Christine Joy Leal

Until now, we’ve been so fascinated with how our little girl learned most of her English words on her own. It’s true that we wanted her to learn the language, but now it seems that she’s more into it. But, we still try to balance things out so that she grows up not being a foreigner to her own language. And we’re proud to report that she can carry conversations in English or Filipino. It’s just that she’s more into English.

For Stacee, there are many influences to her language development but mostly are through media: TV, music, books, internet. For the TV shows, here is a list of cartoons that she enjoy watching:

• Dora the Explorer
• Mickey Mouse Club House
• Tickety-Tock
• The Backyardigans
• Go Diego Go
• Sophia the First
• Lala Loopsy
• Paw Patrol
• Bubble Guppies
• Doctor McStuffins
• Max and Ruby
• Team Umizoomi
• Spongebob Squarepants

Aside from these TV shows, there are a number of cartoon movies that she’s enjoyed watching and repeating:

• Tinkerbell: Secret of the Wings
• Frozen
• Despicable Me 1 and 2
• Tangled
• Barbie and The Pink Shoes
• The Strawberry Shortcake Berryfest Princess
• Frankenweenie
• Wreck-It Ralph
• Brave

And would you believe that she loves watching YouTube, especially toy reviews. Yes, toy demonstrations and reviews. She would ask for my or her Daddy’s phone and click on our YouTube app and she’s watch the recent cartoon feeds and toy reviews. Sometimes she would ask us to type in keywords to a show on YouTube and from there, she’ll know how to navigate through different shows just by clicking on video thumbnails. She began watching YouTube when she was 2. It’s actually a nice way to keep her entertained but be careful that they might go through videos that are not appropriate to their age. I make sure to add in some restrictions on the app’s settings so that she’ll only get to kid friendly shows. Here’s a list of what she usually watches:

• Play-Doh demonstrations
• Toy Reviews
• Nursery Rhymes
• Barbie: Life in the Dream House
• Dora the Explorer
• Strawberry Shortcake

For the music, aside from the videos of nursery rhymes that she constantly plays, she enjoys a number of songs such as:

• Stay the Night by Zedd ft. Hayley Williams – she shares my love for this song! She would repeatedly sing this asking me to do a duet with her.
• Roar by Katy Perry – also another song that she’d love to duet with me
• Let it Go  by Idina Menzel – as caused by the Frozen fever
• For the First Time in Forever by Kristen Bell – another Frozen favorite
• Opening Credit Scores for Various Cartoons – which she would sing and dance to when she her them

And the most important influence of all: children’s books. The very first book we bought for her is still her favorite: “Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes”. At 6 months, we already bought her the book so that she’ll at least appreciate being read to. And it’s been a fruitful effort as she still loves it when we read her book to her. Oftentimes, when we read her a book as she requested, it will turn out to be a book marathon as she begins pulling out all of her books from the bookshelf. It might get so repetitive to us, but still it’s great to know that she shares the love for books that Stan and I have.

Overall, we are proud to share that our little Stacee has grown to appreciate the same things that we do. She might enjoy watching TV, movies and videos, but we still try to balance her activities through games and playtimes with our neighbor’s kids. She has time to stay indoors and watch her favorite shows and she also spends time outdoors to run and jump around as her exercise.

I’ll be sharing more ideas for fun and educational activities to make your quality time with your kids more memorable!