I made this set of alphabet cards for JX to play with, the purpose is to let him be familiarized with upper & lowercase alphabets. JX loves this set very much, he flips through the cards one by one again and again. A cost effective and attractive way for toddler to learn alphabets without needing to invest too much on expensive electronics toy.
I came across some colourful pom poms at Daiso store last week and decided to grab two packs home. Below are a few activities which I set up for JX using these beautiful pom poms-
1. Simple colour sorting
I sat beside JX, gave him some simple instructions like ‘ Pick all the blue pom poms and line them up’. When he finished this task, I will give another instruction ‘ Place all the blue pom poms into the bin’ then follow by the last instruction ‘Close the bin’. After he closed the bin, I will repeat these instructions again, starting by ‘ Now, open the bin. Pick all the green pom poms and line them up’.
I think JX really loves these pom poms as he was very eager to listen to my instruction and progressed with this sorting game happily.
2. Colour matching
I asked JX to match and put the pom poms into the respective coloured box. However, he always got confused whenever he picked a pom pom which was none of the 4 designated colours. So, I ended up removing those pom poms which their colour didn’t match any.
3. The last and most exciting pom poms activity for JX was to use a spaghetti clip to clip these pretty pom poms and drop them into the bin.
I think this spaghetti clip is a bit oversize for JX but luckily it’s easy to squeeze and can hold the pom poms very well.
At first, I held JX’s hand and demonstrated to him how I clipped the pom poms (I picked the larger size pom poms) and then dropped it into the bin. After many rounds of demo, JX managed to gain some confidence and (with minimal help from mommy) he has successfully clipped a few large size pom poms and dropped them into the bin . This activity is good at training small muscles at toddler’s hand and also hand-eye coordination.
We spent a great afternoon playing with these pom poms and later while mommy heading to the kitchen to prepare dinner, little one continuously entertained himself (and quiet at the same time) by placing the pom poms into the bin one by one, then poured them out later.
What a great toy!
JX loves this set of ‘Play-Doh Cookie Monster Letter Lunch ’. He enjoys making alphabet soup along with lots of delicious treats. Besides, he was fascinated and amused by Cookie Monster who really ‘ate’ the ‘play-doh’ cookie he fed into his mouth. I would highly recommend this for the 2-4 year old age group. Fun and educational, you can't beat that!
Photo below: I decided to add some literacy into play-doh by introducing JX word matching.
Sharing- I found 2 great parenting tips from Whole Hearted parenting, enjoy reading!
Suggestion #1 is Notice and recognize your child’s improvements.
Sometimes it is easy to only notice – and point out – a child’s misbehavior, mistakes or shortcomings. If a child makes A’s and B’s on his report card along with one C, the C often gets the most attention. Begin to notice even small improvements. A challenge in our house is my daughter getting ready for school in the morning. That is my challenge. She is happy not getting ready for school! Part of her job in getting ready for school is turning off the lights, radio, and the fan in her room. Another part of her job is putting all of her dirty clothes in her hamper. Rather than feedback being about the things she did not do – You forgot to put your clothes in the hamper – it is more encouraging to recognize the things that she did do – You turned off the fan and radio. That’s great! Focusing on your child’s successes and improvements is not only encouraging for your child, but for you as well. What we focus on is what we get, so the more we focus on improvements, the more improvements we will see. Notice how you feel and what you are thinking when you shift your focus in this way. If you are thinking “Man, how many times do we have to go through this before she cleans up after herself?” you will most likely feel frustrated or angry. Your frustration and anger will be reflected in your tone of voice. If you are thinking, “She is getting it! The clothes are in the hamper!” you will feel encouraged. You will feel better AND be more encouraging with your child.
Suggestion #2 is Eliminate “don’t”, “share” and “be nice” from your vocabulary.
Let’s look at each of these. The curious thing about “don’t” is that we don’t really recognize it. For instance, if someone said to you, “Don’t look at the person on your right. Don’t look!” you will probably (and immediately!) look to your right. Our brains do not process the “don’t.” The choices are overwhelming! To create clarity for your children, tell them specifically what you would like them to do rather than what not to do. Instead of “Don’t jump on the bed” or “Don’t put your feet on the couch” say, “Sit on the bed” or “Feet down.”
“Share” and “be nice” are used frequently with younger children. Children learn to share on their own without parental intervention. In fact, when parents request that their children share, most of the time their children are too young to understand what it means. Have faith that your child will willingly share and will learn to do so through his own social relationships.
Saying “Be nice” has a double whammy. First, children do not understand what it means so they are not clear on what to do to be nice. Second, it gives the message that unless we tell our child to “be nice” that they are unkind, bad or whatever their view of “not nice” is. To avoid this double whammy, tell your child what you want him to do. If your child is grabbing toys from a friend say, “Toys are for picking up gently. Use toys these toys on the floor. Mary is playing with that one.” You can also say, “Ask Mary to hand you the toy you would like to use. Grabbing can hurt.” Talk about these skills in terms of “friendship” or “teamwork” skills. If your child is going over to a friend’s house say, “Have fun! Use your friendship skills.”
I found that JX shows great interest in playing with card board puzzles. So, to add to his collections, I bought him another 2 sets puzzles which are -
Related post: Jigsaw Puzzle Fun
HO: House officer
MO: Medical officer
A HO is infamous of frequently getting emergency leave (EL) in the last minute for just minor problem.
This time he just did it again by sending SMS to the MO, "Hi Dr, I'm so sorry that I have to take EL today. I'm having runny nose. I really need to rest."
Then he sent another SMS, "I've tried very hard to look for replacement but really couldn't find any. I hope you don't mind. I'm gonna rest now."
After a while he got the reply from the MO,
"It's ok. You please rest in peace. Bye."
I hate to label a 4 years old as a bully but I was really shocked to find out that bullying can starts so young. I wonder where she learnt this domineering behavior from, others around her? Or it’s just part of her personality?
I looked at my little boy…I know as a parents, I cannot stick my head in the sand, live in denial in the hope that bully will not happen to my child. I need to arm myself with strategies to educate my child to stand up for himself. I think, as children get older, and when there comes a situation where a peer is looking for someone to pick on, it is important that our children not be seen as “easy targets.”
Besides, from young age , we as a parents have to help our child learn to empathize, care & respect for others. Instead of blindly believing our child would never bully anyone, we have to teach them NOT to bully people. We need to address all the different forms of bullying with clear definitions.
This is a link discussing about bully, which I found it quite useful -
The Learn to be Buddies Series
Jing Xuan loves numbers recently, he is keen to play with the stacking rings and he has been requesting me to count the number of buttons on his clothes everyday! Since I still have some leftover round shape stickers so I decided to make some flash cards with numbers and let JX ‘count’ by himself whenever he wants.
I am not sure if JX really understand the concept of counting. I just take the opportunities everyday to count together. For example, while setting up for meals - "One spoon for daddy, one spoon for mommy, one for you! One, two, three, three spoons.” When my brother pays us a visit, there’s another spoon on the table, I will bring the count to four. I think as he grows older, he will eventually understand the idea that adding more objects increases the number counted (whereas taking away objects decreases the number).
I really love this easy made educational toy.
Related post: Stacking Rings
Mega bloks is a fun open ended toy for kids, kids can use their imaginations and come out with any structure they wish. I always enjoy building structures together with JX but recently an idea struck me that what if I just built the base and let him extend from there.
JX was very focused whenever he started getting serious to build his ‘structure’, he has used until the last piece, and ‘ TAA DAA'!!’ this was the end result!
Huggies Malaysia is giving away free limited edition inflatable swimming pool with purchase of RM80 and above worth of Huggies Dry Comfort in a single receipt from 1-11-2001 till 31-12-2011. Look for the form as shown below if you wish to make the redemption -
JX and I have a great time splashing in the pool at our yard this morning, thanks Huggies for this medium size pool ! ^_^
I set up a drawing session for JX last week where he could freely choose any art materials that he wanted to use and mix & match them as frequently as he wished. I didn’t suggest JX what to draw or how to draw as I didn’t want him to use my drawing as the basic for what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to draw. I just drew alongside with JX.
As the drawing progressed …
Mommy : “ See, mummy is going to draw a cat.” {I drew a cat}
Mommy: “ An elephant.” { Again, I drew an elephant}
Suddenly JX pointed to a blank space and said : “ A bear.” Then he proceed with some scribbles using a blue colour crayon. After scribbling, he pointed to the scribbles again and said : “ A bear.”
Who would have guessed that these blue scribbles were actually representing ‘A bear” ?
I looked closely at ‘the bear’ that JX drew, they were really very simple lines but I was glad that through his narration, I got to see what idea that he was trying to share. （＾ｖ＾）
JX enjoyed this butterfly painting very much, I will cut out more butterflies next time. ^.^
I always thought that stacking rings are a big hit to babies & toddlers but not until I bought one for JX… he seemed not to like it!
I spent some times to guide JX how to put the rings back to the cone by introducing the concept of big vs small. To start with, I showed him the biggest and the smallest rings since the size difference is obvious. Anyway, he still prefers to push the smallest rings through the cone and when the ring didn’t fit, he straightaway lost his interest.
Since round shape stickers continue to be JX’s favourite at home now so LK decided to add ‘numbers’ to the stacking rings using these stickers. And, finally it turns out to be a success!
JX loves to stack the rings according to the numbers and of course, all rings fit well in the cone. I was surprised to find that he learnt numbers 1-12 quickly through this play. He could sort out the sequence of the number and play independently by himself (another way for mommy to gain sometime for myself).
Kids learn best through play, don't you agree?
We have a happy & warm evening celebrating LK’s birthday. Nice ambience and great food at Italianese, The Gardens Midvalley with JX quietly enjoying the freshly baked breads & delicious pizzas for the whole one hour dinner time. And, not to forget cakes from Secret Recipe! （⌒▽⌒）
I have so much to be thankful for in my life, and this is definitely one of them.
For the last weekend, LK and I spent most of the time cleaning our apartment. We found many junk mails & catalogues ( which filled our letterbox everyday) in our storeroom so we piled it up and decided to donate it to a nearby recycling center.
Anyway, before we gave it away I prompted myself with a question: what could I do to re-purpose all these ‘colourful’ junks?
Hmm….
How about changing them into some colourful collages?
Hence, I cut out those beautiful pictures from these junk mails/ catalogues & old magazines and categorized it according to it’s colour.
This was the first time JX was introduced to collage, so the very first thing I did was to teach him how to glue. I provided JX with a piece of blank paper (as the base) and a bottle of glue, then I started to show him how to use the glue and how to place the pieces on the paper. I also showed him what would happen when I did not place enough glue.
JX was eager to try out this new ‘toy’, he first explored what this sticky (and probably messy) thing called ‘glue’ was by his hands. I gave him plenty of time to explore the property of the glue and how the glue felt when it dried off on the hands. After JX got bored playing with the glue, he started to imitate my act (which I showed him earlier) by trying to apply the glue on the pre-cut materials and paste it on the paper. I sat beside him and provided him with help and guidance whenever he needed. Besides, I asked him questions like – “ JX likes to eat apple, can you paste the apple? ” “Can you find another yellow car and paste it down here?'”
It was fun to see how JX trying to glue down the pieces with too much/too little glue (and also sometimes he had forgotten to apply any glue). I hung the collages in his room and he really loves them. For the past few days, he has revisited them few times per day, pointing to each pictures and expecting mommy to name them and also tell him more about those pictures. I have planned for 2 more different colours collages next week, will share it out then.
1). This project requires -
a. A medium sized box ( I wrapped the box with some left over wrapping papers so that it looks more attractive to JX).
b. One packet of glow-in-the-dark stars (I bought at RM3, it comes with moon and comets)
c. Mirror ( this is tentative, the purpose is to create some reflective images. This is to increase JX’s curiosity).
d. Others as shown in the photos to the right.
2). First, make an opening by choosing any side of the box and cut an ‘ I ’ shape. The opening serves as a viewing window for kids ( I didn’t take photo for this step).
3). Stick the glow in the dark stars, moon and comets.
4. Ready for viewing! （⌒▽⌒）
