Random stuff

I have been relaxing for weeks now but as usual I try to do things with Doll whenever I can. Such random times, I love to rely on everyday things or materials I've prepared eons ago. :P

 

 

 

 

Sensory play with Ikea beads (those type you can form a shape and then iron them on to make them into a coaster)

 

I was never into sensory boxes although I know of them like 6 years ago! But out of lack of ideas and energy, I decided to whip out one for Doll. I was happy that it entertained her for a long period of time, I was not happy that she insisted I played along with her (I wanted to just fade into the background while she entertains herself).

 

These heart buttons were made when Sonshine was a toddler. I took it out for Doll to practise her buttoning/unbuttoning skills. Actually, it was more to entertain her than anything. She is already buttoning and unbuttoning her pyjamas!

 

Another material I had stashed in my cupboard! This was printed (sorry forgot the site) long ago for the then toddler Sonshine. It is a simple activity of arranging the pictures from the smallest to the biggest.

 

AH! I had wanted to brush up her chinese, she's way under exposed. So I made these cards and have her match her toy food to the cards.

 

 

True to my style, I made her match cards. She took a super long time to remember the words and I blame it on the lack of exposure. I don't speak in mandarin to her nor read a lot of mandarin books hence, its a no wonder that she had difficulty remembering the words! But with constant and persistent practise, she finally can read these words! PHEW! As a follow up, I read to her a simple chinese reader that covers most of these words.

 

Beading for her mama

It all started when I bought this cheap DIY necklace box from Daiso for $2!

 

 

I saw that this was a good opportunity for Doll to work on her pincer grasp. However, she couldn't connect the stars together at first. It works like a paper clip; to connect one only needs to join each star through the small disconnected loops on each star. IF you can understand all that...anyway!

 

I did a necklace for her nevertheless & she fell straight in love with it. She wore the necklace for the entire day. But I wasn't comfortable with it because the stars have rather pricky edges. So I bought her a gorgeous beaded necklace & of course she ADORES it (I have a girly girl here)!

 

I pretended to sob and grumble that I don't have any necklace & no one got me one. She immediately comforted me and assured me that she would make one for me! AWWWWW

 

 

 

Doll knew I bought another beading jewellery from Daiso and bug me day after day to let her do it. (She REALLY wanted to use this to make a necklace for me) AWWWW

 

I finally let her do it and oh boy, did she work it!

 

As I watched her string bead after bead, I saw how a simple (and cheap) activity unknowingly taught her (and me) many lessons.

 

Obviously, she learnt how to use her pincer grasp. As she strung each bead, she became more and more efficient and skillful. Also, I let her decide which is her master hand ie which hand to hold the string and which the bead. From here, I could tell she will be a right hander.

 

The other thing that left me in awe was how patient and persevering she was. She set herself to finish the beads and didn't want to stop until I had to interrupt it as we had to pick Sonshine up. I love her working attitude- I hope it will translate into her school work next time! :P

 

 

 

Later, she tried her hands on the stars again and to my delight, she did it! She made herself a full bracelet with the remaining stars. I am so proud of this girl!

 

Our final masterpieces! The bead necklace was mostly done by Doll and she actually presented it to me! How sweet!

 

This beading activity is absolutely cheap and satisfies the 3 Ps:

 

1) PLAY

2) (hones) PATIENCE

3) & PERSEVERANCE

 

LOVE IT!

Orange Juice anyone?

I am planning to start Doll on writing which explains why I am focusing more on Practical life activities as well as working on her pincer grasp. 

 

Plus, practical life activities are the easiest to prepare! Yesterday Doll made her own orange juice.

 

It started one day we chanced upon an orange juice maker vending machine! My hub was so y fascinated by the novelty that he splurge $4.50 on it without battling an eyelid.

 

It was intriguing watching how the machine selected the oranges, sliced them, squeezed them, collected the juice into a cup and served the fresh drink to us. Doll slurp up every last bit of the juice, she said it was "very very very nice"!

 

So grabbing the chance when that experience is fresh in her mind, I made Doll squeeze her own and at the same time exercise her hand muscles (for writing in future).

 

 

 

My invitation tray to play! Well, an invitation was quite unnecessary actually!

 

Squeeze, squeeze *grit teeth* *growl*

 

She had quite a hard time squeezing, she didn't have the strength. Still, she did not give up and could not keep her hands off the orange!

 

Good thing we had an HUGE orange that day because we extracted quite alot of juice!

 

Doll poured the juice into her cup (yes, another hidden practical life activity & chance for her to practise pouring- this time with a purpose!) and generously shared with me!

 

It was absolutely yummy!

Montessori- Cylinder Blocks

This was the activity that first attracted me to Montessori- Cylinder blocks.

 

 

It consist of 4 blocks and in each block there are 10 (mine only has 5) drilled holes to fit the cylinders in.

 

Each cylinder differs either in diameter or depth or both. For instance, in one block, all the cylinders have the same diameter. However, they vary increasingly/decreasingly in depth. In another block, all the cylinders have the same depth but vary increasingly/decreasingly in diameter etc (sorry, to lazy to give lengthy explanation but read here if you want to know more) 

 

 

The direct objective of this activity is to sharpen the child's visual discrimination of varying dimensions. The indirect goals are for pincer grasp exercise (as the child use her index finger and thumb to manoeuvre the knobs on the cylinders) and if I may add, eye-hand coordination skills as well as Mathematical concepts.

 

During the initial work, present only one block at a time. Once the child is seasoned in working with each block; present all 4 blocks at a go to her & mix the cylinder blocks for more challenging work.

 

 

The best part of it is I don't need to give her lengthy lecture. As she worked, she instinctively learn that each cylinders have differing dimensions. I thought it was very interesting how she always pick up the largest pieces first- I guess these were the easiest to identify & match. She naturally discovered that the bigger cylinders don't fit into the smaller ones and some smaller ones don't fit into the smaller holes because they may differ in depth.

 

According to David Gettman, when the child matures, we can use this to explain the terms 'shallow' vs 'deep', 'thick' vs 'thicker etc.

 

Admittedly, this is something you can't DIY easily unless you are an expert in sawing and drilling wood- even if you are, you must be well equipped! However, if you like you can pick this book up. It comes with a template, though 2-dimension (but better than nothing & much cheaper than purchasing) which emulate this activity.

Babydoll's working on....

Activities for Babydoll this week:

 

 

Transferring water with sponge

 

Squeezing...working out all her hand & finger muscles.

 

Sorting shape & color buttons.

 

Matching & counting.

 

She used Montessori counters and match them to the cards- this helps her to count in correspondence to the red dots on the cards. Otherwise, she would be counting till 10 when there's only 3 dots on the cards or she would be pointing either missing a dot or double count.  

 

Another practical and fine motor skill training cum sorting activity,

 

Inspired by Playhood! The wooden cylinders can be found at Daiso. Here, doll stacks the cylinders according to numbers. Each time she places one on top, she counts from the bottom to determine the next number.

 

Then, she created her own activity and decided to 'tong' the cylinders.

 

Viola!

 

I bought these puzzles from Toysrus. Instead of facing the flashcards, I used these to inject more fun in her learning. Actually, this is just revision. I only took out those words she can read- just so she can keep seeing these words while learning new ones. I use this activity more for revision (wow that word sounds so odd to use on a 2 year old!).

 

A better look of the puzzles.

 

 

Pour & read with doll

This week...

 

 

 

Pouring activity for doll. Man, these jugs were hard to find! I got mine at Daiso after walking up & down the shop multiple times! The tray is also from Daiso, given by my good pal, Playhood mummy!

 

Instead of the beads that i use, you can opt for rice, grains, beans- anything bead like.  

 

This is a Montessori inspired activity. This is a life skill activity aim to train the child in learning how to pour (without spilling) so that she can pour her own drink in no time! Once the child can do this profficiently, you can replace the beads with water.

 

Scooping the beads into the ice-cube tray. Again, you can always use rice or any type of grains.

 

This is a Montessori inspired puzzle. It is used to sharpen the child's visual discrimination skill.

 

Lastly, reading. Matching the color duplo to the corresponding card.

 

I am SO SO happy babydoll has finally shown that she can read. So relief *PHEW*. She now can read a few words like red, blue, yellow & green. I wanted to make sure she truly can recognise the words so i re-wrote the words on a board (instead of using the word cards) for her to read. No problem there- whoohoo! The other word she can instantly read is 'nose'. heh.

 

I didn't teach her through Glenn Doman flashcards. She does not seem to be able to absorb through flashcards like Sonshine can. She needs to have hands on activity like the above to register the words. Even then, it took her a while to recognise the words. I started with 'red and yellow' but she couldn't read them for the longest time. But now that she is ready, she learnt 'blue' & 'green' over 2 days and can remember the words instantly. I guess, that means this is her sensitive period for reading. YAY!

 

Apart from English she can read some Mandarin words like 猫,牛,羊, 草莓, 苹果, 吃, 哭 just to name a few.

 

Doll is 27 months old.

Homemade Printables

This week, doll had some fun with  math printable made by mama.

 

 

 

Matching colored symbols.

 

For each symbol, I made two of each but in different colors. I wanted to her to exercise her observational skills i.e it may be the same shape but is it the same color?

 

Matching numbers from 11-20.

 

This was intended for her to learn counting beyond 10. She is at this moment comfortable in counting from 1-12 and then it gets fuzzy in between but picks up again from 18-20. Hee Hee!

 

A montessori inspired number board. Instead of the 100 board, i made a 20 board for doll to arrange the numbers in order. 

 

 

Another printable to help her in counting.

 

Each tree has a number indicated on it and she has to put the corresponding number(s) of apple(s) on them. The permanent Velcro stuck on each tree acts as a control of error for her. It guides her on the exact number of apples she should put.

 

Tong-ing cotton balls.

 

I thought she didn't have the ability to use tongs which was why i put this activity off for a long time. I have under estimated her. She took this like a professional! She even knows how to angle the tongs such that she can clip the balls into place. Lesson learnt from this mama!

Mini Australian Unit (edited)

Following our trip to Australia, i made a Australian theme unit for Doll this week.

 

I made a printable for doll to learn her numbers from 11-14. Just to make it more Aussie, i added Koala bears design on the cards. She had to match the cards. As she picks one up i say out the number to help her recognise and identify.

 

Another printable i made, counting Cockatoos! I  accidentally discovered that she can count (not just rote count) up to 4! I made her these cards to help her practise more. :)

 

 

 

I took out all our animal toys; animals that can be found in Australia such as the Kangaroo, Koala, Sheep, cockatoo etc. Babydoll is task to match the animals to the cards and the word labels. My aim is to help her in word recognition.

  

 

 

I also made her an easy Australian map puzzle. I printed the map on the website and cut out the shapes. I chose this map because each state is color coded so Babydoll could match by color & shape.

 

 

This is how it looks like when completed.

 

 

Some non-Australian activity on our shelf. A box of 'B's.

 

This box contained all the objects/animals starting with the letter 'B'.

 

There are a couple of mandarin activity tray on our shelf this week.

 

I discovered Babydoll has learnt to read some more Mandarin words on fruits. Hence, I made these cards to help her revise and reinforce what she knows.

 

We are reading on colors (mandarin)! This is one activity to help speed up her learning.

 

 

This activity is still on our shelf. Well, it is somewhat Aussie, we did see these animals during our visit to Collingwood Farm in Melbourne! :P

 

Have a great week ahead y'all!

 

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Peel the Egg baby!

This is a common activity done by lots blogger moms. I couldn't resist either!

It is a great activity to practise eye-hand coordination skills and pincer grasp. Plus, it is just pure entertainment for the little one.

 

You got to boil the egg first, yah? I cracked the egg a little to make it easier for Babydoll.

 

Happily peeling the shell away. Focus, focus, focus...

 

 

Ta-da! Job done albeit broken but still taste as yummy as ever!