I did not know this was from a kids TV show; got it because it was suggested by amazon and had chicks and an egg and it looked Easter-y. I can very well imagine little gosling becoming glued to the TV, should he ever catch a glimpse of the show :))).

The three friends come across an egg whilst playing and set out to find its parents before it hatches. Little gosling now wants to play chase, just like Mossy, everytime we go to the park; he starts running saying “catch you” :))) and off he goes, giggling and laughing. He also loves to “wheeee” with them when they slide down the slopes. He loves slides and this is the closest he’s got to one in more than four weeks now. It’s a fun little story for the youngest ones, full of play and interjections and lots of sweetness between the three friends.

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We started with the Easter themed one, which is easier (recommended for 2+). It took him a bit to understand what needed to be done and in the beginning mommy helped along, breaking down the illustrations into smaller pictures and asking about each item “is it here?”, but he quickly got the hang of it. He keeps playing the “is it here?” game on his own and almost chants “noooo” in reply . He found confusing at first to search for items depicting drawings or framed pictures of one of the characters, he was always pointing to the character, but he got it eventually. I was so amazed he could identify nuances of the same colour! And wow, what an observation sense and visual memory he has! These are great tools to help with that. 

The Easter book tells a cute little story about a chick, Piou-Piou, who loves Easter and dreams about becoming an Easter bunny when he grows up. He sets out to help the Easter bunny in painting the eggs and hiding them for the egg hunt. It is sweet, beautifully colored and a lovely introduction to the motifs and joys of the Easter holiday. Each double-sided page includes one para of text (in French) and asks kids to observe and find four items in the attached illustration: lots of decorated eggs, chicks, bunnies, sheep, birds, flowers and bells. Little gosling would ask to “read piou-piou”, brings the book, opens to the pages he wants and simply says “read that” and then he plays to finding the items. He loves finding the Easter eggs. 

The one with the seasons is quite a big format, but still easy to grasp for a toddler, and includes nine pretty double-paged illustrations filled with seasonal motifs, animals and happenings, two per season (three for summer). On each of them, kids are encouraged to identify seven items (animals, plants, activities) as well as observe what a cute little mouse is up to. There is no story, which provides so much space for story lines and language development, and the names of the items are written down (some of them, quite usefully so, with the book being in French). Again, I found this a useful, interactive introduction to seasons for my toddler. Particularly as for each season, one of the illustrations depicts the transformations the same garden goes through, in terms of tree foliage, colours, fruits, vegetables, animals. There’s a lot of information on these pages, without it feeling crammed. The favourites so far (love at first sight) were the depictions of a blue dragon-fly (“libellule” in French, “libelula” in Romanian – one of the favourite words, currently) and one of the spring illustrations showing toddlers enjoying a picnic “à la française“,  with different cheeses, baguette and strawberries. He stares at it and we inevitably end up enjoying together a platter of cheese, fruits and cashew nuts. What a treat! 

Little gosling keeps repeating the books – yes, he found all the items in both and when we go through them now he points to them in no time. But I’m already looking at other search and find books, of different sizes and different themes….

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I got the Ladybird big book of “Favourite Nursery Rhymes” months before he turned one. I was looking for short poems to recite or sing to him before bedtime or when he needed soothing. Very soon he wanted to play at turning the pages. It’s quite a sturdy book and the pages can withstand some baby action, but his very young, uncontrolled and imprecise movements quickly made some victims. Nothing that mommy could not easily fix with some scotchtape, though. I would read the rhymes that most appealed to me. My favourites were the three little kittens who had lost their mittens and the owl and the pussycat who were married by a turkey on a faraway island. 

When little gosling was about 16-17 months, he started bringing rhymes from “school”. First one he asked for was “Baa, baa black sheep”. For months it was one of his favourites. He would come to me and ask “ba ba” or later “sing ba ba”, whilst moving the weight of his body from the left to the right foot and reverse. Then came “Mary had a little lamb”, to keep to the same animal family. Good thing one can listen to them on youtube to learn the melody. As a non-native English speaker, I was not familiar with them. 

“Head, shoulders, knees and toes” came next, exercise included. We do it together, facing each other, and never just once. This is a particularly entertaining one (at least for us, parents). He can locate the different body parts in the song, but struggles to keep up touching them with the singing of the song, no matter how slowly I sing it. He tries to anyway. He manages to sing and do the first and last movements of the verse (head…. toes…..eyes….nose). And he has fun throughout. 

“Incy wincy spider” followed. The idea of up-down and sun coming out was what retained baby’s attention. And now he asks for the song every time we encounter a spider in other books (“sing that”, he would say to me, pointing to the spider). 

“Hey diddle diddle” is the current favourite. He knows all the nouns in the poem, but none of the connectors. He wants to repeat it so many times, as if he wanted to learn it by heart. He listens carefully and, like filling in blanks, I take a pause and let him say the nouns: cat… fiddle…cow jump…moon…dog…(ha ha – cause I add wherever I can, funny sounds)…fun…dish… way (his version of “away”)…spoon!!!! The last word is always said with excitement, almost victoriously. 

He finds the sound of “cock-a-doodle-doo” funny. He’s so happy when he shouts “cock-a-dooo”!!! Then we play the same game, I recite it and he completes with the last word of each verse (shoe…. “fiddlestitch”…doo!!!). 

At “Two little dicky birds”, he likes the ample arm movements we do when we tell Peter and Paul to fly away or come back. 

He also has his favourite songs in Romanian – the one with the fox (“Vulpe tu mi-ai furat gasca” or “Oac, oac, diridiridam”) and he recently started bringing home songs in French from school. 

We have fun reciting or singing nursery rhymes. We learn words, repeat them, move around theatrically, add animal sounds, laugh a lot. They are also one of our tools to have music in our daily routine. 

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