Jumping fun

Jr S is not so keen on gross motor activities, So we created this jumping fun activity by having her jump in the squares and triangles ( also circles but it is not pictured) She still just goes on her tip toes and sort of bounces , no real jumps yet . But as a fellow mommy told me, enjoy while she cannot jump because after that there is not stopping.

Clothespin fun

Jr S loves to do this activity with clothespins , I got the idea from Chasing Cheerios. I love this blog, and have used many many ideas from her blog. I had colored the pinching ends of the clothespins with markers when Jr S was about 15-16 months so that she would be able to identify the place to hold her fingers . But now she can do the task without cues.

Update on Kumon Books

After using just the sticker part of Kumon books we finally ventured to cut and paste and it was great. She finished about 8 pages in one sitting. I liked this activity , it focuses not only on fine motor but uses texture (glue) and analytical skills (while orienting the piece to be pasted) and gives a fun end product which can be proudly displayed on the Art Wall.

transfering rice grains

Another Montessori inspired activity, finally Jr S graduated from using bigger beans to using rice grains. She loves this task and is quite meticulous about clean up too. I adapted this using small  Anchor measuring cups.

Paper collage

We practiced tearing paper, what a great re-use of all my magazines and then pasted the pieces . Just a fun open ended activity.

pattern activity

I found these circles on a box of Kleenex during the back to school sale days. I cut up some of them and left some intact in groups of 3's. We had fun trying to create a pattern out of the cut up circles to match the one which was intact. It was a little challenging for Jr S but she seemed to like it for a brief session. Maybe I should stick magnets on them and have her do it on a cookie sheet.

one to one correspondence

For fall, we tried a one to one correspondence activity with silk leaves and plastic spiders. Jr S initially just wanted to put all the spider rings on her fingers but when she saw me doing the activity, she joined in and went on to do this twice in one sitting. A good lesson for left to right and one to one . Next time, I will try to do this with leaves we collect during our walks.

Bubble fun

So who does not love bubbles.... and Jr S is no exception, she loves running around chasing little bubbles all around. We love to modify this activity (similar to the one done in Gym classes for toddlers) by having her pop bubbles with her head, then hands and then stomp with her feet. She loves it every single time. Today I had her blow a few bubbles too and she did a fantastic job. She had tried this before with poor results and today she was sooooo thrilled.

sorting game with animals

We loved playing this sorting game with farm and wild animals with habitat . I drew some very bad backgrounds for farm and the forest and covered them with contact sheet. Then I drew some animals to go with the theme and covered them with contact paper too. After a brief introduction to activty, Jr S sorted the animals , we also talked briefly about the food they eat. She seems to have a special bond with the horse and cow, she even takes them for a ride in her trike!

Cooking !!

Jr S helps me when I make Phulkas ( loosely described as Indian bread) , It is a great activity for her too, she loves to play with the dough, use a rolling pin, add flour and now she graduated by actually tossing her phulka on the pan. when I tasted it, it was the yummiest phulka ever!

Sticker fun with Kumon

Jr S loved to stick these stickers from her Kumon lets stick and past book . I had brought these many months ago , she liked the sticker part, lets see how well she does with the actual pasting by herself. It starts from a open ended scene and upgrades to a result oriented one. Plus they make great wall art too.

Push pin activity

I really wanted to do the golf tee activity with hammer with Jr S but never got a chance to go and buy the tees. So I improvised and used pushpins instead. This gave me a chance to talk with Jr S about safety while handling sharp objects, we worked on left to right progression while pushing the pins through a piece of packing foam. It was so nice to see her self correcting when she thought that the pin was not in order. Next time I will buy some colored pushpins so that we can also work on sorting. The first picture shows her doing the activity, second picture is her finished product .

Update: Just wanted to update that Jr S did not hurt herself while doing this and I didn't have to remind her to hold the pins correctly. Hopefully this safety lesson carries through!

Not-so-pink tower

I saw this nesting bucket set at walmart and got it as I did not have any nesting materials at home. I did not attach the decals as it would have been a giveaway for the order (it has numbers on it) ,Jr S was able to stack them well and did it perfectly at first and then mischief set in so the possibilities were endless. This is actually one of our old activity but we do this when mood strikes. The tower is tall enough for her to stand and stack the last couple of blocks and buckets big enough for her to use both hands for a few of them.

Healthy foods

Latest on my healthy foods list is Ground flax meal. I sprinkle it on my yogurt, add a little sugar ( I have a sweet tooth) . Jr S eats a few spoonfuls too. Healthy and yummy.I hope I just keep up with it.

New Math !!

 We  have been reviewing basics like numbers , counting . But it was so much fun, the other day ,while S and I were talking, Jr S was entertaining herself by counting and it went like this... past 25...twenty six, twenty seven , twenty eight, twenty nine , twenty ten. It was hilarious !! I encouraged her by saying thirty and then she did the same thing past 39 saying, thirty ten. It may be wrong from academic point of view but does show that she has the concepts right. So I guess we will have to start sorting objects in double digits.

Fun with Spot

Jr S loves Spot, whether its books or DVD. That was one of her first books from the library. So when I spotted this sticker book on sale at Kroger, I knew I had to get it. Jr S and I had fun completing the pictures. She was able to do it better when I guided her with leading questions . I had to help her with the camping story as we havent done that yet. She loves to go back and talk about her sticker story book. She tried to do the same thing with her Sesame street stickers too.

Visit to the zoo

It was a great day yesterday to be outside and we decided to visit the zoo. Jr S loved crawling through the fish tunnel, enjoyed seeing the giraffe. She wanted to take them home with us. She insisted on seeing the Toucan but he was too shy. ( Jr S thinks that everything with colored stripes is a toucan -symbol, e.g. Toucan shirt ) We talked briefly about their habitat and diet. She had fun at the pumpkin patch there too. She really wanted to see polar bears like we had seen in Detroit , it was hard to convince her that the zoo did not have polar bears. All in all a fun trip.

Rangoli

Jr S tried to use rangoli for the first time. It is very hard even for me. But I thought this was a very good sensory experience for her, similar to sand /corn meal. We just taped a piece of construction paper on the patio and poured a little rangoli powder and let her go.

Diwali crafts

Jr S loved to assist me with making diya/clay lamps from Crayola No-bake clay and colored some pictures for a toran . We got the idea from here .We also made a cute kandil/lantern from chinese paper lanterns. Jr S loved to draw squiggles on it. A very messy activity but the result was worth it.

Diwali 2009

This year was the first year where Jr S could participate in Diwali celebrations with some awareness. So needless to say, I was very excited about it. I made diwali faral(sweet and savoury foods for the festival)-ladoo, chivada, shrikhand, kajukatli after many years.This picture of ladoo is not quite how the real ones looked but nevertheless, S and Jr S loved eating them.

introduction

Hello, My foray into the roller-coster world of parenting began 2 yrs ago with the birth of my darling daughter. My ideas of rearing a child ( clean house, cooing child who feeds well, drifts off to sleepy land with a lullaby) were quickly replaced with white noise for colic, probable lactose intolerance, no sleep patterns, exhausted days and nights. I scoured books for advice on parenting and all them swayed wildly from one philosophy to another... So like any mom, I decided to do what feels right. And thus my experiments began. Many failed , many succeeded. What helped me most was listening to real moms, who had tried and tested things . Then began the adventures of upcoming milestones and her need to be in constant occupation, which made me use my brains and internet to make these moments enjoyable for us.  Join me in my journey to parenting /fun and share your thoughts too. Thanks