A Happy Happy Christmas

We went into the Zoo!

Finally! After a year and a half, my husband took us to the Belgrade Zoo!  I’ve been wanting to go there since last year, but husband doesn’t want to because he doesn’t like the smell of the zoo.  Good thing that my friend Phoebe told us that the zoo is on it’s worst and smell pretty bad only in summer.  So with that I finally get to convince my husband to take us to the zoo and besides, he sees that his son is so much into animals... so for sure Mavi will love there.

Before hitting the zoo, we had our lunch first at McDonalds that day.  God blessed us with a wonderful weather that day! The cold was manageable and it wasn’t raining.  Entrance fee is 340RSD (about 170PHP) per adult and Mavi is free.

The Belgrade Zoo is located at the Kalemegdan Park and it covers around 7 hectares. They have an official website, but there’s not much information here and it is written in Serbian. 

Note too that the last time I went into the zoo was back when I was 6 years old.  Here’s what we found in the zoo so far..

Meetkats were a favorite of Mavi.  He was fascinated with them because they interact with him hehe.  See how they all assembled in front of him when he started touching the glass wall.. maybe hoping for Mavi to feed them LOL.

The pony on the lower right was his favorite!!! He wanted to touch them but they were smelly. Then there were also some elephants and giraffe. He was so happy to see the elephant, even gesturing how the elephant would sway it’s trunk.   I just wonder why he didn’t appreciate the giraffe... maybe he was too tired already. Pero in fairness I like the giraffe. Para syang isang binibi na ballerina, walking with so much grace, carry nya ang mahaba nyang leeg.!

Then we went to look for the white “albino” lions.  It was soooo beautiful but their size was intimidating. Para syang fairy god-lion.  We stayed there for a little while, resting on one of the benches.

Further walk into the zoo led us to the kangaroo and camels.  Okay, so this is my first time to see a camel.  Minanol mode.

 

Then just beside it are the birds: parrots, owls and more.  Mavi was scared of the parrots because they were making loud noises and freaked out when one of the parrots made a loud screeeching sound. Kahit nga ako nagulat.

We saw lots of deers and llamas too.. and some animals with horns as well, though I’m not quite sure if they are still classified as deers/ram because I have never seem them before.   It is said that most of the animals at the Belgrade Zoo are locals... so I bet they can just be found on the mountains of  Eastern Europe and Balkans.

Oh and I was pretty excited to see the monkeys but they weren’t in their cages! So instead, we played around on this statue, which of course Mavi recognizes as “monkey” because he kept on shouting “monkey! monkey!”.  Pero nung nilapit ko na sya, natakot sa mukha ng monkey hehee.

Before heading out to the exit, we passed by on the pools were we saw the hippo, sea lions and swans.  Mavi loved the hippo so much! Everytime the hippo would open their huge mouth, he would laugh and kept on shouting “hippo!”.  Then he would even imitate how the hippos opened their mouth hehe.  A strategy I used whenever I feed him.

Oh it was such a great day for our little family to visit the zoo and see the joy of your little one wonder and be amazed on the things that he sees. How I wish we also have this back home, where a zoo is accessible for everyone and that the fee is affordable.  That is one thing I love about this place because there are a lot of things that you can outdoors... perfect to raise a family. 

If I become a billionaire, I would overhaul Bacolod and would put lots and lots of parks and playgrounds.  If only I can buy the climate.. I would change our climate too... but since I am not God, we just have to live with the hot hot temperature lol.

While on break..

I keep him busy with a lot of our old activities, just reusing a bunch of our tot school materials.  Since DH and I are so busy these days, I haven’t got the time to plan my 2011 Tot School either.

So here’s what Mavi has been doing so far..

Painting.  I taught him how to paint an egg carton box using a paint brush.  I started by showing him how to do it, then I also told him that he can mix colors when he paints.  He insisted on doing it on his own but he ended up painting on the drawing paper, with up and down strokes.  He doesn’t want to paint the box even if I told him it’s a volcano hehe.  Maybe painting on a flat surface was easier for him so he can do his up and down strokes.

  

He also wanted to play with our “See and Spell”.  He still obsessed with his Alphabet Letters and is beginning to show interest on reading words.  It all started with his “First Word” book when we were practicing reading the word using the letter sounds and I would gesture that we read the word from left to right.  He loved it so much that even without my assistance he still wants to read the book.  The at times, we would practice reading using the “sight words” technique.  This one is really effective!  The words that he can read as of the moment are “cup”, “cat”, “dog” and “eat”.

Going back to the “See and Spell”, here he is matching the letters and would later on read the word by making the sounds of each letters.

 

Oh and I have to mention that he is really getting good with his scissor skills!! We haven’t tried using the metal scissors yet, but it will be included in the 2011 curriculum.  He would ask for his scissor whenever we play PlayDoh.

And speaking of PlayDoh,this toy does keep him busy for quite sometime.  He can spend 30 minutes to 1 hour.  Then I discovered that we can play color match with the PlayDoh’s lids and the cans.  Thanks to Mavi because when he finished playing with his doughs, he covered the cans with their respective lids! Amazing!

 

Well, there goes my update.  I have gazillions of idea for our next year’s tot school, but until I organized them and write them down... it will all be just “plans”.  As I always say, my tot school is child-led.  I just plan ahead so I can prepare my materials beforehand.

Ciao for now!