Messy Fun - Feet Painting

Another day of Messy Fun... today, I decided to let the kids play with paint again... albeit, not painting with brushes and hands (or so I'd hoped) hehehe...

Was going through the "Siblings' Busy Book" and discovered this idea...thought it'd be fun to give it a try...
My two very enthusiastic and "helpful" helpers... this time the paper wasn't pasted on the wall but on the floor... they were waiting in great anticipation as to what mommy was up to...*LOL*
I poured out some paint onto two separate trays and let the kids step onto them... they were not quite used to feet painting... hence hesitated a bit when I introduced this activity to them...
After a while, they got used to the idea and started walking up and down the paper leaving their foot prints *wink*
The urge to paint with hands and play with water was stronger and the feet painting was totally abandoned... they just went on playing with the small bucket of water and messing up the place with paint again... only this time, the mess was not so well controlled as the last time... they left foot prints all over the entrance of our apartment *fainted*
They then explored all the paint pots of paints, digging, pouring, smearing... and there was paint EVERYWHERE literally...
There were other opportunities of learning & discovery too for Little Missy... *smile*
When the game ended the kids had paint all over them from head to toe and even their clothes!!! Not sure if I'd try this activity again, ever... then again, the mess created in this wasn't as bad as the flour activity *LOL*

Books! Book! Books!

**Warning - Long Post**
Can't ever have enough of books, that's for sure! :) I cannot imagine myself not reading for more than a day... I guess, books have become so much a part of me that I might feel stupid not reading... :P

Came across some books I thought were worth sharing... some were recommended reads by friends and others I discovered along the way...

*side track* I didn't know, till recently, that our National Library is now so well equipped that by paying a small fee, we can order the books we wanted online without having to plough through the shelves. Best of all, you could determine at which library branch to pick up the book - cool huh? Here's the link if you would like to place an order of a particular book that you want. And here's the link that you could go to, to extend the loan period.
Parenting with Love and Logic - by Foster W. Cline & Jim Fay
This was a recommended read by Angie and I can't stop reading this book I must say... the authors shared about how to raise responsible kids, by allowing them to experience the natural consequences of their choice (within safe boundaries of course). Eg. Tim had so much fun playing that he decided to hold his pee until he can't hold it any longer and wet his pants. I made him walk around in the wet pants for the rest of the morning till his bath time. He'll have to live with donning wet pants as he's chosen to hold his pee and not go to the toilet.

I enjoyed reading this book very much as it has a lot of practical and interesting ideas on how to deal with children of different ages. And if I could master how to apply the points shared in this book I think I'd be a lot less uptight with both my kids.

Some take home points I've noted from this book -
~ Wise parents think, "don't get too uptight if our children don't always listen to us, but tremble in fear that they see what we do"
~ We must set firm, loving limits using enforceable statements without showing anger, lecturing, or using threats.
~ Everything we fix for our kids, our kids will be unable to fix for themselves. If there's more than a 20% chance our child might be able to work the problem out themselves, we should keep clear of owning the problem and not rob our child of the opportunity to learn and grow from the experience.
~ When to step in - we step in when our children are in definite danger of losing life or limb or of making a decision that could affect them for a lifetime.
Raising Motivated Kids - by Cheri Fuller
I discovered this book while searching for another book by the same author in our library. This is definitely a great read!!! The text written is such an easy read, anybody could have read it within a day. The points shared were so inspiring and the fix to the problems were right to the point. You've got to read it to discover the details on your own... here are some take home points -
The building blocks of Motivation
a) Relationship - motivated children tend to be those who have close, loving relationships with their parents.
b) A good example - the parents role modelling is a powerful motivator because the number one way kids learn is by imitation.
c) Expectations - kids who succeed and overcome obstacles in school & life usually have one experience in common: they have at least one person in their life who had high expectation for them and provided support and structure for their dreams.
d) A Healthy Perspective about grades.
And remember the Toddlers' Busy Book I shared previously? Today, I found another wonderful Busy Book by the same publisher.
The Siblings' Busy Book - by Lisa Hanson & Heather Kempskie
This book is packed with 200 fun activities for kids of different ages. The activities could easily be implemented to suit a group of kids that's of different age group all at once. Ideal for me as I've 2 kids of different age to deal with. Here are the pointers I've noted -
~ Kids need a lot of experience having good times together so that when conflicts and fights come...they both have the memory of a positive relationship they want to get back to
~ Many of the activities we enjoyed with our older children could be modified so our younger ones could share the fun. We found great new ways to spend time with all our kids at the same time, using the same simple materials.
~ Fun and positive ways your children can work together as a family and make their world a better place.
~ The ideas are developmentally appropriate for four separate age groups.
Wonderplay, Too! - by Fretta Reitzes & Beth Teitelman
This is a parent's guide to active child's play; providing fun-filled activities targeted to children in age 3-6. Gathered in this book are over 200 activities - from games, crafts and cooking projects to music, dancing and more! Parents and caregivers can find hundreds of ways to educate and delight their children. It's great fun that will bring the family together.

Now we have no lack of ideas to keep those energizer bunnies occupied with interesting activities... *smile*

Ladybird Tales
We've been reading a lot of children's classic stories that are Caldecott Medal Books/Caldecott Honor Books/ALA Notable Children's books award winners... while these books are great resource but a lot of them also come with a hefty price tag.

I recently stumble upon the Ladybird Tales when I was at the Popular Bookstore and it just brought back a lot of nostalgia as I go through them. The illustrations has brought back a lot of fond memories that is still so vivid in my mind.

I've totally forgotten the existence of these books until I chanced upon them... and after having flip through them, I thought the content wasn't that bad compared to those award winning children's books. Decided to buy them and they were at a very reasonable price of S$4.82 per book... cool huh? :) Now, if you ever want to stock up cheap and good books for your kids, try the Ladybird Tales, they are worth it!

Sew Chic

A new giveaway contest is now on!!! Hop over to Lilhandmades to guess which one of these Mini Chic Clutch I'm giving away... *smile*

Come join the fun!!! *wink*

Messy Fun

*Warning - not for the faint hearted*
Take a deep breath now... what I'm going to share isn't going to be a pretty sight... so view them at your own discretion...teehehe...

It came once upon a time, I shared with Mommy Evelyn, that using flour allows kids to feel how it is to write - one of Montessori's idea...

I went a step further by allowing the kids to have a messy fun time by adding water into the tub of flour...you can imagine the mess... *wink*

Here's a picture story for your reference...
The kids were given some flour in a tub to have fun with...
They started innocently meddling with the flour, feeling and touching the flour like they would playing with talcum powder... the exciting part came when I started pouring water into the tub of flour... and they just took it from there...
The consistency was a little runny as I've added too much water... so I taught the kids to add more flour in order to roll the flour into a dough...
It didn't matter whether the batter was runny or dry... they had their fun anyways...and Tim was re-enacting the scene from "We're Going On A Bear Hunt"... he was going "squelch, squirch, squelch, squirch..." that was quite funny...
Little Missy had a whale of a good time with this messy fun game...
Then, Tim discovered quite by accident that it was more fun to step on the lumpy flour... he then started pouring more of the lumpy batter onto the flour so that he could slide his way along the floor...
The kids naturally didn't have enough of this game, they emptied the entire packet of flour and continued their fun for quite a long while till the lumpy batter was almost drying up on the floor...

The aftermath? I didn't even dare to take a picture of it... *LOL*... poor mommy (yours truly) had to scrub the lumps of flour off the floor bit by bit... and my poor helper had to scrub all the flour off my two kids' hair, body, hands, legs... but it was all well worth it!

A Moment of Sanity

Tim has been out of school for 8 days... as he's developed a series of flu and cough problems... he had a case of runny nose two Fridays ago and it eventually led to whooping cough... he has since visited 2 doctors and given so much medication that I have lost track...

Anyways, he's much better today and have since went back to school (after the teacher called twice to ask what's the matter with his absence)...

In those 8 days of being home-bound, I've to think up of more activities to keep the two kids occupied and to buy myself some sanity... so a couple of days ago, I dragged out their paints and palette and mahjong paper... made them do painting at our corridor... I've exchanged this activity for an hour long of sanity...

I sat by my main door and watch them paint...it was sheer bliss...and I'll let the pictures do the story-telling...
They each were given their own sets of paint brush, paint pots, paint palette and small containers of water...(no fights you think? - I wish...).
It eventually developed into finger painting...
and hand painting...
to water-play...
and messing up the entire paint area...
I guess for the kids it was more fun to play with water than to play with paint... it was a great one-hour of fun while I sat back to have a moment of sanity/peace... Both of them had all their fingers pruny and cold at the end of the session...

*side track*
Tim asked me why did his fingers turned pruny... and I was so glad that I borrowed this book from the library, "Why - The best ever question and answer book about nature, science and the world around you" by Catherin Ripley. I explained to him using the book, not sure how much of it did he absorbed but I'm glad I've learned something myself in the event of explaining to him... *smile*...

Sew Girly

It's one of the frenzy that I'm in recently...that once I begin I just can't seem to stop... ;)

Had wanted to sew a gift for my niece's coming 2-yr-old birthday... but I ended up sewing more than I have intended *grin*
This is for my niece. I love the print on this floral shirred dress... couldn't find a better fabric to sew this dress with... *wink*
I sewed a second shirred dress for Little Missy and also a laced denim skirt...

Shirred dresses are easy to sew but it took me a while to get used to and to gain control as the fabric curled up together as the elastic is being sewn on... nevertheless, it's a good experience to bag... am sure I can come up with shirred skirts and shirred top anytime *smile*

I recently got a few coloured singlets for Little Missy and thought they were too plain. Decided to add some appliqué onto the singlets... to make them more interesting... I haven't had a chance to photographed them all, and one of them have been bought *grin*...
And here's Little Missy... "parading" the clothes I've sewn... no good shots of them at all, as usual, the active little girl wouldn't even give me a minute to have decent shot taken. She nevertheless, surprised me by giving me some funny yet vain poses in the midst of my trigger crazy moments...

Dialogues We Want To Remember...

Since Tim started speaking more properly, we've had many occasions of dialogues with him that made either hubby or me go... "ermmm..." or "wow! where did that come from?"... and because toddler-hood fly pass so quickly, we want to remember these funny moments and record it for record sake...

Tim was asked by daddy the difference between a boy & a girl -
Dad: "Tim, are you a boy or a girl?"
Tim: "Boy"
Dad: "Is 妹妹 a boy or a girl?"
Tim: "Girl"
Dad: "Is Chicky(Tim's bestest stuff toy-friend) a boy or a girl?"
Tim thought for a while and replied: "Chicky is a duck"
Dad: "duh..."
***************************************
Tim: "Mommy why is daddy stopping the car?"
Me: "Oh, because daddy is giving way to the car in front that is turning out"
Tim:"Why is uncle (the driver of the car in front) turning out?"
Me (thought up an excuse): "Cos, uncle wants to go home"
Tim: "Why is uncle going home?"
Me(thought up another excuse): "Cos he wants to be home for a rest"
Tim: "Where is uncle's home?"
Me(getting impatient): "I don't know, how would I know?"
Tim: "Oh, uncle lives somewhere else, not here"
Me(eyes rolling)....
**************************************
Me: "Tim we are going to see 舅舅 tomorrow, are you excited?"
Tim:"No, Tim-Tim cannot see 舅舅 tomorrow!"
Me: "Why not?"
Tim: "Cos Tim-Tim is sick, cough and runny nose"
Me(eyes rolling again)...
**************************************
Tim & Little Missy were playing together when Little Missy decided to snatch Tim's toys and was screaming away when Tim tried to snatch it back... and Tim snapped at Little Missy with "Go to the naughty corner now!"
The daddy went...whaooo where did that come from...in his mind. *LOL*
*************************************

I know we ain't see nothing yet of the little tyke's incessant questioning...and I am beginning to believe that this is the beginning of Tim's journey of Why, Where, What, When, How questioning...and reasoning as well... wish us luck...

Home Made Fun again...

Bought two packs of plastic fishing toys from Daiso and the kids simply had a blast! They just can't have enough of water play...and the very toy that provided them that was the fishing game... *smile*

Cherrlyn, joined us in this fun game in an impromptu play date session... see how much fun the kids were having?
$4 worth of toys, brought us hours of good fun... even when the kids were not provided with a tub of water... *smile*...

Best of all, the kids learn new words and get to practice their eye-hand-coordination skills along the way during this play... Little Missy was able to tell the difference between a squid and a crab... *wink*

A Lost Generation?

This was recently shared in the Homeschool Forum, by Angie Maniam (owner of the Home Library Online) and I thought it's a wonderfully interesting video... quoting Angie, "watch it purely from linguistic curiosity"... Enjoy!

My Big Little Girl...

Little Missy, has just turned 18 months, and looking back, I am somewhat guilty of not giving her the attention more than I should... now that she's 1.5-yr-old, I can't help but to realize how much she's grown and how far she's come...

Not much of her milestones have been recorded as compared to her brother's...but she's certainly achieved a lot more than we've expected... often surprising both hubby and me with her funny antics... *smile*... we would so often mention about her milestones in our conversations and smile with pride... though they are not recorded, they are certainly remembered fondly all the time in our hearts.

At 18mths, Little Missy, is now 87cm tall (beyond 100th percentile), while her weight, 11.4kg is not proportionate with her height (I half suspect that the nurse didn't record her weight properly). She's done with all her compulsory jabs and is now left with Hep A booster and Pneumococcal jabs to be done... this little girl is definitely brave, hardly utter a whimper in most of her jabs... I guess, girls have higher threshold in pain?

She's been very fast at picking things that we say... especially those undesirable ones...makes me sit up and be watchful of what I say... lest she starts throwing back at us those things that we've said...

She still screams at the slightest thing that she's unhappy with (especially when she fights with Tim), often cries with loud screams which we don't know how to stop her other than offering her what she wants... all these MUST change when she's older and understands instructions better...she takes the naughty corner like play... *fainted* not taking us seriously when she's told to sit at the naughty corner... sigh...

Both hubby and I are now discussing if we should put her in school next year... yes, she's one academic year behind Tim... unbelievable... both my babies have grown up!!!

I am very grateful for these two little darlings, they have made my life extraordinary... *sigh of contentment*

Sew Lovely

Another order completed - finally! (psst... it was sent in more than a month ago... *fainted*)

I whipped up these handmades within two days, breaking in between due to minding the kids and the likes... fortunately, I am rather satisfied with these sew lovely handmades... *smile*
Love how this skirt turn out to be... the trimmings of the ribbon made this skirt look extra sweet... lovely...
And these pom-poms made this skirt extra cutesy... wouldn't you agree?
The finishing touch? This layered yo-yo fabric flower pin... complete with a fabric button... didn't know a fabric button is so easy to make... will certainly make more of these cutesy stuff again... *wink*

Ready To Rock & Roll

We are all set for a brand new season of a brand new playgroup! *smile*... Yes, the brand new Artful Lil' Hands will commence next week! *happy*

I am definitely not a very organized person... but recently, I just felt the need to be more systematic and organized... and set my priorities right!

Two weeks ago, I started working on the first lesson plan for the brand new Artful Lil' Hands, and have also recently gotten Lesson 2 done... I felt so relief that everything is panning out in a very orderly manner.

I wrote myself a to-do list (which I hardly do)... and have checked against all those items that I've completed... suddenly, I felt so super efficient *LOL* and have definitely accomplished a lot more...
These name tags were one of the items in my to-do list and I'm so so so so proud of myself to have completed it in an hour... *wink* Side track: all the 8 places in the playgroup for this coming week have been filled... Praise the Lord for the good response!

Now, I'd need to keep up the momentum and continue to be this systematic... otherwise, I'll slump back into my old habits of pushing everything to the last minute and run into panic station again...

Alrighty, will have to start working on Lesson 3's plan this weekend...my aim is to complete at least 2-3 months worth of lesson plans *smile*

Home Made Fun

The kids have been increasingly restless these days... partly because I've placed them in front of the TV too much and have neglected their need to be mentally and intellectually stimulated...

As I was preparing the homeschool time table for Tim (will share that in my homeschool blog soon), I was poring through all my resources, homeschool materials, game books etc... I chanced upon these two ideas... and jumped right into preparing these for the kids.
I recycled an old milk tin and cut a slit on the lid, bought a pack of mahjong chips and voila...something new and fun to play with for the kids...

With this, I taught Tim to put the chips into the tin in sequence of blue-yellow-blue-yellow... the kids also learned the concept of sizes - Large, Medium, Small, Tiny... whereas, Little Missy, learned about colours, cause & effect - dropping the chip into the tin, shaking the tin, plus building up on those fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination.

This is a real cheap and good teaching tool cum toy... *smile*
A homemade "sandbox", was something I wanted to do for a while... but I didn't get it done previously because of the mighty mess that I'll have to clean up after the kids... but because we live in a concrete estate, where the nearest sand play around is Jacob Ballas, I thought it might be a good idea to have a sandbox at home...

This was made using a basin (had wanted to use one of their baby bath tubs but will do that the next time)... a pack of soya beans, a pack of kidney beans and a pack of green beans. (Tip: try using bigger beans it makes cleaning up easier)

Caitlin came in time to join us on this today... *happy* The kids had a great time grabbing those beans building up on those fine motor skills, pouring, scooping, flinging... they could work on it all day if I didn't stop them... when I pulled out the dustpan and mini broom, Tim worked on "helping" me sweep those beans up (so Montessori)... *LOL*

Witnessing what great fun the kids had this morning at the corridor, it's worth the big clean up
to do afterwards...

*Both ideas taken from The Toddler's Busy Book.