{Grandma School} Back to the beach

We did go outdoors on the weather-is-good day.

The air quality was pretty okay.

We couldn't decide if we should go swimming or head to the beach.

Then the sister came back and left her car for us for a couple of hours.

Beach it is.

Life - pretty amazing how things fall in place.

It was quiet at the beach with just a few families sitting by the sand, and some fishing by the sea.

We started off spotting planes. There are so many, we must have spotted one plane landing every minute. Also why I love Changi Beach.

Compared to our last beach visit, J is now more receptive to sand. In fact, she showed no signs of fear. She went straight for the sea.

Not so much a fan of the seaweeds though. 

Most of the time was spent sitting at the edge of the sand so that the waves can splash on her. Each time a strong wave comes - one that can rock her, she giggles. This kid. She ended up with really wet clothes and a sandy bum.

Sand is not so fearsome anymore. Feet in sand and more poured over with the pail. 

This pail needs a special mention. It belongs to little me so it must have been more than twenty years already. Still going strong! Old toys are best.

The $1 sandkit from Giant is finally put to use. We have been reading a book on construction so J is quite interested in the tipper.

This must be the prettiest shell we spotted today.

The sky and the tree. Tranquility.

We went home with some treasures.

J stopped by the Casuarina fruits and was very curious about it, so we picked up a fallen branch and brought it home. She couldn't stop rolling the fruit in her hand on her way home - we learnt "prickly".

'Twas a good day.

{Grandma School} Post-haze Nature walks

Ah.... The weather is great today. My view out of the window is exceptionally clear (other than the fact that Daay came to help me clean it. Thank you , Daddy!) We've been living with the haze for a while now and I truly appreciate the clear skies we have today. I hope it stays that way.

This was two weeks ago, when we enjoyed three days of good weather amidst the haze.

We've been cooped up at home doing nothing for too long, so when the opportunity came, we had three nature walks in a row.

Evening Walk at Changi Beach

It's been a while. This was supposed to be a spot-the-planes-and-have-some-sensory-fun trip for J.

But she didn't really like the sand. We had to half-drag her across the beach to get to the water. She didn't really like it too.

Until the waves came splashing on her legs. And she got to washed her hands (and figured she could splash) in the sea water. 

She became more confident and starting drawing in the sand after.

It was a brave move. She really disliked the texture of sand on her feet.

When we went to Little Planet Playland the other time, she chose to sit outside and scoop the seeds (which is the play-pretend soil) instead of sitting in the pit.

She asks for more sandplay now.

Beautiful sunset.

Beautiful skies.

Beautiful bub.

What a lovely evening.


Afternoon Stroll at Pasir Ris Park

It was a hot-turned-gloomy-turned-hot afternoon.
Grandpa decided it was a good time to check out the mangrove forest in Pasir Ris Park. He spotted some otters before and was hoping to show J some.

We spotted two roosters the first thing we got there. 

Rooster #2 chased after rooster #1 at an incredible speed. What a sight (for me!)

I've always wondered where they came from.

A lady told us that we missed the beautiful moment of some hens bringing their chicks out for a walk. They were out the day before. It was quite spectacular, she said.

A pity we missed it but at least we spotted some roosters. *positive thinking*

We stepped on some dry leaves to hear what it sounds like.

We spotted mudskippers, crabs and monitor lizards while walking through the Mangrove Boardwalk. One was climbing the trees (the monitor lizard) and J got a good look. Thank you, monitor lizard!

We didn't get to see the otters though.

Walked along the bridge after that and spotted some jellyfish. 

Grandpa pointed out some fungi on the way back. These are not as magical as I hoped it would be, but definitely something new to J.

We ended up walking through the Mangrove Boardwalk twice, so an outing that was supposed to last one hour took close to three hours. We went for tea after and J got her first taste of Milo.

It was a good break from the haze, though. That fresh air. Never mind that I got home with 10 over mosquito bites.

Morning Walk at Tampines Eco Green

Our usual if-the-weather-is-good morning activity whenever we stay over at Grandma's.

Only that J didn't really want to walk much this time.

The air was really good though!

Stroking the grass is a great sensory experience - they are so soft!

After these three days of haze, we were back to no-outdoors for a while.

The weather looks good today.

Hoping to have some outdoor activities with J soon.

:)

Till then!

Edit: We did go for another outing. To the beach, again!

$3 easy DIY Light Table/Box

Yup. Only $3.

Very affordable, huh?

Here's the story.

I've been toying with the idea of a light table because it looks really fun and I would like to play with one.

I do not intend to purchase one due to its price tag and I cannot be sure that J would want to play with it for a long time. There are quite a few tutorials I found online for DIY ones but most required clear boxes which I will have to purchase. I came across one which explained the use of paper and aluminium foil in the project - to diffuse the light. Then I remembered that I have a TROFAST at home. Since that is already translucent, it could probably work?

It did! 

This 'light table/box" turns out to be really easy to make and it requires only two items, one of which I believe most of us already own.
Ready?

1. TROFAST storage box ($3, IKEA)

This one. The multi functional TROFAST storage box.


2. A smartphone, with a torch function
I noticed that using my own phone forces me to disconnect while I'm playing with J, which is a good thing! She did try to lift the box to retrieve the phone towards the end though.

Simply activate the torch on your smartphone and pop the TROFAST over your phone.
That's it!

Disclaimer: This is not a perfect light table since the corners aren't as brightly lit. But this would suffice if you just want to assess a child's response towards a light table before you commit to one. Or if your child has a really short attention span like mine and wouldn't spend more than 10 minutes playing with it each time. 

I like the TROFAST for its size. It isn't huge but provides a decent play area. Its raised sides also help prevent objects like marbles and pebbles from rolling off.

There's bright spot in the photo but it isn't that obvious in reality. Bonus if you have two smartphones to lay side by side because that gives a better diffusion of light. (Go take the phone away from Daddy now. Family bonding!)

The torch wasn't the first light source I first experimented with.

I used this - a frosted LED globe from my mum's place.

It doesn't give an even distribution of the light (obviously) and is constantly changing colour. But we discovered that the lights somehow turned out rather galactic and would work well for any space-themed play. So this is a keeper.

I tried it out with DAISO's LED light as well but the ring of bright spots turned out to be too obvious to me. Okay for a light table too and they would be perfect for a dot-themed activity.

I really ran out of ideas to do on stay-in-hazy days.

Can't wait to head out!

* I googled "trofast light table" after my little experiment and realised that the TROFAST is really quite popular as light table!

Linking up with:

Ocean Week - The rest of the week

It is really a bad idea trying to document our activities daily.
I went to bed early the night of Day 3 to save up as much energy as I can for The Big Day, and spent the next few days recovering from the running around at the aquarium.

But anyway, here's the rest of Ocean Week.


DAY 3
It was a day of realisation so we ended after one activity.

I found this idea from Pinterest - footprint starfish, but didn't want to risk J decorating my mum's floor, so I changed it to handprint instead. Pretty naive of me to think that handprints would end up looking like starfish.

J was apprehensive initially when grandma painted her hands, but quickly got used to it and started to insist that she paint her hands on her own. Even though the painting didn't resemble starfishes, it ended up looking like sea jellies when inverted.

We had a lot of paint left so we went on to stamp vegetables instead.

And... that is all the ocean-related activities we did. I stopped because I realised I was trying too hard to capture the moment with my camera, up to the point that I was interrupting J. She got distracted upon seeing my phone so on second thoughts, that's probably what made her stop. 

The whole afternoon, I reflected. Do I want to be so focused about capturing the moment with the camera? Or should I do so with my heart. J didn't seem as enthusiastic in the activities either so should I still attempt structured activities? I don't have an answer yet.

Because I was so caught up in my thoughts, we allowed J to have a lot of unstructured play that day. She did amazing. 

She helped with the clean clothes. She pulled out the toy box and played with the little toys that were from her uncle's time. She swept the floors when my mum was sweeping. 

She didn't ask to be entertained. But at the same time, she's learning.

Note to self: I'd still like to continue with themed activities but I probably not be too rigid about it and expect things to go as planned. Maybe I should try to take her cue and facilitate her learning instead of trying to 'teach' her.

Day 4

The big day we hit the aquarium! 

What's better than seeing those fishes and sea creatures in person?

We were lucky to see the dolphins this time. We've been there for three times but have never had luck with the dolphins! Read more about it here. :)

Day 5

We are all exhausted from the trip the day before. Maybe, except J.
I attempted to make a jellyfish from this activity sheet we got at the aquarium.
It got destroyed even before we started. Was I even surprised?

When I was about to give up doing ocean-themed activities altogether, my dad decided that it was time to show J the starfruits he brought home that day. Before they rot.

So, J

1.  felt the smooth texture on the starfruit (she sniffed it the day my dad brought it home).

2. saw that the cross-section of the starfruit is, well, a star (we tried explaining that to her, not sure if she got it), and

3. did some starfruit painting.

The starfruit prints are perfect as sea stars so I gave her some blues and greens to paint an ocean first.

J really doesn't like to paint over the entire piece of paper.

We didn't manage to do as many activities as I wished to during this week but I did discovered something about the way I tried to carry out the activities and J's learning style. Let's leave that for another post.

Let me go dream about future aquarium visits now that we have the annual pass.



Here's what we did prior...

Preparation and Book List

Ocean Week - Day 1

Ocean Week - Day 2

To S.E.A. Aquarium we go!

To S.E.A. Aquarium we go!

After days of haze hovering around the moderate to unhealthy levels, we were blessed to wake up to clear skies on the day we were supposed to visit the aquarium. It was also the day J turns 23 months-old and I have been planning this trip for a while.

We got the tickets of Qoo10 at slightly less than $21 each. $7 multiplied by five is quite a bit of savings. (Tickets are at $28 for Singapore citizens.)

Our tickets did not include the entrance to Typhoon Theatre though. I thought they did, and felt bad in disappointing my dad. But he decided that it is quite a fun experience that we should try and he paid for the tickets ($2 per pax). It was quite an interesting 4D show though most of the time, I noticed that our eyes were on J instead, observing her reactions. Her eyes were affixed to the screen. Ah. It's like Pandora's Box after our strict no-screen rule isn't it? We were a little surprised that she doesn't seem to be bothered by the lightning and loud thunder. She even went "Boom boom boom" after it. Thank you Dr Seuss' "Mr Brown can Moo, Can You?"

Raincoat is recommended for little ones since they do sprinkle quite a bit of water!

Following the shipwreck scene in the show, we exited to a underwater shipwreck. That makes so much more sense now!

I had been reading to J prior the visit so there were a few sea creatures I really wanted to spot.

The hammerhead shark is one of them. We have a Safari Ltd TOOBS figure too so that helps.

I didn't expect such a beautiful picture though. I can lie there watching them for hours if I wouldn't get in the way of others.

Moray eels were in my list too since they are in the Ocean TOOBs we got.

I've always wanted to go through that tiny little entrance that looks like it is for children, but the three times I went with J, she was in a stroller. It's so much easier now that we were without one!

It's quite intriguing, watching the eels move. Reminds me of Flotsam and Jetsam from The Little Mermaid. So says the sis. It smells a little funky in there though.

We visited the Big Silver Fish (I don't know it's name) since J really like watching it the last time we were there. This is one huge fish that is popular with children.

Hello Nemo and Dory.

Ahh... I could sit in front of this for a long, long time too.

Sea jellies. Love them.

We even saw the itty bitty baby ones that are soo adorable! They are only about 1 cm.

The dolphins came.

This was our fourth visit but it was my first time seeing the dolphins.

And we saw them playing with the balls.

J likes them too, I believe, because one night before bed, she said "See dolphins play ball again. Next time."

And finally another one we see in the books - the lionfish!

I love the touch pool. We had a go touching the sea stars and J learnt a little about their textures - hard, bumpy. There were some sea cucumbers too which J missed since she doesn't really have gentle hands. 

I really appreciate the activity corner at the Open Ocean.
While I prefer to sit in front of the glass panel to look at the fishes and manta rays, J had other plans. She just wanted to walk up and down the stairs. Because... so many flights of stairs!
She wouldn't stop until I told her that we could do some colouring.
The volunteer on duty is a nice young man whom we bumped into at the touch pool, and once more when we took photos with the mascots as we were about to leave.

I don't know what these are called. Sea worms?

But they are one of my favourites.

Don't they look like they came out from some cartoon show? And they look like they can talk.

Like guinea pigs. Those talk too.

The Living Fossils exhibit is on when we visited (till 30th September) so we spotted some dinos.

I wasn't concentrating at this point because I was occupied with the "Annual pass or not?" question.

The cutest of them all.

The axolotl.

This one bumped into the sides of the tank and looked utterly confused. Or maybe it was going "Ugh. Did it again."

I'm sorry I laughed because it was really quite funny.

I thought of it as an alien sea creature until I googled for it's pronunciation and saw that people keep them as pets. A real-life pokemon!

We never had luck with mascots either so the manta ray was a pleasant surprise.

He/She even interacted with J and as her momma, I really appreciate that gesture.

As cliche as it may sound, I'm very grateful to my family for making this trip possible.

And for the love they give J.
She was one happy kiddo that day.


Sidenote:
I love the aquarium a lot and when my friend asked if I would get bored visiting it many times a year, my answer was a "no". I realised I could sit in front of some tanks for hours, just looking at the coral reef and fishes. There's just so much to see you know?
What kept me from getting the RWS Attractions Invites was the fact that I have difficulty travelling alone with J and the stroller, which is a necessity. Thank goodness my best friend for life, who is also my sister, shares the same thoughts about being in an aquarium, so yay! we both got our passes!

Note to self: Take photos in landscape next time.


Here's what else we did this week:

Preparation and Book List

Ocean Week - Day 1

Ocean Week - Day 2

Ocean Week - The rest of the week