DIY: Bath Paints & Playdough

Jashley and I had fun with our colorful activities yesterday. This is what I love about holidays I get to spend a whole day of play with my daughter. Daddy went to office that day so we had the whole day to ourselves.

We did first an activity that is part of our "Letter A Activities" but I'm going to show it on a separate post as soon as we finished all the activities that are lined up for the letter A.

After we finished that activity, it was time for her bath so I decided to make a bath paints to make her bath time even more fun, after all its been months now since our last bath play.

Let's begin with the things you'll need:

1.5 cup of water
5 tablespoons of corn starch
washable paints (I used the Crayola brand)/food coloring (alternative)
a container
paint brushes

And here’s how to make it:

Dissolve cornstarch in a half cup water. In a medium cooking pan bring to boil the remaining 1 cup of water. Gently pour the water and corn starch mixture into the boiling water while continiously stirring it. You may add more corn starch if you want a more thick consistency, enough to stick to the wall. Take your containers and evenly distribute the mixture. Add a different color of washable paints in each mixture, you may use coloring food if you don't have washable paints. Now grab those paint brushes and let your little one have fun painting.

Reminder: Don't forget to test the paint first and see if it won't stain your toilet walls.

I can't tell the excitement she felt after I invited her and saw the paint pots I set up inside the bathroom. She exclaimed "Wow! What's that Mommy?" Since she already can identify colors I just explain to her what paint is and how to use it. After a little demo I let her experience it.

"Look Mommy I made an H"

Of course it wasn’t long before the paint brush was discarded and the hand painting began.  

I thought it's a perfect time to teach her the secondary colors, so while she is submerging her little hand into each of the bath paints container. I explained to her that yellow & red makes orange, blue & yellow makes green, red and blue makes violet. 

The cleaning part was fun for her too. Look how easily the paint washes off.

I love that my little girl was not only squeaky clean after this but also pretty much had her art class inside the bath. 

After bathing we had our lunch and I set her for her afternoon nap. While she was taking her nap I prepare another activity.

On our recent grocery trip Jashley saw a set of play-dough at the toy section and asked us to buy one. But Hubby didn't allow us to buy because of an incident happen before. She was a year and a half old back then when she put a piece of play-dough on her mouth and chew it while playing with a friend's kids play-dough, luckily Mommy was fast enough to remove it in her mouth before she was able to swallow it. So since then we always put on hold any activity that involves play-dough.

But because she was now getting curious about this play-dough that she saw on toy reviews on YouTube and always  asking me if I can buy play-dough for her, I wonder if I can make an edible one or at least something that is not toxic compare to those commercially available ones. I searched online for recipes, there were a lot of them, and I actually wanted to do the no cook recipe, but most of the recipes that says "best homemade play-dough" always requires to be cooked. So I decided to make the cooked one.

Here's the materials you'll need:

1 cup of water
1 cup of flour
1/2 cup of salt
1 tablespoon of oil
1 tablespoon cream of tartar
food coloring
a cooking pan and a spoon

Here's how to do it:

1. Combine water, flour, salt, oil, & cream of tartar in the cooking pan.
2. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until it thickens and begin to gather around the spoon.

3. Remove from the stove and let it cool.
4  Divide it evenly depends on how many colors you wanted to make.
4. Knead it and add a drop of food coloring. You may sprinkle more flour while kneading if it is a little sticky.

Take out your cookie cutters and plastic/toy knife and your now ready to play.

Here's my Little Lady Bug excited for her homemade play-dough.

After a demo, there she is looking like an expert in kneading her dough.

Cutting with the cookie cutters.

Mommy's bunny and Jashley's bear and elephant.

Cutting using her plastic toy knife.

She made a birthday cake for Mommy too. 

Beside the fun that it gives the child, this activity is great for developing strength in the hands and fingers and is perfect for building those fine motor skills too.

I guess she love this activity so much that she asked mo to play with it again this weekend

So that's how we spend our colorful and fun holiday. Till next time.

DIY: Dot Dabbers

I've been on a hunt for a Do-A-Dot Marker or a Dot Dabber for months now, it is not widely available on stores here in our country, and when I finally found it on one bookstore, the price is way out of my budget. I checked online stores too but it's expensive as well. So I wonder if I could possibly make my own Dot Marker. I'm looking for an empty bingo dauber bottles online but most of them requires a minimum pieces of order, since I only need a few pieces for this project buying from them is not practical. Until I found a bottle of clear glue which has a sponge like applicator head at the school/office supplies store near my workplace for 10 php each. Good thing the bottle caps comes with 3 different colors that is perfect for this project, I bought 3 pieces of it as I was planning to make the primary colors only.

Aside from the bottle with sponge tip you'll be needing paint also, I have left over poster paint that was use during the children ministry activity on our church. It is a washable poster paint that is perfect for toddlers.

I mix half part of paint to 1 part of the clear glue, yes, I used the clear glue that comes with bottle. You can use water if you want, I tried mixing it with water but the consistency was too watery, so I decided to make use of the clear glue instead.

Mix it up and pour back the solution on the glue bottle, screw back the sponge tip applicator, do the same with the other colors and your DIY Dot Markers are now ready to use.

My Li'l Lady Bug immediately tested it with the printable Do-A-Dot worksheets we found from these generous sites.

http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2012/12/a-z-do-a-dot-worksheets.html
http://overthebigmoon.com/full-alphabet-letter-identification-printables/

I think the consistency was still runny that if you will hold it in an upside down position for a long time the solution is coming out of the sponge tip even without squeezing it. So I'm thinking of either changing the solution's recipe or do something with the sponge tip. If you have other ideas regarding this, please comment away. I'd love to hear from you.

Animal Themed Activities for Toddlers

My little girl loves animals so much, she's so interested about them, their names, the sounds they make (I remember how she gets stunned with cat's "meows" and dog's barks when she was around 9 months old), their habitat, and more.

So I decided to make a list of the fun activities/plays we had about learning animals so far. These were mostly an introduction on learning about animals, and didn't require a lot of time in terms of preparation. we just basically use whatever animal toys/replicas we have at that time. Of course as much as I want to recreate those bunch of wonderful homeschooling lessons that you can find on the world wide web, it's quite hard to find time. So this working Mommy's solution is to just recreate as much play as we can using whatever toys she have at the moment.

These plastic mold shape sea animals is a great tool we used in introducing her the animals that swims on the water. We had fun using them during our bath-time plays and sand play (during one of our beach trip). Aside from the fun and learning that these plays gives to her, she also acquire developmental advantages for physical, social, cognitive, sensory, and speech.

Next was this animal wooden puzzle, she loves naming each animals before fitting them in their right place. We sometimes use this on our story telling sessions if there are animals involve.

This Melissa & Doug Water Wow coloring book, also helps her in identifying different types of animals and their habitats, as this book has 4 animal-themed pages---farm animals, sea animals, pet animals and jungle animals. This book have faded pictures which shows up when the water pen rubbed over them,  she loves finding those hidden item listed on the back side of the previous page.

My little girl loves story telling so much, even more if its about animals, she always choose stories about animals every bedtime story session. And to make our story telling more exciting & fun I sometimes bought books like these. With these a simple story telling become a playful one.

She loves those big eyes of the insects.

includes a finger puppet head of the main character. 
She giggles whenever I animate the puppet while reading. 
We also have the puppy and mouse version of these books. 

"I got big eyes too, like Mr. Ant, Mommy" --she said

I was so amazed how Jashley was able to recognized all this animals in their silhouette. This was used on the animal hunting activity prepared by my cousins for the kids on our family Christmas party last December. These silhouetted animals was scattered all over the place/venue (under the tables/chairs, behind the trees/plants, etc.), We were given list of the animals we need to find. As we were hunting this cutout animals I was so surprised that she was able to identify almost all the animal we found and when I check the list it's sure does written there. Well I think the wooden animal puzzle is somehow responsible for that.

She enjoys this simple game wherein someone will show her the cutout, then she'll say the color, the name and the sound of that particular animal.

here is Papa (FIL) and her playing that game

there she was making the sound of the lion... ROAR!!!!!

and the elphants trumpet sound... EEEEEEE!!!!

This Cutout Animal Foam-sheets not only helps her in terms of expanding her vocabulary and language skills but also helps develop her cognitive skills and a great visual sensory activity.

She was recently got curious about land, water and sky animals, that she frequently checks on me whether a *insert any animal name here* walks on the land/fly in the sky/swim on the water. So to make her understand more about it I bought an animal replicas, made a land/grass sensory bin using a green colored spaghetti pasta that was break into pieces to make it look like grass and filled a basin with water and add a drop of blue food coloring to make it look like an ocean.

I asked her to sort out the animals in its respective habitats. She had fun doing this activity causing us to repeat it several times as requested by her.  

carefully bringing the animals on their respective home

"this donkey walks on the land, right Mommy?" -she asked

And this another activity that I just quickly put up when she suddenly demand for a play, I grab one of her animal book and ask her to match her animal replicas to the pictures of the animals in the book.

She's busy working with the activity when she noticed that she don't have the replicas of some of the animals in the pictures, She blurted out "Wala ako rabbit (I don't have rabbit), lets buy a rabbit Mommy, Ok?".

This may not much as compared to the overwhelming animal activity on web that I wanted to recreate for her, but knowing that my little girl enjoyed every single activity we did, it definitely made me happy and inspired to prepare more activities/plays for her.  

How I discover Montessori Education

When I noticed that Jashley started to get curious on things around her, when she can already identify things, when she was able to follow a simple instruction, and can speak a few words, I take that as a cue that she's now ready for some simple activities that we can enjoy together. Back then all I want is for her to enjoy, to be entertained and of course to learn, simple as that. I strongly believe in the power of learning through play, that children learn more when they are playing and develop a lot of skills through playing. Thus explains the teaching strategy I do with Jashley, I want her to associate learning as a fun thing to do not a tiring one. Little did I know that somehow I was already applying Montessori Principles on our activities and plays.

Here are some of the example activities she have done, which I just recently realized was also using in Montessori Teaching:

This Fabric Fishing Toy that I made for her. My only reason in making these back then, was because I know she will have fun playing this and because she love fishes so much. I didn't know that it's a great activity in developing physical skills such as hand and eye coordination, gross motor and fine motor skills.

Another one is this Cutting Fruit and Vegetables Set that I got from a toy store. Again when I bought these I just thought that she'll have fun cutting these foods. But beside using it to teach her about fruits and vegetables, I realized that this is also a practical life lesson on teaching her how to use knife and it helps develop fine motor skills too.

When I allow her to play sand the only purpose I have in mind was to let her to experience the sand. I didn't realize that it is actually benefiting her tactile sensory. By digging, pouring or filling the sand into bucket also helps her develop her fine motor skills, it also encourages creativity and imagination, writing letter/words in the sand offers a chance to develop language skills as well.

Even some of the stuffs I have featured on this post were not only helped her learn alphabets, shapes and colors but also develop some essential life skills.

Like the Shape Sorter that develops fine motor skills and helps improved problem solving skills.

As well as Puzzles that develops cognitive skills, helps enhance child's memory, also builds self steem and gives sense of achievement and pride within themselves after completing the Puzzle.

While the Movable Magnetic Letters, Alphabet Charts and Books helps in developing language skills.

Magnetic Sketchboard doesn't only help her practice her three-finger grip in preparation for writing but also helps in honing her creative skills, even encourage hand and eye coordination.

And when I let her engaged in some of the household chores or let her involved in kitchen activities all I know is, it will be fun for her as she gets to play with water, or she'll be able to experience preparing her own snack. What I didn't realize is she was practicing more skills in doing those. It helps refine her movement, provide sense of accomplishment, and most of all its gains independence and confidence.

I didn't realize how much of a skills my little have been acquiring on those activities until I learn about Montessori. Before Whenever I hear that word Montessori the only thing that registers on my mind is a school, because I always thought that "Montessori" is just a name of a school. And then one day while I was looking for activity ideas for toddlers on the internet, the "Montessori" word kept on appearing on my result searches. Thus makes me curious about Montessori education. From then on I fell in love with its principle. And that's how my love affair with Montessori started.