The Letter 'S'

Hello! I'm back a lot faster than I expected!

J received her first school parent-child assignment and I'm really excited.

We do crafts at home but they are mainly spontaneous ones. Planned activities don't go so well in this house. But parent-child assignments are different - there's opportunity for discussions and sharing.

This week, they learnt about the letter 'S' and we were encouraged to make a snake with recyclables.

It has been a really fun process so I thought I would like to pen it down.

We started with discussion the day she brought the activity sheet back.

We talked about the various materials we can use (kitchen towel rolls, old stockings, paper, socks... ) This kid knows what I have in my craft stash. 

This is our first project so there was a lot of prompting.
I asked if she wanted her snake to be a sculpture or one that can have movable parts.

She wanted one that could move so we decided on a pull-along toy, to be made with paper towel rolls.

I tried to let her work on it on her own as much as possible.

She picked out the origami papers she wanted to use from my stash, which I kind of regretted packing them neatly into an origami paper box because she can see ALL the papers I have. 

I stuck double-sided tape to the kitchen rolls and taught her how to roll it over the paper. She then stuffed the ends in to secure the paper onto the kitchen roll. Easy-peasy for small hands.

I left her be to work on the rest. She needed a little help and guidance but was pretty much able to complete it on her own.

The eyes are plain circle labels with pupils she drew on using a Sharpie. Using a Sharpie is a big deal for J, because as Momma puts it, those are "markers for grown-ups". I would have used the pistachio shells if I hadn't tossed them into the bins.

The tongue was some scrap paper we found in her scrap paper bag that was coloured over with red marker. That scrap paper bag is full of small pieces of paper from her cutting sessions. She is so into cutting lately. Imagine the horror to find "confetti" on the floor every time she works on crafts when I'm doing my chores/having a shower. 

I didn't know how to string the tubes together so that the part stayed in place so we dot The Husband's help on that.  I had J string strips of straw with a string, then using one longer straw as a needle, to string all the stringed straw pieces into the tubes.

Whoa. That was quite a mouthful.

Then I stuck double sided tape onto the straw and stuck them on the inside of the roll to keep the string in place. This feels so complicated as I'm typing this out. I'm very sure there is an easier way but I have absolutely no idea what it is.

After stringing all the tubes together, our simple snake is done!

J decided to stick animal stickers onto each section of the snake. Now it looks like a train.
Aaaaaand our first project is done!!

She had some fun pulling the toy all over the house.
So glad that her first project is like building a toy to her.


Note: The snake hardly survived being pulled around that it was falling apart on Sunday night. I had to secure more tapes onto it. I hope it stays okay through the week!

Ocean Week - Day 1

Hallo!
We have just completed our first day of themed Grandma School. It went pretty alright since I wasn't planning to do too much in a day.
The haze is at an unhealthy level and J is having a free flow of mucus so I wanted the day to be slow and less strenuous. The only reason why I have the luxury of time to blog now is because we are trapped camping over at grandma's. My first introduction activity didn't turn out as well as I thought it might so I came up with another one, that can hopefully, pique J's interest.

 

This is meant to be an "aquarium" at the window.
We get the sun shining in for a short period of time in the morning and it's perfect for light and shadow play. I wanted this to be a subtle installation - for J to discover the coloured shadows on the wall and ask "What's that?" since that's her favourite question to ask these days.
That would catch her attention.

Only that this didn't happen.
The sun wasn't shining too brightly and all we saw were very faint shadows (grey ones) that weren't even obvious to J. She did spot the installation though and requested for "that fish". I took the opportunity to revise colours. J doesn't seem to get her colours even though we started a few months back so as long as I get the opportunity to revise with her, I will.
Drama-momma pretended to be confused and told her to specify the colour of the fish, and to my surprise, she got "rad" right. I hope that's not sheer luck.

Once we arrive at Grandma's, I didn't intend to have any ocean-themed activities until dinner, but J requested to paint. I gave her the "ocean colours" (light blue, blue, green, white) and let her paint freely. I'm impressed that my mum can actually create a makeshift easel out of an old whiteboard they found while doing spring-cleaning today, and the IKEA ANTILOP high chair.

 

She asked for a change of paper after this.

The whole activity lasted... 5 minutes. I'm still trying to find an activity that will keep J entertained long enough. No luck so far. 

 We did a short invitation-to-play during dinner with the existing blue playdough we had, and some Safari Ltd Toob toys. I'm planning to do this activity again because this one was really too short. More details about it later! 

 Sometimes I doubt if J learns anything from all these activities because they are so simple. 

 But I guess we got to have faith. We did revise colours today. And she saw the colours change when she mixed the paint. 

So, I hope she did!

Here's what else we did:

Preparation and Book List

Ocean Week - Day 2

Ocean Week - The rest of the week

To S.E.A. Aquarium we go!

Our first contact paper craft

Even though I said that contact paper craft in my last post was more of an "invitation to destroy" than "invitation to play", there were actually some observations I made, and definitely, some takeaways.

Materials we use:

1. Tissue paper, precut into confetti and stored away ($2 for 25 pieces, Daiso)

2. Contact paper ($2.95, POPULAR bookstore) 

This is J's first encounter with tissue paper and contact paper.

Observations:

J fiddled the tissue papers in the bowl. She wasn't quite sure what to do. I don't know if I'm supposed to show her how to do it but I stuck a piece of tissue paper onto the contact paper. 

She, too,  stuck a piece onto the sticky paper then play around with the tissue paper. She pulled at one and realised it will tear, so she continued tearing the paper and returning he smaller pieces into the bowl. 

Then she tried to "water" the confetti down onto the contact paper but except for a couple of pieces, the rest didn't stick. 

J attempted to stick another piece of confetti into the contact paper, and realised her hands got stuck. The contact paper makes a funny sound when she tried to pull her hand away. So she kept doing it and was enjoying herself. "What's that? Hahahahaha...." 

The contact paper fell of the wall in the process and she scrunched it up. I opened it up again and stuck it to the floor instead. Then I showed J that we can just sprinkle the confetti onto the contact paper. Which she did.

And she did more while she was with Daddy and so we ended up with this:

Not too shabby, if I may say.

Thoughts:

To be honest, I was quite disheartened initially because this seems to be yet another ITP that failed. But it was her first contact with the materials after all. I can't expect her to do the proper art right away. I think it's good that she's willing to explore and play around with the materials. The "getting to know you" stage is important too.

I stuck the completed piece up on the wall and didn't think about it but the next morning when J entered the playroom and saw the art, she requested to "make art" again.

I gave her the another one.

This time, she tipped the bowl of confetti over the sticky paper and spreaded them out before she held the paper up and declared "Very nice!"

Contact paper art done in 10 seconds flat.

Celebrating Singapore's 50th

This year, Singapore celebrates her 50th birthday.

Flags line the street and most of the flats have been decorated with flags and banners. I even spotted one with twinkling lights.

It's a sight J sees everyday on the way to Grandma School. But she doesn't quite understand what National Day is about, yet. To her, it just involves loud planes and in her words, "sooooo many flags".

She won't remember the SG50 celebrations and how much we have progressed from a small fishing village, but I want her to have a piece of memory from this important year. 

Which is perfect when we stumble upon this: Red and white void deck@ Tampines

This installation caught our attention right after we got off the bus, because, see the aeroplane? J loves aeroplanes. I didn't think much of it until we saw another one when we walked to Grandma's. J stopped to take a closer look because she spotted what else, but Hello Kitty. I took a snapshot of that moment, and loved it very much.

After a quick google, I found out that there will be 250 of such installations in Tampines and I thought it will be fun to hunt for them. It  It will be great to make a photo collage out of these photos - J's little piece of SG50.

We found out the location of the Merlion and went for a mini photoshoot the next day.

Then my mum spotted the Samsui Women in the nearby blocks.

And the Butterfly Garden and City Hall after a "tip-off" from my uncle.

The uncle got roped in because my mum and I got too excited and I texted all friends and family staying in Tampines to help lookout for new designs.

To date, we have found and taken photos of: 

1. Changi Airport

2. Merlion

3. Samsui Women

4. The Arts House (formerly Old Parliment Building)

5. Vanda "Miss Joaqium"

6. Butterfly Garden

7. City Hall

I'm not posting the photos so as not to spoil the fun but if you are interested, they are on my Instagram feed (@pinkmint).

From friends and family, as well as keeping our eyes peeled while travelling on the buses, we also spotted 

8. Stamford Raffles

9. Singa, the courtesy lion

10. Sentosa Island

11. Dragon playground

12. Gardens by the Bay

13. Satay Club

We sure hope to pop by for a mini photoshoot soon!

I think there are more and I'm really curious to find out how many designs there are. If you are in Tampines, do try to spot them. It's really quite fun!

***

I've been hoping to do some National Day craft/activity with J, but as the day approaches, this is the only thing I managed to do (and it took a long long time).

Activity: Flag Puzzle

With some felt, I made a simple flag for J to 'stick' on the stars and crescent. The flag looks out of proportion due to my inability to cut straight lines. 

I had intended to sew the outlines on but it's too time consuming so Sharpie came to the rescue. 

The 'learning objectives' I hope to achieve.

1. Shape matching - fitting the shapes appropriately. J was okay with the stars but is still working hard on placing the crescent in the correct orientation.

2. Identification of shapes (stars and crescent, which J calls it "moon" as of now.)

3. Counting (count the stars) It starts off nicely then 1...2...3...4....5, 6, 7, 8, 9,10!

4. The colour "red" which I failed for now.

***

The nation's Golden Jubilee is in 5 days. And even though I do dream up a themed party, I know it will not materialise -because I'm too lazy-. I'm hoping that the Jubilee weekend will be well-spent with the family though. :)

  

Santa "Corr"

Hi, meet Corr.

Santa has a new name because J says it that way.

Corr is saved from an old Christmas wrapping paper that was kept safely in my wrapping paper stash.

I couldn't bear to throw it away after I unwrapped J's only Christmas present last year.

(I knew I'd have use for it one day!)

J spotted it among the other wrapping paper and kept poking at it, going "Corr. Corr."

I think she meant "Santa Claus"?

She seemed to take an interest in the penguin too so in order to make her go to bed, I promise I'll cut them out for her.

I thought I should laminate these pieces to prolong their lifespan a little. But because I made the promise a little too quickly, and I had no laminator at home, it was an opportunity to try out an idea I spotted on Pinterest -- use the iron!

It worked!

Not too great as compared to using a proper laminator, but it worked.

So here's Corr and his pals!

*Laminating using an iron is fun, but not too fun when you have a deck of flash cards to go through.

I had to experiment with mine a couple of times on various settings.

But I did discover that 

1. The iron shouldn't be too hot. (I melted a sleeve) Common sense but somehow it happens.

2. Make sure you are using cotton. I thought I was when I first used my old pajamas, but it melted right through, with the sleeves.

3. Switch off the steam function. I didn't initially and it turned out all bubbly inside.

Tis the season to be jolly

It's the season of glitter and sparkles!

Only that now with Lil' J in the house, my parents and hubby has put a ban on all things glittery.

Nonetheless, they helped me put up the tree so that I actually do have a tree this year.

While everyone was busy shopping for Chinese New Year decorations last year, I went on a shopping spree and got myself some pretty good Christmas deals.

These silver baubles were going at 90 cents a pack in Ikea. Six for 90 cents works out to 15cents per bauble. Never came across such a good deal! 

No glitter would mean that I got to decorate the ornaments in other ways. Thank goodness for my stash of washi tape and lace tapes from Daiso.

Cheap and quick crafts and each ornament now less than 20 cents.

Allow me to beam with pride for a moment.

And here it is. The tree..!

It looks really simple but I'm glad it's up, somehow.

 

The tree topper is actually a snowman advent calendar I got from Cold Storage's post Xmas sale at $2 each.

My very adorable mummy helped me put it up. 

She's good with such things.

She even wrapped up all my board games so "the tree looks prettier".

 

Love my family.

Love my mummy.

:)

 

 

 

 

 

High Contrast Flash Cards?

I'm at a dilemma whether to do right-brain training with the little one. 

A couple of years back, I was all about flash cards. I knew I wanted to make some for my little one in future. 

I was also very into Montessori.

In fact I was into anything 'early childhood'.

Recently, I came across an article about right brain-training hindering creativity, and I falter. All of a sudden, I don't know what is good for Baby anymore.

 *

I bought a set of plain index cards a couple of weeks back. 

To doodle my own high contrast flash cards for Baby. Just in case I want to use them for visual stimulation. 

As of now, I'm still not too sure if I'd want to go ahead with it.

But since I have plenty of time on my hands, why not just doodle? 

I googled for samples of visual stimulation cards for infants. Those simple ones with shapes and stripes. 

I went all @@ drawing this.

While searching for images, I saw a set of adorable looking high contrast cards that's animal-themed and thought that maybe, just maybe, I could doodle some on my own. That set would cost me about $20 or so. I could save some money.

I'm not an artist. And I'm not very good at drawing.

But I guess when the momma instinct sets in, nothing is quite impossible. 

I trimmed off the index cards because they were not of the golden ratio. You know how things look pleasing to the eyes because of the golden ratio right?

Most of the images were inspired by those off the web. Except the fish.

I'm not even sure if they count as 'visual stimulation cards for infants'.

I started with these four. And thought "Hey! They start with different letters. I could do an alphabet set!"

And that's what I'm working on right now.

If I ever use these as a visual stimulation card for Baby, I'll add in the letters later. And the names of the animals at an even stage.

Else, I guess they could function pretty okay as nursery decoration too.