Free play for toddler

It has been ages since I post anything here.

Sorry been lazy bit. LOL

Well I am going to talk about Free Play and the importance of it.

A lot of times we forgot how important free play it is to a child especially toddler;

they learn a lot from free play.

Imagination play an important role in free play

and many times creativity sneaks out from there.

There are many types of Sensory bins that we can think of for free play.

Here is one simple ones.

As you can see here, I use some flour, a spoon and a car;

I place all of it on a tray, there you go viola!

My LO play for it for about an hour....

well yes it is really messy in the end,

that is why if you can do it outdoor!

Skills learn include:

Fine motor skills in spooning and pouring.

Hands on play to feel the touch of powdery flour.

My toddler did try to blow the flour and see it fly all over.

I let him do it for fun as I am prepared for a messy play.

After all the scooping and pouring and flour fly all over;

time to clean up!

I pour all the flour on the floor for him to step on it!

This was really fun for him,

and yes you must restrict the area he can roam around!

Otherwise the whole house would be a mess!

Hope you can try this out with your little one!

Xmas Party - December (ORG)

Ho Ho Ho, It's Christmas again!

We are so excited this time

as we have lots to do!

First we read a story about Santa having a New Jet!

It was interesting as this book does relate

to our modern world, in my opinion it is

suitable to both gender; although we have

an all girls reading group here!

Santa's New Jet by David Biedrzycki.

After the story-telling session,

we continue with our Christmas Cooking activity.

Oh don't forget to wash hands first!

Here, showing the children some

ingredients and let them taste and smell some of it.

We are making Christmas Squares! Easy and neat.

We are doing it all by ourselves.

Some make it round too, using the moulds.

I know all mommies been waiting patiently for the recipe...

I hope you all can try it at home with your child too.

It is easy and most of all, no mess at all.

Best of all it is yummy!

 

Christmas Squares

1/2 cup oats

1 tbsp. sesame seeds

2 tbsp. mini marshmallows

2 tbsp. cranberries

4 tbsp. Honey

2 tbsp. Sunflower oil

Tiny bit of vanilla essence

 

Preheat Oven to 160 degrees.

Line baking sheet with baking paper.

Mix dry ingredients all together.

Then add honey, oil, vanilla essence.

Use spoon pour on the baking sheet and tap it thin and flat.

Bake for about 20 minutes, and let it cool for 10 minutes.

When it is cool, it should be able to break it into small pieces;

and keep it in an air tight container.

Viola!

Here are the examples of the round shape Christmas squares!

Ok I forgot to take pictures of the

other squares as they were quickly

being eaten or put into the container. LOL.

Next, we have the kids do lots of things for this

mini picture that they can hang on their wall.

Stencilling, tracing, drawing, colouring, cutting and paste!

Last but not least, this time, they have to write the

Merry Christmas wording and put down their names!

After all the activity, exchanging presents time!

The stockings were full now with little presents and sweets.

Here are the children hugging each other for the

photo with the Christmas tree!

 

Thanks again to all that participate,

the children really have fun!

The Joy of Mandala.

It's November! We are going to learn about Mandala!

 Yes, you heard me right, mandala.

It's for the kids to learn something about

inner peace and shapes and symmetry.

According to Wikipedia, In common use, mandala has become

a generic term for any plan, chart or geometric pattern

that represents the cosmos metaphysically or

symbolically; a microcosm of the universe.

 

Here we have the kids drawing circles and shapes,

I want them to choose their own colour and draw them carefully

and use the shapes that they like.

After drawing all the shapes they have to paint the whole picture.

This does shows the character of the child and what they prefer and

how patience they are too.

Next the children did a Family Mandala.

They get to think about what each family member like

and prefer. What colour that they

choose for their individual member in the family.

It's interesting to see how they

think and draw things that represent each family member.

Finally, We are making it big!

The children get to cooperate and create a big mandala

using recycle items. Each of the kids get to carefully place

the individual items carefully around in a circle.

I am quite amaze that they already know the concept of mandala;

before I explain, they already know what to do!

Lastly, they are proud of their creation!

It was fun and interesting for them to

play this big mandala game!

 

Thank you all for that participate, we all had fun!

Wording dice game for kids.

Here is something that I have created for my Screen-Free mission!

My 4 year old has started to do some reading and writing,

so I intended to do some revision with her.

This is what I come out with after spotting an

interesting Art dice game! (Which you may want to try too!)

Well nevertheless, this is what I did. 

First I got some black wooden square blocks and

painted them in some pastel colours.

I have 6 different colours for each side.

I asked my 4 year old to help, and she did only the pink!

I did the rest..... lol.

After that I use different colour sharpies to write on the cubes.

I have asked my child simple questions like:

1. How do you feel?

2. What animal do you like?

3. What body parts can you name?

4. What kind of action words you can think of?

5. Name the colour.

6. What kind of pattern you can think of?

7. Name different type of skin for the animals.

8. Describe the sizes.

Well, you can come out with many different descriptions too! 

I also did ask my girl to try to spell simple words.

Of course, she must able to understand all the words written too.

Now, we start playing by rolling

the dice and stacked it up accordingly.

I would help her on the arrangement

of words; which one come first and all.

She just love stacking it up, using

some of the motor skills here too!

After that, I would ask her to copy the sentence on

an exercise book; draw it and colour it!

Also I ask her to read each word accordingly.

She totally enjoyed this and wanted to play again!

So this is the second sentence that she come out with!

I use a lot of descriptions here, but you can try it differently.

Also I might add in some sight words for her to learn as well.

 

I hope this gives you some inspirations!

Thanks for stopping by.

If you try this differently don't mind sharing it here too!

Crazy with Staccatos

I am so busy this September, but nevertheless I am excited too

to share with you all what we did for our one and only Music CAP.

Everyone was so excited on that day and tired too, because we all had so much fun!

First we start off with making some simple instruments using recycle stuff.

We made 2 different shaker and a mini bongo drum!  

See how concentrate I am! I am making my own shaker.

Well, we use some rice and beans for the shaker,

kids will get to make it all by themselves! 

See what we have made.

2 shakers and a mini bongo drum!

Next we had a Saxophonist, Mr. Alwin to demonstrate and introduce the saxophone to us!

He was great in explaining the sax to the kids! 

The kids get to touch and feel it!

It was a great experience for them to see it up-close! 

Then Mr. Alwin manage to play a tune for us,

a simple Twinkle little star song, with Jazzy feel. 

Then now we have a Chinese instrument call Er-Hu.

It is a 2-string Chinese violin.

I have learnt this instrument long ago while

at high school and use to perform with it,

so this time round I just play

 a simple tune for the kids ~ Row, Row, Row your Boat!

This Er-Hu is made of snake skin and Horse tail!

The kids get to feel and touch it too.

Next we have a Ukulele, a 4-string guitar. It is own by Little Shaznia.

She and her daddy did a demo for us too!  

Last but not least we had Mr. Senji who demonstrate his guitar for us!

He also sing a song for us all to enjoy too, the kids enjoys the music all too well.

He plays different tunes and rhythm

so the kids can make use of the shaker

and bongo drum that they made just now! 

 This is when the kids play together with Mr. Senji.

They did go all crazy with shaking and all.

Me and my drum!

 

 See I know how to shake with my shaker/ Rattle.

 

After all those shaking and music. Now we are going to explore our own music!

Time for water play using different materials.

I prepare a few metal bowls, some pipes,

pots and pans and bottlesfor the kids to explore.   

Here you can see that they prefer to pour the water around

and get so wet! They move pouring water around rather than

explore on the sound. But it is ok too and pouring does make sounds! 

Did we all have fun? Of course and thanks a lot to our musicians!

Mr. Alwin and Mr. Senji Thank you. Both of you make our CAP

more fun and interesting!

The kids just love it.

 

Thanks again to all who had participated!

You all make our CAP fun and cheerful.

 

Pizza Time in August ~ (ORG)

In August, Our Reading Group decide to have a

Pizza Making session.

We are teaching the children how to read a recipe.

All the children are getting just a little too excited!

They could not wait for it to begin. 

Here we are giving out the recipe sheet and teach them how to read it.

Also here, introducing them the ingredients and smelling it too!

 

The kids start by spreading the tomato paste on top of the dough.

Here we have them spread the ham on top of the pizza.

Just love to see how they spread  the ingredients;

which they call it decorate their pizza.

Also one just have to try the ingredients too right?

See how I spread the cheese on top.

That's a lot of cheese though.

 

I love my pizza and see how I do it.

Lots of cheese eh, that's how I like it!

 

Ready for the oven.

We are going to get it baked!

 

Here's the outcome.

Would you like one too?

Try it yourself at home,

It's fun to make.

 

Thanks to all who participate,

I know you will love to do this again!

Summer Sponge Party!

Summer is here!

We had this summer sponge party,

so many spongy activities for the kids to do and have fun!

Do you like sponge too?

See what we do here at our creative playgroup!

Have a spongy day!

We started off with the long spongy art, all of the kids get to

sponge and chop all the different shapes of sponges around!

Over here we are not concentrating on colour but

more on shapes and techniques of

using sponge to make a print on the paper.

Time to sit down and cut!

We have the kids to cut out their own

Sponge Flower Bomb!

They sure loving it.

 It's time to make my sponge boat!

Here they are making their own

sponge sail boat that can float on the water tub!

Great for some bath fun at home.

 Look at my sponge sail boat!

 Last but not least, our final sponge fun!

Here, we have washing with sponge,

and playing with sponge!

*A special note: Almost all children love washing the dishes,

you all can repeat this at home to kill some time!

You just need:

A tub

A sponge

some bath soap

water

Plastic toy plates/ utensils

Apron

 

You know they will love it!

Repeat as often as you can. 

Look at how they play with their own creation, fun right!

they sure know how to play with sponge now.

Once again, we all had spongy fun,

the 2 little ones, you know who you are;

had a really good time sponging and splashing around!

 

Thanks all for participating, see you all again!