Learning fun! Archives - Page 9 of 11

Fff-fwah! We’re learning some f-words!

May 20, 2013

This month is the month of F-words. We’re exploring things that begin with the letter F!

Homelearning: Tracing F and making Faces

We did our usual tracers from our Hands On Homeschooling curriculum, and traced the uppercase and lowercase F with our fingers and pencil. I used the pictures for words beginning with the letter F from Homeschool Creations.

We made faces and learned what’s on our face – the eyebrows, eyes, nose and mouth. The printables for our cutting and pasting were from one of the pages from the Gymnademics Big Day Out activity booklet. We mixed and matched and glued the different parts of the face to make four really ugly looking faces. Ben and Becks conveniently used these faces as targets for their ball throws. Hur hur hur.

F for Fruits and Food

To learn the names of fruits we love to eat, we matched the names of fruits in a flashcard game. I laid out the pictures and had Ben match the words to each type of fruit. He guessed the words by the beginning sounds of each word mostly. For Becks, she read out what Ben matched after he completed his task. For Nat, we did a gallery walk of sorts and I read each card to him while walking down the row, something we also do at Gymnademics.

I repeated this game for the types of food using flashcards (I bought the Beginner Series flashcards from Wink to Learn). The kids enjoyed the game thoroughly. We also did a food matching exercise with this activity sheet.

The F words in Science

For our science lessons, we explored fruits with one seed and fruits with many seeds; why food is important for our body; the parts of a fish and the different types of fish that we can eat. I got the materials from Hooray Science for Preschoolers published by Pelangi Books from the bookstore for $3.15 per book (there are four in the series). I colour-copied and laminated them to use as big flashcards.

We also learned the parts of a flower from this activity sheet in our Hands On Homeschooling curriculum. I learned something new, for one – that a flower that’s not yet in bloom is called a blossom. Looks like I’m also home teaching myself!

I Feel…

This month, we also learned a big f-word. FEELINGS. Feelings are so important to introduce to children. It’s crucial that they understand how they feel and describe it. I made these feelings flashcards from Kids’ Pages for Small Ages and taught Ben and Becks important feeling words like angry, hungry, tired, worried, sad and happy. Becks was also in drama mood that day we had this lesson, so she provided us with some good entertainment with her acting.

Outdoor learning: F is for freshness everywhere!

For outdoor learning, we headed down to the Farmer’s Market at PasarBella to check out fresh produce and good food.

We even saw a freak there! The kids were very disturbed by the chalked man. They couldn’t stop asking why he wasn’t moving. Guess they were freaked out by the freak!

We also went to The Cajun Kings for the freshest dungeness crab, Manila clams and red prawns we’ve ever tasted. The deliciousness of fresh seafood boil eaten with bare hands and fingers, cavemen style. Ooh la la, finger licking good! Very gratifying!

A very ffff-fulfilling month indeed, learning all about the letter F. Farewell, letter F! We’re moving on to the letter M next month. Why are we skipping letters? More on it the next time!

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Going Out! Learning fun!

5 places to check out this June holidays

May 18, 2013

The kids have settled well in kindy and absolutely look forward to the routine on week days where they bus to school, go to school, then come home for more homelearning with me. The June break is approaching in two weeks. I don’t know how to break the news to them that we won’t be going to school for one whole month.

I know for sure they would miss going to kindy and being with their friends. I need to have a good range of activities to cover both indoor and outdoor learning, just so I can maintain my sanity and at the same time have them engaged in learning and expending their energy.

Staying home every day is out of the question and we would need to head outdoors, that’s for sure; and it would be best if going out wouldn’t cost a single cent!

I’ve compiled a list of places to go this June. Here are some places we would be checking out. Feel free to use my list (except for #5, I guess).

1. Learning and exploring with Playmobil: Time for a PLAYful holiday at Sentosa, 1-30 June from 11am to 7pm daily at the Imbiah Lookout

We’ll definitely be checking out Storytelling Comes Alive! which we missed last year. This is going to happen every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in June at 11.30am, 3pm and 5pm.
There’s also a special Playmobil theme Puppet Musical, which will be staged live every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at 11.30am and 5.30pm.

2. There’s gonna be a one-for-one admission offer at the Jurong Bird Park this school holidays. We thought since Nat is now saying the word “bird”, Becks adores penguins and Ben has been bugging us to bring him to the Bird Park, we’d make use of this offer.

Flash this coupon to get the buy-one-get-one-free deal from 24 May to 30 June.

3. It’s Children’s Season again at the museums, and now that the kids are a little older to start appreciating history and some social studies, we are going to be making good use of free admissions to all the 8 museums starting 18 May, all year round. First stop: the Army Museum of Singapore, since my Ah Boy Ben loves soldiers and weapons.

Children’s Season 2013 @ Army Museum of Singapore starts from 18 May to 30 June (10am – 6pm, Tuesdays to Sundays). It costs $3 per child (6 – 12 years old) and $5 per adult to enter. Activities are free of charge, but my main gripe is that the museum is located in good ol’ Planet Jurong.

4) Another place we would try to make time for this June is the National Museum. Storytelling will be happening at the Concourse and Craft Zone every Monday and Wednesday (10am and 11.30am) and every Saturday and Sunday (10.30am and 1.30pm). What better way to intrigue the little ones with exciting and dramatic tales of Singapore’s past!

5) And we’d better be redeeming our complimentary hotel stay at MBS before it expires. I am probably the last and only person in Singapore who’s not yet been IN the infinity pool. We got this complimentary stay for buying a Philips Saeco expresso machine last year when our trusty old Saeco gave up on us. It was probably overworked making too many cups of coffee over the last few years since we had kids! We’ve been NOT wanting to do any more staycations since the last one completely exhausted us more than it refreshed us, but I guess this is one thing we have to do next month. The best part is, it’s free (infinity pool, here I come!); but I’m not sure how happy I am at the thought of being stuck in a hotel room with three children at night.

There you have it. 5 places to go this June for the Kao kids. Have you had yours planned?

Linking up with:

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Homelearning fun Learning fun!

Befriending the letters D and E

April 30, 2013

We had more learning fun this April with the letters D and E.

Homelearning

We did the usual tracers from our homeschool package and printables from Kids Learning Station. Ben also started a letter book this month. It’s like a scrapbook with pictures from magazines that is categorised alphabetically. I had him recap the things beginning with the letters A, B, C, and also got him to look for pictures of things beginning with the letter D. He managed to find some dinosaurs, deer, dog and dolphins from a few of my old Nat Geo magazines.

For the notice board, I printed the pictures of things beginning with the letter D and E from this wonderful website called Homeschool Creations, which has an immensely rich resource bank of printables and activity sheets. I also introduced the sight words “eat” and “egg” from my Level A Sight Words Pocket Flashcards to them because that’s what they love to eat for breakfast!

What was hilarious was when I was going through things beginning with the letter E, Ben pointed to the picture of the envelope, asked me what that was and corrected me, saying, “Mama, this is not envelope lah, it’s EMAIL!” This is the world our children are growing up in. They don’t see envelopes much these days, but they certainly do see their mums and dads clicking on the envelope icon a lot, checking their emails!

Outdoor learning

We were invited to Breeze Singapore’s Today I Am roadshow earlier this month, and the kids got acquainted with the letter D again. They got a chance to play Dress Up. My favourite is the doctor and chef combo, hurhurhur. Please choose either of these professions when you grow up, guys!

They then went on to make some play-Dough.

And also got Dirty playing with paint pingpong and eating chocolate fondue.

D is for Dental health, at HealthZone

I read about HealthZone from one of my favourite blogreads, The Gingerbread Mum, and carted the kids there one rainy weekday. The kids got to skip kindy that day and learned about the importance of dental hygiene, eating right and maintaining a healthy lifestyle at this exhibition located inside Health Promotion Board at Singapore General Hospital. It costs $3 for an adult and $1.50 for kids aged 3 to 18, and is open Mondays (1 – 5 pm), Tuesdays to Saturdays (9 am – 5 pm).

The section on dental health has this giant mouth with a cushy tongue and a full set of adult teeth, with two black, decaying molars, and two missing front teeth. It was an awesome sight for the kids to behold. They were initially quite frightened, but soon warmed up to the set of teeth, and started touching the gums and sitting on the tongue.

The message was preached loud and clear by the videos they were showing at this section: brush your teeth twice a day with a good toothbrush and toothpaste, floss regularly, see the dentist twice a year.

The kids particularly enjoyed the activity station where they could press giant buttons with food inside them to find out if the food is good for their teeth. The good tooth and bad tooth would then light up correspondingly.

That day, I dramatised how eating sweets and chocolates, and drinking sodas would give them “teeth so black nobody wants to look at you”. I am secretly very pleased at myself for brainwashing them. Hurhurhur.

Dental Printables

To reinforce what we learned, I downloaded some activity sheets found in KidsSoup which has plenty of dental health activities, crafts, and other resources for children to learn how to keep their teeth healthy (thanks again, Gingerbread Mum!).

We helped EarTwiggle get to his toothbrush by identifying the food that’s good (and not good) for our teeth.

We also learned to brush a tooth! Using this printable of a tooth, I coloured two sheets with random spots representing food bits and plaque.

I then gave the kids some white poster colour, told them to brush away all the dirty bits using this “toothpaste” and had them painting away.

With this learning trip to HealthZone and the follow-up activities, whenever Ben and Becks hem and haw when it’s time to brush their teeth, I’d start reminding them of the gross black tooth and the tooth with food bits which they painted. It’s been working so far!

E is for Eating right and doing lots of Exercise, at HealthZone

Another section in HealthZone is called Exciting Eatery, which featured exhibits to educate us about healthy eating – the types of food to choose when we cook, eat out, and the types of food to avoid.

The kids got a chance to learn the different food groups and what they do for our bodies. Bread, rice and noodles give us energy. Pork, beef, chicken and fish make us strong and help us build muscles. And the veggies and fruits – Becks will tell you “You must eat them cos they make your poo poo soft!” Well said, my girl!

The kids also got to exercise at the fitness corner where there was a small indoor play structure, a rock climbing wall, exercise machines, balls and an interactive running game by Milo. I was really glad to have only paid $7.50 (for 2 adults and Ben; Becks and Nat went in free) for a few hours of learning fun and a good workout for the kids.

Anything for them to expend their energy!

The only thing I have yet to do with them to wrap up the letter E is to bring them for an elephant ride at the zoo. I hope to bring them sooner, cos we are moving on to other exciting letters next month!

Here’s a tip to teach kids to differentiate between lowercase letter b and d:

This month, I learned this tip from watching Word World with the kids. You can sing this song (to the tune of Happy Birthday, or any tune that fits) to drill it in, so the kids can sing it to themselves when they have trouble distinguishing! Here goes:

“Line and circle is the letter b

Circle and line is the letter d

Line and circle is the letter b

Circle and line is the letter d”

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Homelearning fun Product Reviews

Castle painting fun with CraftPlay [+Giveaway]

April 26, 2013

The kids don’t do much art and craft, thanks to their not-so-artsy mother that is me. I know they love to, and want to paint, draw, craft, and make a mess without needing to hear much nagging and screaming from their mother who has some obsessive compulsion to keep everything clean.

So I introduced them to their Art Buddy, whom the affectionately call QX jie jie. She comes occasionally to do art with them, while I hide in a corner and bite my tongue, and refrain from taking out the broom and mop to clean up the mess they are making while they are at it.

Last week, the kids had a CraftPlay date with QX jie jie . The folks at CraftPlay kindly sent over their Out of the Box Castle so the kids can have some painting and decorating fun. It was supposed to be a project with their new BFFs from kindergarten, but the other kids haven’t been feeling too well, so we thought we’d just go ahead on our own.

CraftPlay Out of the Box Castle Instructions

Instructions for Out of the Box Castle

The package came together with packets of paintbrushes and roller sponges, and the kids couldn’t wait to start working on the castle made of recycled box materials. I decided that they should each take individual pieces of the castle tower, walls and gates to paint, instead of assembling the castle first, and paint away they did, with the help of QX jie jie.

Let’s start painting!

And of course, at four and two half (and the baby at 14 months), you wouldn’t expect these kids to stay focused painting nor expect that they decorate the castle with funky designs and patterns. They were up clowning about after five minutes of serious painting, and started rolling paint on each other’s legs, toes and hair. That is the fun of art and craft to them.

Painting legs and toes is fun too!

When the paint dried up, I tried to assemble the castle but to my dismay, it was not as easy as I thought. We probably used the wrong type of paint and some parts of the cardboard were too wet when the paint went on initially, that the corners were torn even when the paint dried.

The paint was initially too watery!

Painting completed!

I spent a good hour trying to put the pieces together but the “tongues” that I inserted into the different slots kept coming out. I got desperate after getting nowhere near to assembling it after half an hour, I started taping the folded parts so they don’t come off. The kids only hung around to watch for a grand total of 7 minutes, and then got very impatient and kept singing me the same refrain,“Why the castle still not ok, huh?

So after one trying hour of putting it together, I gave up and told them, “Nah, this is the castle. It’s supposed to look pretty and all, but well, Mama just can’t assemble it without getting frustrated.” Now you know why art and craft is my least favourite subject in school. I’m totally NOT good at this at all!

Assembled with the help of tape!

This is how it should look! Image from CraftPlay.

Still, the kids were happy and started to find uses for this piece of artwork they’ve created – they started throwing their baby brother’s balls into the castle towers like those Uncle Ringo games they play at pasar malam. And then they went on to spend an evening with the cardboard castle, perfecting their aiming and laughing away.

Ready, aim, throw!

Thank you, CraftPlay, for those few hours of fun. Though it wasn’t too much fun for me putting everything together (ok, it’s me and my fat fingers!), my kids had a good time painting and playing!

Here’s a giveaway, so you can have some painting fun too!

I’m sure you can do a better job than me assembling the castle – how idiot-proof is that, right? – so here’s a chance to win an Out of the Castle (more castle types here) worth $17 for some hours of crafting and painting fun. Simply LIKE CraftPlay’s Facebook Page and leave me a comment with your name and email address. It’s that simple! Giveaway ends 1 May 2013.

UPDATE: Congrats, Chuyan! You won the Out of the Box Castle! Happy painting and crafting! A big thank you to all who took part!

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Learning fun!

Lights, sound & action on Gymnademics’ Big Day Out [Giveaway]

April 23, 2013

Fancy a day out with your kids to explore the world of theatre?

Gymnademics will be having their annual Big Day Out this year on the 5th May 2013 (Sunday), and this year’s event will feature a play and some experiential learning fun on theatre grounds.

Titled Lights! Sound! Action! An Adaptation of a Classic Fairytale, the 20-minute play will be staged at The Substation and is set to be an interactive one with lots of music and movement, and of course, one with a classic fairytale twist. After the show, parents will be given an activity booklet to help them explore the various learning stations within the theatre with their little ones.

The play and the various stations have been specially designed for children from 1 to 5 years old. This event also helps children revisit March’s Arts and Culture theme, where they learned about famous artists, composers and dance forms during their Gymnademics lessons.

The last I heard, the 10am show is fully sold, and tickets are selling fast for the other four timeslots at 11.30am, 2pm, 3.30pm and 5pm. You can purchase your tickets online or head down to Gymnademics at SAFRA Toa Payoh to get your tickets personally. Tickets are priced at $15 per child and $18 for one adult.

And just so you can come and join in the fun, we’re doing a GIVEAWAY here!

Gymnademics is giving away a set of family tickets of 2 adults and 1 child (worth $51) for their Big Day Out happening on 5 May 2013 to ONE reader of this blog. The winner can choose either the 2pm or 5pm show.

Here’s what you can do to take part:

1. Like Motherkao’s Facebook Page (thank you, if you’ve already done so)

2. Like Gymnademics Facebook Page

3. Leave me a comment here (with your email address) to share a fairytale twist you’ve ever read / heard (or a fairytale you’d like to see a twist in!)

Looking forward to read your responses! Giveaway ends 30 April. We’ll randomly pick a winner from the responses!

P/S: My favourite fairytale twist is the one I’ve been reading to my kids lately – the one with the Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig.

Disclosure: Nat and I are attending Gymnademics classes which I’ve shared in an earlier post. We received complimentary tickets to the Big Day Out, so see you there!

UPDATE: Thank you for sharing your twisted fairy tale versions with me! Our random.org random number generator picked Connie as the winner for the tickets! Congrats! And thanks to all who took part!

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Learning fun! Reviews

So much fun at Gymnademics!

April 16, 2013

Ever since I stayed home with my three kids, the youngest has been getting the shorter end of the stick. There’s a whole lot of homelearning fun but the activities I planned hardly included him. Well, I did try to get Nat to do some art until he decided it was better to lick the brush than paint. I read flashcards to him every alternate days and an occasional storybook, but that’s really about it. He has about half an hour of playground fun with Ben and Becks daily, and then stays home for most parts of the day with the helper while they are at kindy; not that fun if you compared it with the things he used to do at infantcare – crafting, singing nursery rhymes, playing masak masak, cutting cheese, squeezing cold toothpaste and chasing bubbles, balls and balloons – with ten other babies his age.

So when Baby Nat was invited by Gymnademics to attend their Pre-Fellow weekly lessons for a term, I couldn’t be happier. Finally, he was going to get some engagement, stimulation and much needed physical exercise beyond the confines of our home and the playground downstairs.

Gymnademics is the first and only intellectual enrichment and gym centre in Singapore that is affiliated with the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential (IAHP) in Philadelphia, USA. IAHP is founded by the guru of flashcards, Glenn Doman, and is a non-profit organization that does research on how to develop and enhance a child’s brain growth through a combination of physical education and intellectual stimulation.

At Gymnademics, classes are built upon the concept of purposeful play, because play is a child’s natural way of exploring the world. This sets a strong foundation for a lifetime of discovering and learning for children.

If you’re telling me that Nat would get to learn, play and exercise all at the same time, I’m saying yay all the way.

The Pre-Fellow class Nat is attending now (suitable for 1-2 years old and parent-accompanied) encompasses three core components – intellectual, physical and social. Each lesson lasts 1 hour 15 minutes. The first 15 minutes is free play, getting used to the environment and warming up to teachers and friends, and the subsequent hour is packed with 10 activities, lasting 10 – 15 minutes each.

Running freely at the Gymnademics Studio

Exploring gears with friends

Some of the things Nat does in class include:

Reading aloud (ok, not yet, so I read aloud after Teacher Selene instead) word cards, encyclopedic cards and picture cards

These help to stimulate his visual and auditory pathways. There are also stories and music to make learning fun for both parent and child.

Learning about the different types of dance

Getting acquainted with Claude Monet

Getting acquainted with Pablo Picasso

Gym activities that focus on balance and mobility, and at the same time develop his manual and tactile competencies

Nat’s favourite so far is the gym circuit. He has a skip in his step when it’s time to go on the obstacle course.

Learning to balance on a beam

Swinging on a trapeze

Fruit relay: learning to run in a straight line and putting fruit and veggies from one basket to another

Activities that teach social behaviour and encourage the development of his fine motor skills

With Teacher Selene’s help, Nat learned to tie a knot to string a bell. On another occasion, Nat learned to use his thumb to peel off tape so he could stick some shapes to make a paper plate pizza.

Tying a knot for the bell

What I especially appreciate about the programme is that Gymnademics provide a Parent-Child Bonding Package after each lesson. The package includes materials used in class, as well as extra activities that parents and the whole family can engage in to reinforce what the child has learned that week. This means that I can do things with Nat without having to specially plan for it, and he gets some homelearning fun together with me as well.

It’s been two lessons so far (one trial lesson, plus his first lesson last week) and Nat has shown me that he has enjoyed every lesson thoroughly. The range of activities they do in class with children his age within that one hour is indeed impressive and tremendously engaging. At home, I sing him the songs he sings in class and he starts jiving and grooving. I show him flashcards and he readily sits himself in front of me to babble and point. I am sure he looks forward to his Gymnademics lesson every week. Do follow me on Instagram and Facebook if you’d like to find out what this little fella is learning and how he is progressing.

If you’d like more information on the programmes in Gymnademics, you could connect with them on their Facebook page or check out their website here.

More details:

Gymnademics Early Enrichment Centre is located at SAFRA Toa Payoh 293 Lorong 6 Toa Payoh #02-01 Singapore 319387

Tel: 6259 0307 | 8518 7910 | 9651 9331
Email: info@gymnademics.com

Disclosure: Nat and I were invited to attend the Pre-Fellow Class at Gymnademics for review purposes. All opinions here are Motherkao’s own.

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Homelearning fun

Now I know my A B Cs

March 22, 2013

The kids have been homelearning for a while now, and I have revisited the basics with them through tracing, drawing, singing, counting and colouring.

We learned the letter A through counting and eating lots of apples. I bought this learning and counting tool from The Mind Store called Attribute Apples, and taught the kids to sort the apples and their different attributes (by colour, by worms, by stalk, by size). The kids also traced the letter A with the materials from Hands on Homeschooling and printables from Kids Learning Station and went stalking ants downstairs with their magnifying glass, looking at aeroplanes at the airport and watching Chip and Dale pick acorns in a classic Disney cartoon.

The Traceable Letter A Worksheet that I used from Kids Learning Station can be downloaded here.

We learned the letter B through playing with balls and in boxes. The printable worksheet for the Letter B can be downloaded here.

We just finished learning all about the letter C. I told them about the story of the Cross, and why Jesus was crucified to it. Ben learned how to spell some simple words like ‘car’ and ‘cake’, and we traced some candles and coloured them. We also coloured corals and made them as colourful as we could, in preparation for a mini aquarium project to come.

The printables for the corals can be found here. Here is another useful worksheet with illustrations for the Letter C.

It has been fun learning our A B Cs! Now to move on to the other letters.

4 Comments

Reading fun

Good reads #3: Grace Based Parenting

March 19, 2013

If you’re overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of parenting books out there, and don’t know where to start choosing one to read and learn from, I urge you to read only Dr Tim Kimmel’s Grace Based Parenting. Of all the books I’ve read and devoured, this is the book that matters, the book that I read and reread, the book I flip frequently, randomly for insight, the parenting book I seek advice from, and the devotional I use to study together with the Bible. I believe this is one author and literature that’s inspired by the Lord Himself – because we worship a God of grace, we can be grace-based parents.

The book deals with the heart of grace-based parenting, and provides help in which we can develop a grace-based style of parenting on a day-to-day basis. Grace-based parenting processess all actions towards the child through the filter of meeting his three driving inner needs. A child’s three driving inner needs are:

1. A need for security

2. A need for significance

3. A need for strength

Our role as parents is to provide our children with a love that is secure, a purpose that is significant and a hope that is strong through our everyday interaction with them, and understand – above all else – that this is how God raises His children. One thing the author said struck me and resonated deep within; he mentioned that our children’s needs will NOT be met as a result of reading his book but “meeting these needs will be the result of your putting what you learned into practice in your life first”. In other words, we need to know that we are loved by God, we have a purpose and we have hope, and that we are secure, significant and strong in Him – knowing this and living this will enable us to meet our own children’s inner needs.

Here are some key takeaways from the book:

1) All children are born with a need to love and be loved, a need to live lives that have a meaning, and a need to believe that tomorrow is worth getting up for: God designed the home, a grace-based home, for our children to find that fulfillment in Him who created these needs.

2) You can’t have grace when you have rules and little relationship: rules without relationship is the ideal formula for raising rebellious kids. On the other hand, relationships without rules will result in resentful kids too.

3) Grace-based parents enjoy the child just the way he is. They create homes of honour. Homes of honour see the other person’s time, gifts, uniqueness and dreams as gifts to be cherished and stewarded. They are generous with affection, and as parents, understand that God loves them more than they can ever know.

4) Grace-based parents worship the God of purpose and help build significant purpose into their child. They regularly affirm them, give them their attention and admonish them gracefully with guidelines and consequences. Grace-based parents train their children and groom them for greatness (Hebrews 12:7, 9, 11) and grow the “peaceful fruit of righteouness” by planting the seed with consistent and graceful discipline.

5) If our children want to have any hope as adults, they’ve got to harness their potential, discipline their desires, regiment their strengths and face their weakness with courage. And they’ve got to follow our lead.

6) Grace-based parenting works from the inside out; fear-based parenting works from the outside in.

7) Grace-based families are homes where children are given the freedom to be different, the freedom to be vulnerable, the freedom to be candid, and the freedom to make mistakes.

God knows we need security in our hearts, significance in our lives and strength for the future, and this is how he parents us. This is how we can respond to our children, as the recipients of His undeserving mercy and love towards us in our every day. Reading this book opened my eyes, and reminded me of God’s unconditional and personal love for me. I encourage you to get it and read it, and make grace-based parenting your lifestyle and your way of raising kids.

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Learning fun! Nat Kao The Kao Kids

The day the baby ate paint

March 18, 2013

We were all ready to some painting. I moved the table out of the house (to minimise my cleaning up, hur hur hur) and prepared the Crayola finger paint, some brushes and drawing paper. I told my little Picassos to let their imagination wild and fill the paper with whatever they liked. I gave them little styrofoam bits that came with the laser printer we bought a while ago, and the kids were very excited.

I got things ready for Nat as well, who was anticipating eagerly on the high chair. He’s not new to painting; he’s done it a couple of times at infantcare and his teachers said he was a focused learner who enjoyed the activity a lot. They say he’s never put anything in his mouth while painting. So they say.

Was he interested? Certainly. For a grand total of five seconds. He then spent the next few minutes licking the paintbrush, smearing paint on his tongue and teeth, and frightening me silly eating red ink and making slurping sounds.

The next time Nat paints, he is painting with food colours.

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Learning fun! Product Reviews The Kao Kids

Learning through craft with the Toddibox – Product review & giveaway

March 12, 2013

I’m a little late with this review. We received the February Toddibox last month and only got to open it just this week. The kids (and adults) have been taking turns falling ill and I have absolutely zero energy left ever since my SAHM gig started. Finally it seems, that we are more settled this week .

The big box came with individually packed activities, similar to the Lollibox I reviewed in December. Objectives and instructions were clearly printed out and slotted in ziplock bags, similar to the Lollibox. The difference between the Toddibox and the Lollibox is that the former is pretty generous with their activity packs. It also comes with a story book related to the Valentine’s Day theme to promote parent-child bonding through reading.

I was overwhelmed when I opened it because this meant I had to look through every single pack, read what’s in store and decide if it’s age appropriate for Ben and Becks. It was a good thing I opened it before they did, so they wouldn’t go crazy opening ziplock after ziplock and go, “Shall we do this, Mama? And this? And this?”

I personally found the instructions in the Toddibox a little more vague than the instructions in the Lollibox. The ones in the Lollibox were much more detailed and had clear step-by-step instructions complete with illustrations.

Activities in the Toddibox came in four categories – Ten Fingers, Tempo and Beat, Thinking Tots and Test Tube. I naturally gravitated towards the Ten Fingers packs to see how I can occupy my tots with craft activities, being not very crafty myself.

I selected the ‘Family Link’ activity for Ben and Becks. I began the activity as suggested by telling the children about the family members in the house, and that we are all linked together by our love for one another. I got them to cut out the paper people and hearts provided in the pack, had them personalise each member in the household. They also stuck eyes onto the people and coloured them when the glue dried up.

There was a fair bit of cutting and I ended up having to cut the paper people for the project because it was difficult for Ben and Becks to cut out its shape with precision. There was also no glue provided so I had to go get white glue from my own stash for the buttons. I also wished there were more than 5 paper people to cut out, because we have a helper and we’ve told the children she’s family too.

The final product now hangs proudly on my front door.

On another occasion, the kids got to try ‘Walking in my shoes’. The activity requires the kids to trace the shape of each family member’s foot and make shoe lace holes with the soles that we’ve cut out. This may even be an opportunity to teach older kids how to tie shoe laces or sequencing by getting them to arrange the different soles in ascending order. But because dad wasn’t home for them to trace his foot and the baby was taking his morning nap, I decided to modify the activity a little to tie in with what I’m covering this week for our homelearning. So I got them to trace each other’s left and right foot, had them cut them out and label their soles ‘R’ and ‘L’. We’re making an ‘All about me’ scrapbook in line with this week’s bible verse from Psalm 139:14 (I am fearfully and wonderfully made), so this gets to go into their scrapbook! I also got them to ink their fingerprints and study the lines to see how special their prints were (which lasted five seconds).

There are so many activities to try and we’ve only done two this week. I’ll be working with the kids on our family tree soon, as well as getting them to do some CSI work studying family members’ fingerprints. The box is certainly value for money, and I am sure one box, with its 8 activities, would keep the kids busy the whole month.

I thought I’d put a review of these two activities up first because I have a giveaway for you – next month’s Toddibox!

If you would like to win next month’s Toddibox (theme on Music), simply leave a comment to say who you like to win this for and why. The giveaway ends 18 March 2013.

More details:

Toddibox is designed and created by a team of trained educators. The Toddibox’s multi-disciplinary activities are designed to help a child (from ages 3 to 6) relate to the real world and develop his confidence.
A Toddibox is priced at SGD$39.95; or SGD$239 for six months subscription (including a stationery pack); or SGD$440 for 12 months subscription (including a stationery pack and a free month).

UPDATE: We picked a winner randomly! Congrats Ganesan Arsheitha, Toddibox will be in touch with you shortly!

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