiful things you can talk about and elaborate on.

Later: just mom and me. She pays attention only to me; she talks to me while doing her chores. Alone! Wow! I would like to try that! – thinks the youngest child.
Nowadays we rarely go shopping or to the market, we are very careful. We write a list beforehand and go alone, do it quickly and do the disinfection at home carefully. But taking things out of the basket and sorting them can be fun. Different colors, smells, shapes and weight – exciting and interesting challenges. Kids can touch and hold a potato, a carrot and other goods, too. A little dirt doesn’t hurt. You can wash their hands afterwards. See! An apple rolled away like a ball! That’s really interesting. You can try this but then wipe the apples and put them to their place. We don’t play with food!

Let’s continue packing. One thing shall go up, we will stretch ourselves, the other goes down and we will cower. We can practice the directions in space – into, before, behind. This knowledge is really useful especially later at school.

Let’s play something – develop your memory and vocabulary!
What was in the basket? We can help a bit: it has a round shape, it could roll, its color was red, and the smell… Where did we put it? Look! Some crops play hide and seek! Let’s find them. Where? Let’s crawl under the chairs to reach them and it was very narrow; or something is hiding on the shelf, we need to stretch ourselves to toe stand. Other treasures can be found only by crawling under the table. And again we can practice the directions – under, above, next to, before, behind, we were thinking and playing.
It is worth paying attention to crops from a very young age. A carrot, the leaf of the cabbage, a sweet mandarin… First clean these products carefully before giving them to the kids, but later they can experience the dirt on these crops and the rule that we cannot taste them right away, just after cleaning them and also washing our hands.
For older kids we can use catalogues, too. Find apples, cauliflowers and other delicious food in them; cut and glue them on a cardboard in twos and your memory game is ready.
While using the glue there will be a little mess but it is worth! We will clean it together.

I wish you to play happily, to talk and move a lot together.
Kárpáti Kati

This article is translated by Emese Murin.
Click here for the Hungarian version.