This lesson was all about pretending. The Friendly Frogs liked to pretend to be different creatures that we can find in our garden. They enjoyed being little bees, who buzz from flower to flower and collect nectar and pollen to make the honey.

Pretending or imaginative play is more than just a fun way for children to entertain themselves-it is actually a complex process that builds skills in a number of different developmental areas. By pretending, imagining, dramatizing, and experimenting, children build language and communication skills, develop their capacity for empathy and cooperation, and practice creative problem-solving.

The Friendly Frogs children made colourful windsocks in their visual arts classes. During the painting process, the children have the opportunity to experiment with colours, explore their creativity, and manipulate paintbrushes according to their needs. Sticking sequins and crepe paper pieces onto the windsock samples with liquid glue enhances their fine motor skills and hand-and-eye coordination. The creative process encourages focus, patience, and attention to detail as they carefully select and position the decorative elements. Touching and manipulating the sequins and crepe paper pieces stimulate the children’s tactile senses. These beautifully designed windsocks will be part of our decoration for the End of Year Celebration.

The Friendly Frogs took to the road once more. Upon boarding the bus, we travelled through the city to Benczúr Street Playground, where we stretched our imagination and tried to guess the characters and the story so that we could meet them. After some mental gymnastics, it was time to exercise our bodies too. Climbing, jumping, stretching and sliding down slides was so much fun. No wonder they all had a good sleep after lunch.

Mums are special. We all know that. Therefore celebrating them is essential. Our little Frogs brought a few teary eyes today when they sang how much they appreciate their mums and the love and care they provide daily. On the other hand, our super mums proved to be great sports joining into the games with their little ones and showing that, indeed, no challenge can be big enough when you are a mum. Resourcefulness is every mum’s middle name.

Think about how a quiet lullaby evokes calm, while a loud, energetic march can stir excitement. The emotions that certain types of music conjure are due in large part to the dynamics of the music that is to say the relative volume of a sound or note. Dynamics play an important role in how music is expressed and experienced, and the best way to help children understand the range of dynamic expression is through exposure. In this lesson, the Friendly Frogs sang, listened, and moved with varying dynamics in activities designed to build a strong foundation for understanding fundamental music concepts and expression.

The Friendly Frogs children extended their knowledge and understanding of birds. They carefully observed some pictures of birds and identified their main characteristics with the help of their art teacher. They made paper plate birds by painting them with tempera paint and sponges, sticking feathers, wiggly eyes, paper beaks, and other important body parts onto their bird samples to the best of their knowledge and interests.

The Friendly Frogs are eagerly and heartily preparing for Mother’s Day. They are learning songs, preparing presents, and looking forward to the celebrations on 12 May. Showing our mums just how much we love them is important and necessary every day, especially on their special day.

Movement is one of the ways the Friendly Frogs can express themselves and build self-awareness. In addition, when the Friendly Frogs dance or move in a room with others, they practice and develop self-control. We are moving like an elephant or frog, and we mention body parts (hand, head, foot). Moving to these songs helps the Friendly Frogs become more self-aware of the physical potential of their bodies as well as how other people and objects in their ‘dancing space’ impact how they move.

The Friendly Frogs children made cute ladybugs during one of their visual arts lessons. First, they watched a short educational Youtube video about ladybugs. Then, they observed some pictures of ladybugs and identified their main physical characteristics. At last, the children used their creativity and made ladybugs from paper plates, pre-cut black paper circles, semi-circle and rectangle shapes, wiggly eyes, and red tempera paint and personalized them according to their preferences.

Music is an essential part of the human experience, of self-reflection, expression, and community. The joy of singing is something every child needs to experience, and when we use simple syllables like ‘la’, we make it easy for your child to learn to sing along. As an added bonus, repeating these simple syllables helps your child develop the facial muscles and nerves that lead to fluent speaking.

The Friendly Frogs children made Easter baskets during one of their visual arts lessons. First, they drew a colourful design on the basket samples with oil pastels. Then, they cut out the basket samples on their outlines and folded the sides according to the instructions. They practised using staplers and single-hole punchers and joined the parts together to the best of their knowledge. At last, they used pipe cleaners and made handles for the baskets. The Friendly Frogs children are officially ready to go on an Easter egg hunt.

Birthdays are always an extraordinary occasion in the Friendly Frogs class. We celebrated quite a few of our classmates, but today was the first for this year as we celebrated Ms Hande’s birthday. Her birthday cake pleased all tastes, as not a crumb was left over, so partitioning and offloading this way some of the energy gained was just the right thing to do.

What amazing fun it was showing off our costumes today. Every year at Happy Kids, children and teachers put hard work, creativity and imagination into creating the most wonderful costumes. As always the full proceeds of the event were donated to an organization. This year it was the ‘Pest-megyei Search and Rescue Foundation’.

Children are naturally drawn to imitating animals. Immersing themselves in the animal world through movement and sound is a rich source of exploration and discovery. When we pretend to be friendly, sun-loving spiders, the Friendly Frogs can experience the world of the spider in a way that feels safe and fun. Exploring the movement of spiders and observing and imitating the movement of others in the class helps to expand the Friendly Frogs movement vocabulary. They find new ways to move, as well as the language to label those movements.

The Friendly Frogs children made Japanese cherry blossom trees during one of their visual arts lessons. First, they extended their knowledge and understanding of cherry blossom trees. They observed some pictures of blossom trees and identified their main physical characteristics. Then, they painted tree trunks with brown tempera paint, created blossoms from crumbled silk paper pieces, and glued them onto the tree samples with glue according to their preferences.

When introducing the concept of the triple meter and the waltz movement, offering a variety of ways for the Friendly Frogs to practice and explore this concept will strengthen their understanding. By counting 1-2-3 and emphasizing the first beat with your voice as well as adding a large motion to the first beat of the clapping pattern, the Friendly Frogs are able to feel and experience this rhythm. Moving a prop, such as a scarf, in a three-beat pattern to the music reinforces the experience of the triple meter. Each layer of experience in this activity supports learning and understanding. This skill-building activity will continue to aid the children in other activities that require complex coordination.

The Friendly Frogs children made a carnival-themed puzzle during one of their visual arts lessons. They worked hard and were persistent as a team communicated their ideas and needs smartly, and shared tempera paint and brushes accordingly among each other. They chose colours according to their likes, colour-coded the puzzles before painting, and painted them to the best of their knowledge. The carnival-themed puzzle just looks amaz-ink.

‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ was indeed extremely hungry. First, it ate through an apple on Monday, then on Tuesday it ate through two pears, but it was still hungry so it ate three plumbs, then four strawberries, but it was still not enough, therefore it kept eating until it got a tummy ache and cocooned up only to turn into a beautiful butterfly. The story was fun, but making our own very hungry caterpillars was even more fun.

Love is in the air! The Friendly Frogs children painted a Valentine’s Day-themed poster during one of their visual arts lessons. They worked as a team beautifully, communicated their wants and needs accordingly, and shared the parts nicely. They painted the poster happily and sang their favourite love songs during the painting process.

Preparing for Valentine’s Day was almost as much fun as the day itself.

The Friendly Frogs prepared a collaborative heart art to contribute to the gym looking lovely for the assembly. Working on it they had oodles of fun! As always, everyone was dressed in red on the day and special treats were consumed along with many fund games played. All in all, it was a day full of memories for small and big alike.

The Friendly Frogs love games and turn this echo activity into a game we can engage in before they realize how unique their responses are. We are aware of the children who echo immediately and those who hesitate. The leaders in the class will provide an opportunity to demonstrate the skill and assist in building the skill and confidence of those who are not quite ready to jump in with an echo.

The Friendly Frogs children started to prepare their eye-catching art pieces for our upcoming art exhibition. They extended their knowledge of rainbows and observed a few pictures of them with the help of the art teacher. Then, they painted blue skies for their rainbows, ripped colourful paper pieces into smaller sizes, and created rainbow arches out of them.

Learning the letters is great fun especially if you can create artwork, play bingo and matching games with your favourite friends and teachers. The Friendly Frogs are becoming master cutters, painters, and bingo players. If you got intrigued and want to find out more, just ask your clever little Froggies to share their know-how with you.

“Stop” is a powerful word. It is an important one, too, and can come in handy when the Friendly Frogs’ safety is at risk. You might also find that it is a clearer, more positive alternative to the word “no”. We will be playing stop-and-go games today not only because children enjoy them, but also because learning to stop is an important skill to master.

No one is born with a sense of humour. The Friendly Frogs learn over time to recognise what we consider funny. We also discover that not everybody agrees on what is funny. A well-developed sense of humour not only helps us enjoy life but also opens the door to divergent thinking skills. Silly sounds are fun to hear and imitate. They offer your child’s articulators (lips, teeth, and tongue) new feats to master and will help foster clearer speech.

What is New Year? How do you celebrate New Year’s Eve? When is New Year? The Friendly Frogs children extended their knowledge and understanding of New Year Celebrations during their visual arts lessons. They watched a video about fireworks and identified their main features with their art teacher. They made paper roll firework artwork using DIY roll stamps, fluorescent tempera paint, glue, and glitter and said happy New Year to everyone.

Working together has never been so much fun. The Friendly Frogs explored the joys and pleasure that come from teamwork. Keeping the ball on the parachute only works when we work together and tune in to each other.

This lesson was all about pretending. The Friendly Frogs embarked on a sea adventure, pretended to be pirates, and transformed into royalty as they explored how far their imaginations could take them. But pretend or imaginative play is more than just a fun way for children to entertain themselves-it is a complex process that builds skills in several different developmental areas. By pretending, imagining, dramatizing, and experimenting, children build language and communication skills, develop their capacity for empathy and cooperation, and practice creative problem-solving.

The Friendly Frogs children extended their knowledge about the Christmas season and made fork-painted Christmas trees and paper plate reindeer during their visual arts lessons. They painted Christmas trees with forks and decorated them with shiny Christmas-themed sequins and tree toppers according to their likes. The reindeer art project was a bit more complex. First, they painted the paper plates brown. Then, they cut them into various shapes, such as triangles, rectangles, and semi-circle shapes. At last, they glued the parts together according to their preferences, and added eyes, antlers, and pompom noses to them.

What an amazing performance it was! The Friendly Frogs sang and danced and celebrated with their friends, parents and teachers to Clement C. Moore’s ‘Thwas the Night Before Christmas’. They most certainly deserved the ovation that followed the show.

The Friendly Frogs are getting ready for the upcoming festive season. As on Tuesday, St. Nicholas is about to visit, they thought it was high time to get on with decorating the classroom and right away took to decorating the Christmas tree. Dazzling baubles, green, red, and gold are now shimmering-shining making our spirits bright.

The loving connection during quiet time is very important to the Friendly Frogs. The love, trust, comfort, safety, and warmth create an environment where your child’s learning and development can take place fully.

The Friendly Frogs children made card turkey animal crafts for our Thanksgiving celebration. First, we looked at various turkey pictures and identified their main physical characteristics. Then, the children practised their scissors skills and cut simple turkey parts out on their outlines. They coloured and designed their samples with oil pastels. At last, they glued the body parts together and decorated their colourful thanksgiving turkey animals with pompoms, wiggly eyes, and colourful feather pieces.

Today, we had fun experiencing various substances. The ballon and vinegar experiment amazed us all and gave quite a surprise when it flew off the vinegar bottle up and into the sky, as the air filled the balloon that started smiling, as Mrs Hande drew a smiley face on it.
Mrs Silvia showed us how milk, dish soap and food colouring could be turned into a rainbow of amazing colours.

Each week we go through the process of naming what we are going to hear, listening to the sound, and then engaging with that sound through vocal play. We are setting the Friendly Frogs up for success so that listening becomes active and fun. While we are playing with sounds, we are also training their brains to distinguish sounds.

What would you look like if you would be a chameleon? What colours and patterns would you have? The Friendly Frogs children got inspired by ‘A Colour of His Own’ story written by Leo Lionni. The children used their imagination and challenged themselves to design colourful and busy patterned chameleons during one of their visual art lessons. Some imagined themselves climbing on a lemon, some on blueberries, and some on red apples and coloured their chameleons yellow, blue, and red.

Peekaboo is a classic favourite that is good for more than a smile and a laugh. Hiding and finding you over and over again helps to illustrate object permanence. This concept helps the Friendly Frogs learn that you are there for them even when they cannot see you. That is the kind of reassurance they need to foster their emerging independence.

The Friendly Frogs children made a few Halloween-themed arts and crafts during their visual art lessons. They made spooky spiders, scary, but not-so-scary zombies, and silhouette bats and used them to decorate their classroom and corridor area for our upcoming Halloween party. They painted with sponges, squeezed glue out of their tubes to glue various body parts to their creations, shook glitter bottles to sparkle their spooky creations, and even used scissors.

The Friendly Frogs had an exciting week. All through they were getting ready for today’s Halloween party. They created decorations and games that they played today having oodles of fun!

Starting at about 10-12 months old, babies begin to interpret the facial expressions of the people around them to make sense of new or unclear situations. The Friendly Frogs have continued to refine this skill, but may still only use broad categories of emotion, like happy or sad. Helping the Friendly Frogs to identify and recognize their own emotions helps them to understand their own emotions and those of people around them.

The Friendly Frogs children have been learning about the autumn season recently. They have been focusing on hedgehogs during one of their visual arts lessons. First, we observed some pictures of hedgehogs and identified their main physical features with the children. Then, they cut spikes with scissors in their samples, printed even more spikes with swinging forks, and glued wiggly eyes and pompom noses on them.

The Friendly Frogs have been eagerly getting ready for the Harvest Assembly and celebration. They learnt two songs they performed in the assembly this morning. The Dingle Dangle Scarecrow is always a true hit with everyone and the Frogs lit the gym with their smiley and eager little faces. Harvest is about celebrating our hard work from spring to autumn and enjoying the products of our hard work, so we made a harvest basket full of autumn fruit to wish everyone a happy harvest.

Sharing and taking turns is a learned process that only develops when children can start empathizing with others. These skills take a tremendous amount of self-control for two- and three-year-olds. We model self-control for Friendly Frogs as they see you patiently wait to play the triangle. We can also help the child to wait by touching him/her gently or showing him/her how to pretend to play the triangle before it is his/her turn. This helps him/her find his/her own strategies for waiting. Learning these skills helps the child when we celebrate and acknowledge all the tiny achievements along the way. Observe your child when he/she is with friends and classmates. Watch for opportunities to affirm his/her efforts, saying something like: “You are so polite to wait while Nancy takes a turn.

What an exciting day it was today for the Friendly Frogs. The ponies arrived at the garden of Happy Kids. Everyone was delighted and excited to see them plodding around with happy and smiley little children. Luckily the weather held out for us too and we didn’t get wet.

The Friendly Frogs children had their first visual art lesson with our art teacher in the art atelier. First, they reviewed and identified the most popular colours with the art teacher. Then, they choose their top two or three favourite colours. Each child had their own paint containers filled with their favourite colours. At last, they made beautiful paintings from tempera paint. The Friendly Frogs children painted dots, lines, curly lines, circles, and mandala-like objects, and mixed their favourite colours in various ways.

What a busy time it was for the Friendly Frogs and their families. All but one little Froggy joined us for these two busy weeks. Our new friends are almost there with their settling in, so the class plunged head first into learning. We learnt our first sound this week, the “s” sound. You would not imagine how many different things we could find that start with a “s”. Sammy the Snake, sun, snail, story and many many more. We even made some snails, and also a lovely yellow sun. We tremendously enjoyed all the activities and are looking forward to those coming up in the future.