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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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Flower Cards (Limited Time)

Saturday, 6 February 2016

This Valentines Day, we are having flower activities! And with that I am giving away this Flower Cards set for FREE till February 15th, 11:00PM GMT.

Vito has been using these cards already and he loves it! At first I gave him 8 set of cards to work on, but then he finished them breezily and still asked for more!

I didn’t know that at 2years old, Vito can work on this amount of matching cards in one sitting!

We also use the cards to match the flower replicas which I bought at Ikea. But of course, nothing beats using real flowers!

To download, click here.

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Small World Play: Ancient China

Friday, 5 February 2016

Gong Hi Fa Cai! It’s the Chinese New Year tomorrow and Mavi and I are currently learning about the Ancient China (using STOW Vol 1 as read along book). With these, we set up another small world play which is inspired by the history of China. Here’s what Mavi and I assembled. Last month, we assembled an Australian Outback-inspired small play and it was a total hit! This month, the boys are enjoying their free play with our new small world tray!

First, Mavi and Vito painted the newspaper with green and brown. This will be the base of our Great Wall! Painting is one of those activities that kids love to do together!

We placed the newspaper (once the paint dried) at the bottom of our wooden tray then stuff it with small world figures and materials from our Safari Toob collections, LEGO and Playmobil.

What’s in the tray?

You will first notice our country profile card with the dragon. I made this card for Mavi to read whenever he plays, and I added a dragon, as this is one of China’s famous icon and symbol. The dragon is part of the Playmobil Advent Calendar which I got Mavi last year.

Qin Shi Huang and Chinese Buddha. Qin Shi is the first emperor of China and the country was named after him (the figure is part of Playmobil Advent Calendar) and the Chinese Buddha is from Hong Kong.

Other objects we added were

the dragons from Safari Toobs

the Giant Buddha from Safari Toob Landmarks

a DIY flag of China

the Great Wall of China made of LEGO (Mavi made this)

the rest of the items from Playmobil Dragon Advent Calendar.

Here’s Mavi loving the dragon. We were discussing the role and meaning of the dragon in China’s culture and tradition.

Vito loves our tray too! The tray is good for one to two weeks. It is placed on top of the shelf for the boys to easily access and play with the figures as long as they want to.

What a successful collaboration from Mavi, Vito and I! They enjoyed playing the materials that we have in the tray, most especially our dragon! History, geography and imaginative play all rolled into one!

If you are interested, we did several China-related activities before. You can click this (part 1) and this (for part 2).

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Don’t forget to pin this for later!

Chinese Lantern Project for Kids

Thursday, 4 February 2016

We had a lot of fun today making our Chinese lantern in celebrating Chinese New Year. Mavi and I did this years ago, and I think he would love to do this again, and of course for Vito to experience.

The lanterns that we made were no brainer. They’re so easy to do. I showed Mavi how to do it and he worked on the rest. As you can see in the photos, as Mavi cuts his lantern, Vito is also busy doing his scribbling.

We added some decors on it as well, like star stickers, glitters and some designs.

I inserted the tea candles inside the lanterns and this is how they turned out. It was a good color activity for Vito as well!

The boys were fascinated, especially Vito! Mavi thinks its magical Smile

Happy Chinese New Year to those who are celebrating! It’s the year of the monkey, it’s my year! More Chinese-themed activites here and here.

NOTE: THIS ACTIVITY SHOULD BE SUPERVISED DUE TO FIRE HAZARD.

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Best Arts & Crafts for Kids and {Learn & Play Link Up}

Wednesday, 3 February 2016

Years ago, Mavi would do a lot of artist study. One of my favorites is our Van Gogh project, The Sunflower. It was one of those rare moment wherein both Mavi and I were in depth with our subject and were absorbed by the beauty of painting. But it was just more than artwork. We studied the life of Van Gogh, and how his life reflected in his work. (click the image below for more details)

Now thinking about it, I picked the best art projects and crafts in our link up this week. Here are the featured post:

Tot School Snippets Week 1: Ice

Monday, 1 February 2016

I was reading my old blog the other day (private) and I am amazed on how I recorded Mavi’s learning curve week by week. Mavi enjoys reading that blog now! I just have to say that it is quite different when you have one child, you have focus, you have MORE time and well, I was organized. Now, I’m managing and engineering a bigger household, with a school boy and a hyperactive toddler, I barely have time to blog.

So now, I will start writing about Vito’s activities in a week. I have to put a little effort on this, for keeping memories and for Vito to read someday. Currently, we’re not following schedule of doing totschool weekly. There are days when we do a lot of activities, and there are times when I just whip anything that goes into my mind.

Vito is 26 months old.

THEME: ICE

This is still in line with Arctic Theme for the month of January. I dumped some ice in a tray, place a sea lion and polar bear from Schleich and tiny bucket.. and he had a blast!

With just ice, he learned a lot of vocabulary words:

big and small

cold

slippery

melting

hard

COLOR: Red and White

I ran out of blue so I picked red and white. Aside from painting, we also mix color to form pink.

His first color mixing activity.

LETTER OF THE WEEK: I/i

Vito knows all his letters and the sounds they make, so we’re heading towards learning small and big letters and objects . The letters used here were from Melissa and Doug. I have two sets.

This was also the time we read the Alphabet Booklet and identify the objects starting with letter i. You can refer to my post here about the baskets, and booklets on my Sellfy Shop. You can get them for free!

SHAPES: Square

Gluing cut out squares. We are using the Maped scissors for kids (2yrs +).

FINE MOTOR SKILLS:

Lining up Hot Wheels cars, learning how to use the glue spreader, cutting using a real scissor (supervised) and using our miniland abacus.

ART/CRAFTS:

Oh Vito made a big letter i.

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Getting the Most Out of Sensorial Play

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