Treasure basket

When I went kindergarten shopping for my son, I was attracted by a Montessori school. It was beautiful and calm. The students took turn studying and working on a mat, each having undivided, individual attention of the class teacher. It was very different from the kindergarten I attended. My kindergarten was just like my primary and secondary schools - 30-40 students in a class, sitting obediently at the desks, facing the blackboard. 

I got very interested about Montessori and visited two more schools. I also looked up and read more about it. In the process, I came across some fervent Montessorians who implement this philosophy at their homes. This activity is inspired by one of such parents. You can read about the activity here.

I prepared a discovery basket from the kitchen for my girl. These things are laying around the house and I'm so glad that they could serve a different purpose. In the basket, there were measuring cup, measuring spoons, whisk, spatula, lid, sieve, brush and more.

 

True to what the parent said, the basket occupied my girl for a long long time, almost an hour. Light years for babies. 

 

She spent a lot of time looking, touching and exploring the objects in her mouth. Sometimes, banging the objects to listen to the different sounds they made. 

 

Big brother also joined in the fun. He was serving a bowl of soup to his teddy in this photo. All in all, a good fun to keep both kids busy. Busy kids = more free time for Mama = happy Mama!

 

Spot the odd one

I was clearing the unsightly pile of waste paper in my house one day and came across some really nice catalogs, brochures and pamphlets. Such a waste to throw all these into the rubbish bin! Why not give them another life?

 

I cut some pictures from the catalogs/brochures/pamphlets and introduced them to Z. We categorised the pictures eg food, kitchen equipment, presents etc. Then I randomly put some pictures and asked him to spot the odd one out. Above, he pointed to the middle picture as the answer (from left to right - pancake, hamper, chocolate cake). What say you?

 

The activity was way below his skill level it seemed. He answered correctly for all of them and quickly got bored. So, he turned all those pictures into parking coupons! In the above picture, he was scanning the parking coupon after receiving payment from his customer. Still, a good use on all the material!

Robot

Z and I normally spend some one-on-one time during the baby's morning nap (~30 minutes). The activity depends what I have prepared or what Z likes to do. Sometimes it can be as simple as colouring, completing mazes or revising his Sunday School work sheets (at his request!). On that day, we made a robot.

Once again, we used all recycled materials like tissue box, toilet roll, paper cups, red packet (ang pow) etc. I prepared some materials a day before. We cut and assembled the robot the next day, during R's nap time.

I was very excited of the project because Z never had a robot before. Besides that, it offered a chance for him to revise different shapes - triangular nose, semicircular ears, heart-shaped heart, rectangular body etc.

Well, he was quite pleased with the robot. He sang song and roughhoused with it over the next few days.

Even the baby sister enjoyed it!

Furnishing the playroom

Grooming Teddy at the playroom

Z and R like to spend their mornings in the playroom. With glass louvers facing the garden and glass doors at the other two ends, it is breezy and the view is beautiful.

Lately, I've been thinking to improve the room further. There is no cupboard or shelf there. You can see the toys laying on the floor in the photo above. The walls are also quite bare.

I'm planning to buy a low, open cabinet for my children. It has to be sturdy for obvious reasons. It also has to be low enough for Z and R. I like them to access the books and toys freely, and learn to put them back after use. It fosters independence and sense of responsibility. Besides that, I also like to search for suitable pictures and hang them low enough for the kids to enjoy.

I would prefer the furniture to be able to blend into our current ones after the kids outgrow them. In other words, it should preferably be less 'cheerful'. Do you know of any retailers who sell child-friendly furniture and pictures? Or do you have any other ideas? I'd like to hear from you. Feel free to text or whatsapp me, thank you very much!

Latest updates

People asked me where do I find time to blog. Being the primary carer of a 3 year old and a 9-month-old, I rarely have personal time. I blog at night after my children are asleep. My girl is a light sleeper and is often awaken by the slightest noise. My boy, many a times, sleeps after both my husband and I succumbed to the sleep bug. So I don't blog often.

I normally prepare a few posts (that can last for 2 weeks at least) and schedule them to be uploaded later. Wednesdays and Saturdays work for me right now. So the activities that you see here are not the latest ones. They most probably happened a week or two ago.

The latest happenings (as in NOW) in our life are:

• My girl just mastered her pincer grasp
• Baby R is taking finger food and much prefers feeding herself than me feeding her
• She is babbling "baba", "mama", "mum mum", "wa wa"
• We have decided which school to send my son to after much kindergarten shopping
• My son is crazy/obsessed/madly in love with trains now. Lightning McQueen? Out. Chuggington is his favourite show!
• I am still breastfeeding R. I intend to breastfeed her until she's 1 year old, ideally, until she self weans. I struggled for the first 6 months of the bf journey - pain, thrush, very frequent clogs (read: once every other day) - and survived. For me, it will be such a waste to stop at 1 year old.

I will most probably share more about them here in a few weeks. In the mean time, take care and have a good week!

Oatmeal muffin

Is it a surprise that I love muffins? They are not as fattening as cupcakes and very easy to make. Besides that, I'm still breastfeeding and have extra quota to splurge, yippee!

I found this recipe one day and decided to give it a try. Oatmeal and only 1/4 cup of brown sugar, not bad at all! This muffin is not very sweet even with 3/4 cup of raisins. I'll try adding 1 cup of raisins instead in the next try. That, and also some cocoa powder and stars to decorate the muffins to make them more attractive for my son.

My son refused to taste the muffin, I personally love the end product. They are delish! I prefer to have them warm (by nuking them for 15 seconds on medium high) and feel the melted chocolate oozing into my mouth. Go make yours today!


Ingredients:
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup oat (not quick cook oat)
1 large egg, room temperature
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 cup + 2 tablespoons of flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup raisins (will use 1 cup next time)
1/2 cup dark chocolate chunks/chips (I used dark eating chocolate and cut them up in chunks)

Steps:
1. Soak oat in buttermilk for at least an hour.

2. Preheat oven to 175C. Grease or line muffin pans.

3. Crack one egg into the oat + buttermilk mixture. Stir in brown sugar, then butter.

4. Sift remaining ingredients into the bowl. Do not overmix.

5. Add in raisins and chocolate chunks and combine gently.

6. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Enjoy your fruit of labour!

Cutting & pasting activity

Z has been very interested with scissors lately. Following his lead, we did a simple cutting exercise today.

 

Here he is, cutting a used envelope which is in lovely red. The idea of the activity was to cut the envelope and paste them on the paper, preferably inside the circle. As he was still learning this new skill, there was a lot of two-hand cutting. He also didn't know how to cut the whole way through. After cutting, he tore along the line.

It was his first attempt at pasting. He wasn't sure how to use a glue and was slightly hesitant to touch it at first.

Apply glue, checked.

Paste it on paper, checked.

We also cut up some other used envelopes. Z pasted them all. He was very happy with the result and I'm glad that he learnt something new.

Learning and bonding need not be an expensive and elaborated thing. This project cost nothing at all. Just some time and patience :)

(For those who are worried that he might hurt himself, I was watching him like a hawk the whole time. It is good that he learns to use real tools since young.)

The alphabets hunt

My husband played this game with Z a while back. I think it is a very fun and educational activity. Z gets to revise his alphabets while searches for the hidden alphabets on his tricycle. A perfect game for my tricycle-crazy boy!

 

Hide the alphabets away and ask your preschooler to count from 1 to 10. A good game to practice both his alphabets and numbers!

Let the search begin! Here is Z with the alphabets he found. He put them on his tricycle and carry them to the play room.

He put the alphabets to the correct slots, and gave the alphabets a hearty stomp while naming them. A good use of the big muscles while he exercised those brain cells :)

 

Yay, mission accomplished!

小啊小学郎

Z明年就四岁了，爸妈开始为他的第一所学校烦恼，这几个礼拜顶着大太阳或冒着热带骤雨参观了几所学校。

A 校采小班制，老师尽责友善，口碑很好，但离家太远。

B校用澳洲游戏学习方式，学生国际化，但孩子能否赶得上本地高压紧凑的学习步伐？

C校口碑不错，好友的孩子曾在那度过几年杏林生涯，但我个人只觉尔尔。
 
D校是本地明校，明年进学今年7月要先面试，但优点在于是所教会学校，老师全持有幼教文凭，学生水准超群。每年级有7班，一班30名学生。第一次离开父母上学的孩子会否因人多害怕？老师能够顾及这么多学生吗？

E校采蒙特所里教学方式，小班制，离家不远。个人喜欢它的办学方针但学校才创办不久，不知口碑如何。

爸妈讨论了许久还是没有结论。送长儿第一次上学，妈妈好心慌啊！

Sensory play - ribbons

I have a box full of different ribbons collected throughout the years. Some was used to wrapped presents given to me, some was leftover in other art projects.

Today, I cut some ribbons for my dear girl. You want to make sure that the ribbons are not too long to go around a baby's neck!

She touched the ribbons, exploring on their textures, colours.. and what else, tasted them.

A simple fun for the under one :)

Mini TV

Call me a new mother but I am very wary of children spending too much time on TV and computer (or iPad and iPhone for that matter!). My son didn't watch any TV before he was two years old. He was allowed one hour of screen time per day after two, and only educational DVD's at that. After that, he was hooked! He slowly increased his time spent in front of the idiot box (still only some DVD's were allowed, max 2 hours). Then, he was introduced to iPad, iPhone and Galaxy Tab.. And we have been in a battle of will ever since!

He doesn't watch TV everyday now but he spends too much time to my liking on electronic gadgets. I try to encourage him to read more, I play with him whenever he invites me on his imaginative train/bus/fire engine ride, we bake together, we sing songs, we go to the park, we do craft.. but the first and last things he asks for before and after bedtimes are still iPad and Galaxy Tab! I guess I can only console myself that children his age will use these gadgets to replace textbooks when they go to school. So we are only preparing him... no?

Anyway, I made a mini TV for him today. 

 
We used all recycled materials. No trees were harmed in the making of this art project :)

My son helped me to choose the art papers, got the required tools and he stuck all the stars. We talked about different colours when he chose the stars. I drew a moon (one with eye and mouth per his request) at it is "night", according to him.

He was very proud of the project. He called it "MY project" and proudly said that he made it!

Here he is with the mini TV.

Now, he is asking when can we make toy cays for the mini TV. Handmade, not bought, mind you! Mommy on another mission!

Prune muffin

I made some prune muffins some days back as my son was constipated. Oh, the wonderful things of parenthood! I was quite skeptical about the recipe at first but it turned out wonderful! I substituted part of the canola oil with yogurt. The end product was very moist, definitely a keeper!

To make these muffins, you'd need:

1 cup prunes
1 cup sugar (I used 3/4 cup)
3 whole eggs
1 cup canola oil
1.5 cups of self raising flour
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup buttermilk (or add 1 tablespoon of white vinegar to almost a cup of milk to make 1 cup of buttermilk)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Steps:
1. Preheat oven to 175C.

2. Cover prunes with water in a small saucepan. Bring to boil and cook until soft and mashable (~8 min). Mash and set aside.

3. Whisk oil, sugar and eggs together.

4. In another bowl, sift dry ingredients.

5. Combine wet and dry ingredients together. Add buttermilk and vanilla extract and stir gently. Do not overmix!

6. Pour into buttered/lined muffin pan and bake for 20 minutes.

(I had this recipe for a long time and don't remember the source. If you are the owner of this recipe, please notify me. I'll be glad to link it to your site. Thanks for the wonderful recipe!)