Puzzle craft

Waiting for the brother to end his tuition class can be dreadfully boring for a 5 year old. In order to kill that 1.5 hours of wait, I would often bring stuff out to entertain her. From books to coloring to worksheets, anything and everything!

 

Yesterday, we did something quite different and fun. Doll dug out my old purchase from Daiso and begged me to let her have a go at it. And I thought why not? We needed to entertain ourselves anyway.

 

 

 

If you have been to Daiso, you may have seen this peculiar looking product. It is usually located where the children items are.

 

It is actually a blank 25-pieces puzzle. We can personalised the puzzle by drawing our own pictures on it. I actually bought this puzzle long ago for my numbering sequence activity. (Yes, I was being overly eager. I bought one too many :P)

 

 

I numbered each puzzle for Doll who was 2 then, to learn her number sequencing. She just had to connect the puzzles in numerical order. More about this activity at this link.

 

 

Well, it was a good thing I bought extra because we had quite an enjoyable mother-daughter time. Each set comes with two puzzles (what a steal isn't it? For just SGD$2!). So, she drew on one and I drew on the other. This mama also needs to kill time you know?

 

She drew a picture of herself and me. I apparently have a yellow face. :I

She made a mistake with the green marker and I told her she could use her imagination to try to correct her mistake. She doodled and finally drew up a table (looks more like a cradle to me). But. I am happy she learnt that she could recreate something else over her initial mistake.

 

And ta-da! My cute penguin drawn by yours truly :D.

 

After ink dried, she took it out and tried to build the puzzles with her friend.

 

Now make a guess which of the two was the harder puzzle to piece up?

A bit of craft

Sonshine wasn't and still isn't a crafty/arty person. I was a tad disappointed because I love to do arty stuff. Doll, like most toddler, loves crafty activity. However, ironically, now I find no time nor inspiration to do with her. -o-

 

Still, I try. Here was my wee bit effort to stay afloat with crafts.

 

 

 

I made some bear shape paper sprinklers using my paper puncher. Took out my washi tape and created a heart shape on her drawing board.

 

 

She smeared glue all over the page and sprinkled the punch out paper all over it.

 

 

The final look!

 

I gently tore away the washi tape to see a very faint heart shape formation. So, the anal me, just had to draw heart shape lines around it.

 

The purpose wasn't to get a masterpiece, it was more to entertain her with some sensory play. It was fun while it lasted!

Mish a Mash

So, we have been out of action- I totally blame it on the Korean wave. I have been watching too many dramas and entertainment shows. *Hiak Hiak* Also, I have been too lazy to take photos, edit and type a post. It is getting a bit of a chore lately. :(

 

Anyway...here's some meager effort I made.

 

 

Doll wanted to paint so I reluctantly obliged. On the whim, I threw in a toy corn, a piece of Lego and a car wheel. I let her paint on them and stamp/roll them on the paper. And there you go! Sensory play in an instant! :D

 

I love to make learning material using felt! I sew a tree & call it 'counting tree'!

I place a numeral at the side and doll has to put the correct number of counters on it.

 

My DIY counting cards in mandarin.

 

We have been reading about body parts in mandarin for a long time so I decided to make her these cards for her to practise. Glad to discover she's recognise the words!

 

I dug out this number sequence card again- for Doll to learn counting BACKWARDS. Learning to count backward is important for learning subtraction. So instead of starting from 1, I made her start from 10. I also tried to introduce to her the term 'before' by asking her 'What number is BEFORE 10?'

 

There you have it, these were the work done this week. Simple.

Wreath of Hearts

I was looking at some craft books and was inspired to make a Heart wreath with babydoll.

 

 

Cut out some heart shapes using colored paper.

 

I also used a paper plate (cut a hole in the middle) and glue.

 

Babydoll brushing some glue on the paper plate.

 

Stick the cut out hearts onto the plate. Unfortunately, she was not interested and left the job to me half way through (but i was secretly happy because i was dying to do it).

 

Our Lovable wreath!

(Erm, now i don't know what to do with it? How?)

 

 

Dolly good time

 

 

These were some of the stuff doll and i did these 2 weeks.

 

Matching puzzles

 

She loves my DIY button snake and can thread the button through very well.

 

 

I put this DIY zipper frame on the shelf for the last 2 weeks & she just had no interest. She rather practice opening and closing the zipper on my bag.

 

I taught her the concept of big and small. Using similar items but of different sizes. At first, i didn't think she understood it. Until one day, she took a small pink tower block and said to me 'mall' as in 'small'. But she hasn't said anything about 'big' though!

 

I decided it was time to let her try the Pink tower. I won't say she was very interested in it but we're getting there. At first, she would just stack them up randomly and try to push them down. But now, she is begining to stack them up according to its size.

 

 

This is how she does it. First, she would randomly pick a block and put it on the largest block (usually i lay the largest block down for her first). Then she would randomly pick another block. But if she realises the third block is bigger than the second block, she would bump of the second and stack on the third. And she does this over again for the subsequent blocks. Once she was able to stack the first 5-6 blocks correctly until she decided it was time to keep it away. -_- Oh well.

 

Another toy to help her exercise her visual discrimination skills. I would lay all the disc on the floor and ask her to pick the 'big' one. She seem to understood and was able to select the correct ones except for one disc.

 

Another variation of stacking ring. This was easier for her because there's a 'control of error'. Okay, i really don't know how to further explain this. I shall stop here. FULL.STOP.

 

She was able to stack the IKEA stacking cups in accurately according to their sizes, whoohooo! She did this by trial and error. When the cup doesn't fit, she would take them out and try another cup and so on.

 

 

Matching word to pictures. I am not expecting doll to get it right but my aim is to expose to word recognition and naming the animals. Right now she is able to name the animals but not the words. That's okay.

 

 

 

Matching the latter half of the alphabet. As usual, i would say the sound of each letter as she match them. I was delighted when she uttered the sound of 'm' while doing this! :)

 

We did some painting. Splashed a bit of pain and smear a toy car over it. I let her run the car over a piece of paper to make painted toy car tracks.

 

 

Matching shape puzzles

 

Tea party with my babydoll

 

Inspired by 'How we Montessori', i decided to make a self help station for the kids. I used a mini water dispenser, placed a towel (for the kids to wipe any spillage) and cups (not in the picture). The kids were excited and kept helping themselves with cups and cups of water. I never seen them drink so much water before! LOL!

Chinese New Year Crafts

We were bumped off this week when a persistent virus hit us, so we decided to scrap our Chinese New Year (CNY) plans & stay put at home.

 

I scrambled to search for CNY activities for sonshine just to liven our (okay, more like my own) moods. Pinterest was my richest source of ideas!

 

Here are some of CNY crafts we did at home:

 

 

Painting Cherry blossom tree using Lego stamping.

 

 

The final product.

 

 

Chinese calligraphy wannabe anyone?

 

 

Well, i just told myself to look at it artistically & it didn't look so bad after all. He wrote two of these &  i used them as last minute CNY decoration for my home. :)

 

 

Can you tell? It's a friendly dragon using cut out hand prints. Sonshine drew the a happy face despite me telling him to make it look fierce. Check out the blue pom pom eyes!

 

 

We had a bit of fun playing Hong Bao treasure hunt. Instead of the usual money, i put in slips of notes in each packet. The notes could say '1 minute extra on the ipad', '1 jellybean!' or 'Extra game on the Xbox' etc. Things that i knew would make him excited. He had alot of fun playing this.

 

 

Practical life skill- peeling Mandarin oranges for Daddy.

 

 

Some non CNY stuff we did. Add some coloring in a plate of milk, give the kid toothpicks & let him doodle away! Watch how the colors merge and turn the milk into an array of colors!

 

 

Babydoll was the first to get hit by the virus. I gave her a bit of activities to cheer her up. Practical Life skill activity- slicing a banana. It was quite a mess. But oh well.

 

 

A tub of water with some cubes of ice. Water has an amazing ability to keep any child thrilled and delighted. It's free and readily available- one of God's best creation i say! She was particularly restless that day and this certainly perked her up.

 

 

Threading. She is quite a pro in this! She sat there and thread beads after beads without any help from me. Well done my girl!

 

 

Peering into big brother's box of toy trains. She loves to look for Thomas the tank engine & name each train 'nomasszzz'!

 

 

Stuck at home with an ill brother. What better way to lighten her mood than with paints?

 

 

The masterpiece!