Sound Exploration @ 8 months

Over the last weekend, we have decided to let lil' Sury to explore with sounds. We lay infront of her a a variety of objects and cookies sheet. Letting her freely to drop the different items  as she wish on the cookies sheet and hear the individual sound created.

I must admit, it was quite noisy because she ended up banging 2 to 3 items all at one go with a tiny grasp. Nonetheless, she also happen to learn to explore shapes and practice her pinching grasp (using thumb and opposed fore finger)

;D

Me, Mommy and Santa

It was Christmas over the week, we had our play school session with a theme called magical Christmas. We wanted the children to know who is santa, how is he lik, what does he likes and what does he do all year round. Therefore we have DIY quite a number of stuff to bring the story alive.

DIY chimney and christmas tree

DIY Santa hand puppet

We start off the session by dancing to the 'Hello Song' and 'Make-A-Circle' song.

Next come the story telling of the story 'I am Santa'. Of course the santa did attract some curious kids who try to grab hold of him during the session.

After the story session, the kids are lead to the kitchen for cookies baking... baked for who?? baked for santa of course!!

Kids taking runs to collect their freshly baked cookies and placed them under the christmas tree for santa claus. Of course we old the kids that once they have finish putting the cookies under the tree, santa will placed their presents under the tree.

OH...!! after the kids finish with the cookies placing, there still no signs of the presents. MY..my..my..!! santa is stuck in north pole cause all the reindeers are caught in the valley of snow due to the snow storm.

Children need to go through obstacle to rescue the reindeers from the snow valley

 Wo..LA....!!! The presents magically appear after all the reindeer is rescue..

We end the session by showing the kids the words related to the reindeer rescue activity while they have fun at the snow pit

The children learning :

Physical development - simple obstacle such as tunnel, steps and caves

language development - I am Santa Story

Life Skill Development - cookies baking

Word Association - Word cards related to the activity

Sensory play - snow texture and snowman making

Taste and Texture Exploration @ 8 months

This week were are doing taste and texture exploration for lil' sury baby school. One of the reason is because she has been picky with her food recently and we decided to let her explore her own food and to train her to feed herself as well.

Despite the mess, this is a very good activity, as it helps baby to explore her food through texture and taste, practice her grasp, hand-eye coordination (to feed own self).

To our surprise, she actually willing to share her food with her grandma.

P/s : to teach baby/toddler to share and appreciate sharing, must always ask for it with a please and then when he/she gave you, you must reply thank you

It was messy but a big fun for all of us...especially lil' sury =D

Obstacle Crawl For Babies @ 8 months

We have decided to start of baby school for our daughter lil' sury at 8 months old. For baby school its only 15 - 20 mins a day (which can be separated into a few session of 5 mins or 10 mins). The baby school is more of an interactive, self exploration activities to help baby to develop their skills, senses, mobility, strength, brain and many more. =D

Obstacle crawl is a very good exploration for babies as it helps the baby to develop physical strength, enhance mobility and initiate critical thinking (as they need to configure how to coordinate the body to get to the desire location/ items) 

Methods :

1. place baby in a flat padded surface like a bed or play mat. Never put baby in a too soft mattress or mat (as it will affect it mobility rate)

2. use soft pillow or cushion to create simple obstacle for first timer and gradually add more to increase the level.

3. limit it to 1 time obstacle crawl per session. Do not let baby do it consecutively as it will exhaust and bored the baby

4. always encourage baby by placing his/her favorite items in front of him (about 3 feet away). 

5. Always shower baby with kisses and praise when he finish his/her crawl and obtained the item. It will encourage baby to do better and look forward for it all time.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs ;D

Over the weekend, we had a sensory play with the theme 'cloudy with a chance of meatballs' Where we bring the story to live by building a small Chewandswallow town.

we start off the class by issuing each student a passport for them to collect stickers at various activity station

then we move on to the first station.. the colour sorting activity.

The children are shown words cards for the colours and then they are required to sort all the items lay out into their colour category.

After that, we move on to the sensory play activity. We had a story telling for 'cloudy with a chance of meatballs' where there is spaghetti tornado, milk rain, jello mountain and etc. After the story ended, the children had their chances of feeling and playing with the jello, spaghetti as their sensory play  

Next come the life skill activity station... the cutting table and colouring table. This is to let the children learn how to cut and explain to them the danger of scissors and how to manage the scissors.

This is the scribble-colouring activity to let the children master their hand movement. It's an important skill that they will need to master for future hand writing.

P/s : sorry that we we not able to take any pictures during this activity as as i was alone and i got a handful of students to handle during the activity. it was quite a messy play but a lot- a lot of fun for all of us =)

Ice Popsicle Painting

This week we have  ice Popsicle painting. The idea came by while i was trying to find ways to introduce colours to my students.. so the best way is through painting. But i didn't want them to use poster colour due to the toxic and natural color pigment is expensive in KL. SO.... there is how ice popsicle painting came by. 

The ice popsicle !

I uses food colouring to make the colours. In a way its safer even if children happens to put it in the mouth. 

The children started painting away almost immediately. half way through they even started to explore by painting the ice on their palms and make palm prints. =D

Some of the masterpieces... doesn't it look like Leonardo's in making ;p

It was such a hit... the children had a great time painting themselves away. They even amused themselves by discovering that they actually created new colour when then painted one color over the other.

Learning outcome

Color recognition - children get the learn the colour names and how it looks like

Sorting skills - ability to put back the popsicle in the correct color tray

Active exploration - discovery of more colours by painting one over the other, discovery of ice sensation (how cold feels like)

Gross motor skills- practice movement of the hand, fingers and wrist that will help them in future when they learning writing.