Fine Motor Skill : Buttoning

Have been delaying this project because I'm not very good at sewing.

Materials:

• Felt Fabric (Actually i think any fabric?)
• Sewing kit
• Buttons

Steps:

1. Estimate the place where you want the buttons to be at.

(you can use a pen to make a mark where you want the buttons to be at.)

2. Sew the buttons on.

3. Fold and sew the sides so it kind of form a pouch.

4. Cut holds on the "cover" side to put the buttons through.

The hole expands after a few tries. Would probably need to find out how to make the hole area tougher, maybe some glue?

Overall quite a fun task for my little one and it's kinda a prelude? to get her to button her own clothes. Fabric and sewing kit bought from Daiso.

Once she is bored with it, I can still use it as pouch to store random stuffs! :)

Fine Motor Skill : Threading Practice

This "project" is inspired by a mummy in a mummies group.

Materials:

• Paper / Coloured paper
• Hole Puncher
• Stickers (tapes or recycle picture from magazines/used books)
• Shoelace
• (optional) Laminate machine & Laminate pouch

Steps:

1. Cut out the "base" shapes.

2. Stick stickers or glue any pictures on.

3. Laminate it to make it more durable. If you do not have the machine you can use thicker quality paper or you can also stick paper to a recycle tissue box.

4. Using hole puncher, punch holes all around the "base" shapes.

*Do not leave toddler alone with shoelace, supervise each play session and keep shoelace away from child whenever it's not in use*

My little one loves it.

She have had 2 sessions with it and it's quite fun seeing her tugging at the long shoelace.

I like that it's easy to make and doesn't cost much.

Short entry today.. can't wait to start on my next project/activity. :)

Cotton On Online Purchase + Art Stencil for my toddler

I love free shipping and I love sales.

I think I've blogged about cotton on before and yes I just ordered some items online again.

This time I bought 10 items for SGD50 including delivery.

 

1. Slippers $2

2. Stencil Kit $5

3. Huge Wooden Peg $1

4. Bralette $10

5. Long sleeve top $5

6. BATGIRL Tee $5

7. Red Shorts $5

8. Kids Raincoat $5

9.  Kids Long Sleeve Top $7

10. Kids Shorts $5

This is to replace my previous pair of slippers which is getting too slippery.

Fits me quite well and it's only $2.

Fine Motor Skill : Stencil Kit

This Stencil kit is really worth it!

Usual Price is $17.95 but it's only $5 during sale!

Originally thought it's a small stencil but it's actually 10 huge stencil.

Here's my little one exploring the stencil using Homemade Paint and a little sponge.

It's fun and it's reusable!

Love it! Best purchase.

Fine Motor Skill : Homemade Paint for Toddlers

I love art but I'm terrible at it. If there's anything that I did as badly as history, it would be art (okay maybe and social studies too?)

My drawings always end up looking way different from what's in my mind and my projects always looks like I didn't put in effort on them. *You will get to see my artwork at the end of the post and you will know I am not lying. lol.

I remember that when I was young my mother hates it when I paint cause the paints are so expensive and I always makes a mess. She would line newspaper on the floor and I would work on  the newspaper, but somehow the paint will get on the floor, the walls and even on my face, hand, legs and hair. The newspaper would also give me dark patches on my hands and legs.

Oh don't get me started on the favourite paints always running out before the other colours. Or when you're painting and then you realise you run out of paint or the paint is so old that it has dried up..

~

Fast forward 18 years, today I'm preparing paint for my little one to explore and play!

Just like the play dough that I blog about recently, this recipe for non toxic paint idea came from the mummies online too!

Using simple kitchen ingredients to make non toxic paint !

Materials:

• Flour (plain/all purpose flour)
• Salt
• Water (Warm-hot water)
• Cup/Bowl/Palette
• Something to stir
• A Sieve
• Food Colouring (I use Yellow, Blue and Red)

Steps:

1. Mix approximately 1/2 cup Flour and approx. 5 spoonful of Salt together.

2. Slowly add in 1/2 cup of water (I prefer to use warm-hot water) while stirring with (spoon/chopstick/anything)

Stop when you feel that it's just right (thick liquid just like paint)

3. Using a sieve, pour the liquid through the sieve to the container for the paint.

This step ensure that there is no lumps of flour in the mixture that is not mixed well.

4. Drop a few drops of food colouring in the mixture and stir it till the colour is even. If the colour is too light just add more food colouring. You can also mix the colours to get another colour. :)

Here are some photos in case you're not too fond of words..

Flour + Salt + Water

Remember to sieve it if you want a smother paint.

I use 3 small containers to store the paint as each time I make the paint I can use it for about 2 sessions of art and craft with my cutie pie.

Food Colouring

I let my toddler help me with stirring in the food colouring.

If the colour is not to my liking I would add more drops of food colouring.

and carrying on stirring..

3 Primary Colours

If we are doing painting with paint brushes I would pour them onto a palette for us.

It's good for making more colours too.

If we are doing sponging art I would use old paper plates

(yeah still I keep paper plates leftover from buffet in 2012-2013)

*For sponge I purchase the cheap ones from Daiso just for her to play.

Usually she gets to work on her own, sometimes I do a "sample" and she would attempt to follow.

Once it's done, sun it or just let it dry on it's own..

Hers look very watered down because she kept cleaning her brush in the small bowl of water I placed there for her to wash her brush.

I try to let her do her art on her own because that's how she would get to practise using her hands.

By the way we are actually painting a happy cartoon SUN, in case you can't tell..

Yeah.. I wasn't joking when I say my art is not very good...

Would you try this with your little one? Let me know? :)

Review : Sweet & Spicy Topokki Hot Sauce

Item : Sweet & Spicy Topokki Hot Sauce
Price : $2.40 (NTUC Fairprice)


Product Review :
I've come across this on the shelf at NTUC many times but never though of purchasing it cause no one eating with me and I don't think I can finish it all.. The other day I decide to cook this as my brother would be home for dinner.

Usage :
Super easy, just boil the rice cakes, add the sauce and stir!

Taste:
It's really nice but I think I had too much water and rice cake. :D

Will I purchase it again? Yes I would probably purchase it again!

Fine Motor Skill : Homemade Dough for Play

I love playing play-dough when I was a kid but unfortunately it's quite messy and expensive so I didn't really have much chance to play with it.

Thankful for the internet, for google and also to all the mummies who shares information online, I found out that you can actually make non toxic play dough with kitchen ingredients!

Materials:

• Flour (all purpose flour)
• Salt
• Water (lukewarm water works better imo)
• Big Bowl
• Food Colouring (optional*)

Steps:

1. Mix approximately 1 cup Flour and 1/2 cup Salt together in a big bowl.

2. Slowly add in 1/2 cup of water while stiring or mixing with your hands/fork.

Stop when you feel that it's just right (mushy, not watery)

3. Keep kneading it until it's ready to play, if it's too wet add a bit of flour, if it's too "flour-y" add a bit of water.

4. Drop a few drops of food colouring in the dough and knead it till the dough changes to the colour that you want. This is optional, no need to add food colouring if you are okay with white dough. :)

3 Primary colours (Yellow, Blue and Red) is all you need.

You can mix the colours to get different colours.

Eg Yellow + Blue = Green

Yellow + Red = Orange

Red + Blue = Purple

From another playing session:

I did the dough-man and she gave the it legs! lol.

Also did the numbers and held her hand to trace them.

Previously I made her some cards with shapes and their names in English/Chinese, decide to take them out so she can fill up the shapes (e.g. see star and heart which was done by me lol.)

Then she decide to fascinate me by making little pieces of dough and placing them on the points on the shapes instead. (Other than oval and circle which has no points so she placed the dough randomly, the rest are right! 3 points on triangle and 4 points each on rectangle, square and rhombus.)

Cutie pie loves playing with them and could play whole day. Usually I would make them in the morning/noon and she will play for a few sessions throughout the day. When it's time to eat I would keep them in a box and so that it will not dry up so fast. :)

Gross Motor Skill : Climbing Up and Down

Okay I actually did this with my cutie pie approximately 4+ months back, in late Nov 2014.
Regret that I haven been doing much of this with her recently but she does gets her twice weekly stairs climbing when we pass by her usual stairs climbing place...

Toddler's Age : Approximate 24 months old (2 years old)

Material:

• A few stools/chairs of different heights.
• A little toy for child to hold (optional, to increase difficulty)

Steps:

1. Arrange the stools/chairs in a row, in random order, or a "hill shape"if you like.

2. Show toddler how you would complete the whole sequence (walk on the stools) and encourage him/her to try.

3. During his/her first walk/climb, hold his/her hand, after gaining confidence he/she will not want you to hold his/her hands anymore. (You may want to do it on a mat but I find that the stools are not that stable when placed on the mat and kids being kids may feel that since there's a mat it's okay to fall and will not be that serious in completing the activity properly)

4. After playing a few rounds you can change the order of the stools to make it more interesting.

5. When he/she is confident and is able to complete the activity, you may consider adding a little game to it at the end. Eg. Kids bowling or throwing a ball. He/she will need to hold on to the ball while climbing up and down the stools, then followed by attempting to knock down the pins with the ball in his/her hand.

This is especially good for rainy days or days you don't want to bring your little one out to the playground!

Playgrounds are good for their gross motor skills as they need to climb up to get to the slides and sometimes they need to crawl through tunnel too! However the playground usually have many older kids that play really rough (kids playing catching, or even playing badminton right in front of the slides!) and sometimes it's either too hot (11-3pm) or too wet (anyone else feels that it's raining the whole year round?), or maybe you are simply afraid that your kid may come into contact with some virus from another child who is unwell? (yes coughing kids, kids with runny nose, even kids with fever cooling patch still on their forehead spotted at the playground. -.-), or maybe the mosquitoes are keeping you away (dengue)? 

Alright, that's all for now, hope you enjoyed my gross/fine motor series so far. :)