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Goodnight Moon Storytelling Basket

Thursday, 3 March 2016

Oh my, Goodnight Moon is one of my kids favourite books and I can’t wait to share with you the contents of our storytelling basket! I assembled it over the weekend and both Vito and Mavi are having fun tinkering and exploring the objects.

I read this book everynight. It’s calming, relaxing… makes them ponder of what’s out there in the night, letting them observe their room and the silence of the night. And may I just say, there is so much love in the story. The old lady as I would always say to the boys, is lovingly watching her little kid going to sleep, just like most Mommies do!

So this is our storybasket where I placed all of our objects and the book. I put this on the top of the shelf. Some of the items here are small so I need to assist and supervise whenever they play with it. Items here were from the following Playmobil playsets:

The clock was from Amazon, the moon is a DIY, the kittens were from Safari Toob Domestic Cats and the bears were from Learning Resources counting bears.

Now, we’ve read this book a hundred times LOL. Vito knows this by heart. So he knows each of the objects in the book and he was quite fascinated that he gets to see them and touch them personaly! Take a look at our three little bears sitting on chairs, the comb, brush and the bowl full of mash!

He obviously loves the bears!

But his favourite of all was the clock! Now I highly suggest that you read the book to your child first. Give it a week of reading before starting the storytelling basket as there might be times they’ll get distracted of the toys. When that happens, just allow your child to play with it for as long as he wants.

Vito can’t take his eyes from this clock so we have to pause and explore this. We talked about the numbers and hands and he was fascinated!

I hope you like this post. It will give you an idea on how to put fun into your reading time. We previously had the Papa Please Get the Moon For Me and it was also a hit!

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The Use of Funnel for Toddlers

Tuesday, 1 March 2016

Vito is 28 months old.

I recently introduced the use of funnel to Vito and boy oh boy, it’s non stop play!

The addition of funnel in our beans and water transfer has added an extra spice in Vito’s daily activity. He’s been doing activities like pouring and scooping for quite sometime now and let’s say he’s getting tired of it. So to explore the other capabilities of pouring, I added funnel in his activity tray.

Benefits of using funnel or tubing:

the difference between wide and small mouthed containers. Make sure that the bottle is clear so the child can see the flow for the elements.
from one step water transfer to pour-funnel-pour procedure (additional step)
learn the concept of water flow

Children are fascinated with water and by making the flow. The use of funnel is one of these elements that can help children understand about small spaces and how the flow of water works. They will discover that to easily transfer water to a small mouthed container, they’ll be needing a tubing or funnel to successfully pour elements into it.

To demonstrate here’s a video of Vito transferring lentils and water using a funnel.

Your kids will definitely have fun with this one, mine can’t stop playing! Hope that this will work on you!

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Small World Play: Giant Pandas

Friday, 19 February 2016

Early this year, when everything in Amazon was on sale, I got this one of a kind Panda and the Bamboo Forest Playset from Playmobil. I’ve been eyeing this for months since last year and I was lucky enough to chance this set on sale! Giant Pandas are one of those animals that are in the endangered list and I think somehow, by having this playset at home I can introduce this beautiful animal to the kids, talk about their characters and habitat.h

PS. We’ve visited a lot of zoo, but we haven’t encountered a Giant Panda. We didn’t chance upon them in Singapore Zoo either.

We love the the Panda Playset! The bamboo, tree, hilltop and bridge plus the panda family! It’s a perfect playset for our little pandas to play with their Moms and Dads. In setting up the tray, I added a felt craft paper (grass) and a few more figures from Safari Toob to create a community of pandas. Mavi assembled everything in this Melissa and Doug wooden tray. Note that the Playmobil pandas are much bigger than the Safari Toobs’.

The boys love the bamboo objects included in the playset. We talked about what pandas eat and in what environment they thrive. We also discuss about bamboos and where we can find these.

Vito loves the small cave in the playset. He “hides” the pandas there as he counts them.

Day and night, this is Vito’s favourite play material. He plays with this in the morning while I’m busy preparing Mavi for school. Just make sure to keep an eye on those baby pandas, they’re quite small and toddlers tend to put them in the mouth or throw them anywhere in the house.

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How We Learn Colours These Days

Sunday, 7 February 2016

We finally started our colour toddler basket last week wherein we put red objects in the basket for learning colours. We started with the colour Red, the colour of Valentines Day and Chinese New Year

There are so many versions of this basket, sometimes they are called discovery baskets or treasure baskets wherein Mommies gather specific or themed objects and place them in a basket for the baby and toddler to explore. Now what makes our version different?

Vito is good in colour sorting activities but still a hit or miss when it comes to naming the colours. It would have been easier if I assemble the objects myself but I realized that Vito will learn much more if HE DISCOVERS and ASSEMBLES the objects by himself with my assistance.

Yes, Mommies! Don’t assemble the basket on your own, do it together with your little one. It’s fun, engaging and they will love doing it for you! As Mavi described it, it’s like Easter egg hunting or treasure hunt.

To start the activity, we earlier had a painting activity to re-introduce the color red. You can also do colouring activities using red crayons or pens.

The next day, we did a red colour hunting at home! We roam around the house, open drawers here and there in search of objects that are red. During the activity, I would ask Vito something like “where’s the red block?”, “is this a red train”, “can you pick up the red duplo”? Then we placed the objects in the basket and let him play with it for as long as he wants. When not in use, I just place the basket in the shelf. Just side note, Vito tends to scatter them around the house, so the objects are in a ziploc. Whenever he wants to play with them, he would ask me to open the plastic. This will keep the objects intact and your sanity as well! Open-mouthed smile

Items that we have discovered in the house that are red:

Playmobil Children’s Train Set. We got this for free!
Red disk from Wonderworld Disk Stacker
Red soft block from B Toys Squeeze Blocks
Red felt craft paper from local store
Strawberry from M&D Fruit Set
Red tweezer from Learning Resources Jumbo Tweezers
Red duplo from LEGO Amazon

Make sure that when you play with your kids, always use “red” as an adjective like “let’s play with your red train”, “can you stack your red block?” This will further familiarize your child with the colour and associate the word “red” to the colour itself.

For more toddler activities, click here or visit my Toddler Board on Pinterest!

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Getting the Most Out of Sensorial Play

Monday, 1 February 2016

I am often asked by friends, after all the hassle of setting up a sensory bin, with all the mess here and there, what would the child learn from it?

Well basically, this kind of activity is for the child to explore his senses. It includes the sense of touch, smell (scented objects), eyes and hands and etc. But I don’t limit myself in these. We use sensorial play for literacy and math as well. When we do sensorial bin, I make sure that I play with my kids, that I interact with them (especially with Vito) so he’ll learn how to communicate.

Here’s a video of how we play with the ice and used it as a tool in learning vocabulary words, counting and more! No need for fancy toys Smile

So you see, with just the ice, Vito learned a lot of vocabulary words:

big and small

cold

slippery

melting

hard

Learning Literature though Play-based Activities and {Learn & Play Link Up}

Thursday, 28 January 2016

We love books and most of the time its easier to have your activities revolve around that book. Kids will have a better understanding of the story, and at the same time explore related subjects like what we did with my Grand Father’s Journey, The Glorious Flight and other Five in a Row Activities. I shared here how we explore and dig dipper into the stories and create engaging activities to go along with it.

So this week, I’ll feature posts that contains literature play based activities that we could also do at home!

Our Favourite Toys for 2 to 7 Years Old

Wednesday, 25 November 2015

**Contains affiliate links**

“As parents and grandparents, we think that we are showing children we love them by giving them things. In fact such practice, in and out of itself, may send them the wrong message. Children may conclude that if people give you things, they love you. If receiving things tells you that you are loved, the next logical step is to measure self-worth by what you have, not by what you are. The reality is that very young children can only truly love one doll, one stuffed animal, and a few toys at a time. This experience provides a basis for adult life where one must learn to cherish one spouse, one family, one life, instead of fantasizing that it is possible to ‘have it all’.” - MONTESSORI FROM THE START

We don’t have a lot of toys at home. Mavi just like two kinds of toys: LEGO and dinosaur/animal figures, that’s just it. All through the years, I don’t splurge nor buy toys as we don’t have the budget for it. I consider them as luxury so I just gave toys to Mavi as presents on his birthday and Christmas. But because we “home” school, I purchase learning materials that my kids see as “toys” but in reality they are NOT really toys. And because I am frugal, I buy toys that they can grow with, MULTIPURPOSE and something that they can play together. So let me share with you the kids’ favourite things in the house. These are the toys that we have in the house, except for the ones in my “wishlist and basket”. These toys are being played day in and day out by the boys.

NOTE: ALWAYS SUPERVISE YOUNGER CHILDREN WHEN USING ANY OF THESE TOYS. Do not leave them unattended.

FAVOURITE TOYS

LEGO, DUPLO and PLAYMOBIL. Need I say more? These are the favourite in the house. We have plenty of LEGOs as this is Santa’s favourite present EVERY Christmas for 4 years! And Vito’s Duplo and Playmobil were brought from the local store when they were on 50% off. I would never get them for a whole price! Vito is now snapping bricks together and loves the Playmobil people. Both of my boys spend hours and hours playing with these toys. They never get tired of them. Perfect toy for creativity, concentration and developing fine motor skills!

For Playmobils, we have castles and pirates. They’re Mavi’s favourite toy and can play with them for hours!

My son loves the LEGO CLASSIC Bricks. He doesn’t really like those with premade designs as he always wanted to design his own thing. So I highly recommend that you buy the basic LEGO BRICKS especially if you are getting your first Lego. Having a plate is also good.

miniLUK and BambiniLUK. Mavi and I looooves this! We can’t get enough of answering all the booklets, especially those tricky ones! I bought the Starter Pack and bought the advanced booklets separately. There’s a version for younger kids, the BambiniLUK and some friend in Instagram said that they like it. Mavi is like “Mom, its making my brain tired LOL”

Montessori Botany and Zoology/Insect Puzzles, Montessori Puzzle Maps. I invested on these this year and it was worth it! I have puzzle loving kids, and Vito is currently addicted to them. Aside from educational, these puzzles are also perfect for pincer grasp practice. Mavi on the other hand is obsessed with my Asia and Europe puzzles. He loves geography, loves to learn about countries and their locations. Tower High Learning is my favourite Montessori shop as of the moment and this is where I purchase my materials.

Schliech Animal Figures and Safari Toobs are also an all time favourite in the house. The uses of these figures include imaginative play, learning about animals, habitat play, exploring landmarks and just about anything! You see these mostly in my post! When Vito was younger, I made him use Schleich animal figures because they are bigger but now that he has overcome his mouthing, he uses both Schleich and Safari Toob. Mavi is obsessed with dinosaurs, and he uses them now as characters for his homemade videos LOL. Now he uses both types for play and learning.

Hape Uppercase, Lowercase and Number Puzzles. With Mavi, I used the Melissa and Doug Magnetic letters (I still have them) and they were really really loved. Now the problem is Vito mouths things and I made Vito use it, the sticker of the letters were removed. So I looked for an alternative alphabet toys for us to use and I discovered these amazing puzzles from Hape. They are WORTH-IT! We love using them in anything, from learning letters, puzzles to stacking! Yes, Vito loves to stack these together! We also use it to sort out colors! Multi-purpose indeed! But if you have older kids, Melissa and Doug Magnetic Letters are as good as well.

Because I love to cook (Asian and Italian), the boys also love to pretend cooking with me using these Melissa and Doug cooking toys. They can play for hours with these!

M-cro Maxi Scooter. And I just have to include this!! Because they play with this scooter in and out of the house! Mavi uses this to school and Vito uses this indoor for scooting practice. I love that it is sturdy and kids can easily balance!

And of course, nothing beats classic toys like balls, cars and PlayDoh! My boys wouldn’t complain if they receive any of these this Christmas.

WISHLIST

Magnatiles. Rave reviews everywhere but I just couldn’t bring myself to purchase these tiles or can’t even justify it Sad smile Maybe when they’re 50% off I would probably get one for the boys!

Unit Block. I know that the boys will love this as well. They can build and create so many things with this but the price is just too much for me. I still have to think about this a million times.

Beleduc Puzzles. My puzzle loving kids will love these puzzle series, especially the Your Body Layer puzzles!