I promised I’d upload photos of my Flashcard hallway and my nursery, so I will attempt to here! 
It doesnt seem to allow me to do four in one post, so I shall do them separately!!!
Azaria’s crawling/walking hallway…
And I just realised there was a more attachments button…I’ll try that on my NURSERY post.
To whomever I promised pix of my nursery, I have taken photos of parts of it as its abit of a mess at moment… storing stuff in there, and trying to make a little gym section so I can treadmill etc whilst watching bub…The nursery is the biggest room in the house…it’s a family room with heater and a built in bar which I use as a closet. All the other kids had their rooms when bub unexpectedly came along, and my room was next to the family room, so for logical reasons, plus extra room if more littlies came along, plus it looks out onto the backyard area I plan to enclose for bub…it was practical. I have a big net across the ceiling, lots of mobiles and posters, a stack of toys and board books (I reckon at least 500 now… i buy them all 2ndhand…I buy em cos I myself want to read them…like a 2nd childhood I guess), non-matching curtains to add more colour and visual stimulation, and I’m in the process of covering all wardrobes in foam alphabet puzzle pieces which can be used like a noticeboard to pin things on top of. I also have a screen door on the nursery to keep the cats out of there and hence my room also, where I keep the cot.
Wow, how inspiring! Talk about visual stimulation. How wonderful for bub. Does she just enjoy every moment? My DD would be in heaven I’m sure!
The hallway is currently cold (its winter) so will be more usable in the summer months, but yes she loves looking at the wall and tries to grab some of the pictures like one of a pink cupcake… she has difficulty realising they are just pictoral 2 dimensional representations… I plan to add an extra layer along the top, about an extra 20cm (8 inches), A4 size sideways of big words so they’ll be highly visible to a little person.
The nursery is still a work in progress… I keep moving things around and adding then subtracting furniture and complaining I dont have enough room to put everything! Currently I just had my sons birthday and soon a daughter’s so I unload all the presents in there and sort through them (what’s for whom, what shall be for XMAS)and wrap them etc so I keep her in a playpen while in there at the moment. But as it looks like I may well be pregnant, I better get a move on and get it PERFECT in the next 3 months before my hips give up and get too painful. Provided the next 3 months arent full of morning sickness… that’s just the worst part of pregnancy!!! (How do people be pregnant and go to work??? I find it difficult to get off the couch!!). I’ll hunt up an old photo of what the nursery USED to look like months ago, in it’s entirety…
NOT PREGNANT AFTER ALL
Wow, that’s incredible! What a dedicated parent you are! Thanks so much for sharing and inspiring all of us!
I agree I’m totally inspired !! I especially love the foam alphabet too
U r doing a great job !!! I think we have to learn many more things from u
Thanks…I try to do it as cheaply as I can… I save money on clothes and toys etc by mostly buying secondhand, so I can afford to spend on learning DVDs that are new…(I’d buy them secondhand too if I could find them cheaper!!). Like today… visited an op-shop run by old ladies… $2 fill-a-bag kids clothes. I always jam heaps of baby clothes in… get a few bags… all good stuff, like Pumpkin patch, esprit etc… baby doesnt mind what she wears anyway…she doesnt care about brand names!!
Hi Nikita,
Can you please tell us where to get those big flashcards? Is there any particular website you can recommend? There is a lot of flashcards here in Hawaii but it is very small.
Thank you!
Sorry you cant buy them in these big A3 form, you have to buy packs of flashcards and put them together onto a sheet of a3 laminate, then put them through an a3 laminator. U can find flashcards on ebay, in 2nd hand shops, garage sales etc. I also use SNAP card games… I find them 2nd hand, often with a theme like “occupations”… if they have a word on them, I use them. You can also cut words out of magazines and catalogues and paste them onto paper, then laminate them, or use old picture books and cut out pictures of animals, then print out the corresponding words and stick them onto paper…you could do your old flashcards using PAINTSHOP colour sample sheets (I use the 4 inch by 4 inch paint colour samples from British Paints at Bunnings Hardware…they’re free), arrange them in a colourful contrasting design, then position animal stickers and a corresponding word on each square.
Hi,
Thank You!
Wow that’s amazing! What a lot of work! Do you use the cards as a regular part of your reading program or more for added interest?
I figured I’d do my own flash cards (words only, words and pictures) to flash, so those shaped ones would look good spread out over the wall! Another good thing to do is get second hand picture books and rip out pages and A4 laminate them. I found a Sesame Street book good for this, which had pictures of “at the dentist”, “in the classroom” etc, with words there next to various objects (and I wrote on more words, and put on labels like "hospital, fire station etc). Azaria loves cats, then dogs, so I do collages about those animals and put words on about them, like “cat” in capitals and small letters, “miaow”, “kitten” “Pussy-cat”… later on I will do one with cat in different languages. Just using the cat food boxes for pictures and words to cut out has worked well. (I just bought different brands). And catalogues.
You’re amazing Nikita!!! How can you do all these things with a handful of kids too?! You’re inspiring and your passion to teach your kids is infectious Keep up the good work.
Yes, I do! And now I’m looking at moving house (moving town), to give my kids a better life, a more country environment, so that’ll be alot of work!! But hopefully it will be worth the effort!
Amazing n mind blowing task with two kids to take care of…Inspiring n lovely hard work done for ur kid great great… Always teaching us good things…