Cardboard Boxes Play

I remembered that there are quite a few cardboard boxes available in the house. So decided to take it out for kids to play. 

They are so excited to see those boxes and arrange them to make a tunnel. After that, they pretend the boxes are their house, with garden around their house.

They are having such a great time pretending play with them. 

Pom Pom and Bottle Caps Colour Matching

This is an activity for FF to work on colour matching. I have collected various colours of recycled bottle caps. Thus I match those bottle caps with respective colours pom pom to do colour matching exercise. At the same time, this can be used to teach the toddler the colours name. 

Father's Day Decoration

During the week of Fathers' day, we were working on origami. We folded these origami shirts as our fathers' day decoration. We sticks them on cupboard in the living room, is it nice? 

DIY Popsicle Sticks Pattern Matching

Kids love to do matching, and I have a lot of cereal boxes. So I want to reuse them to make pattern matching game for them. 

I cut out rectangles from the cereal box and fold into half to make the holder for Popsicle sticks (one side opening). Next, I search through old papers, magazines and broucher to look for colorful patterns to use for matching. Last, paste those cutout patterns on rectangles and Popsicle sticks for pattern matching. 

Materials used:

1. Cereal box or cardboard 

2. Pen knife and/or scissors

3. Popsicle sticks or craft sticks

4. Glue and/or double sided tape 

5. Pattern paper (I get them from magazines, brouchers, gift wrap, scrapbook paper, etc)

 

After done the matching, kids pretend these are ice creams and lollipops. 

Popsicle Sticks and Bottle

FF likes this activities a lot. She almost does this activities at least once per day. She pours the Popsicle sticks out from the bottle and put them back in one by one. The hole of the bottle is quite small, so she required to pay attention in order to put the sticks into it.

Indoor Water Play

Recently the weather is very hot. Too hot for me to bring kids to go outside to play. Thus, I decided to let kids play at home with water - indoor water play.

I set up the play area at the bath room with some plastic stools. These are some of the materials use in the water play:

• Plastic containers (Reuse the packed food container) - coloured water
• Syringe
• Pipette (bought from Arts Friend)
• Sponge
• Spoons (different sizes and types)
• Plastic bottles (Reuse fruit juice bottles)
• Ice cube trays

Kids love this activities very much and played for about an hour before bath. In this activities, they learn about colour mixing, scooping, measuring, and some fine motor skills. At the same time, they also learn about sharing the items between siblings.

Nursery Rhymes: Hey Diddle Diddle

We sing the nursery rhymes - Hey Diddle Diddle with the laminated rhyme, word and picture cards. The rhyme and patterns are from Kizclub. After I printed it out, I laminated it and then put magnetic tape on each pictures.  

Kids love to sing this song and put the pictures/words on the magnetic board when we sang the name of the objects. It is such a fun way to learn about words and picture matching. In the printable, it also given the rhyming words for kid to work on.

Play with Egg Carton, Paper Beads and Luck Stars

F found an egg carton and asked for permission to play. I agreed and let her play. 

She took out some paper beads and lucky stars then slipped them into the egg carton through the hole when it was closed. FF saw how sister played, she also joined in. They slipped the beads and stars into the egg carton and then opened to pour it out repeatedly. 

Kids are very creative, they can find multiple ways to play the same materials without guidance from adult. 

DIY Insert Box

FF likes to insert things through holes. So I came out this idea to use cleaned milk carton to make it into a box with lid. I cut a hole on the lid and close the lid with Velcro. 

I gave her some snowflake puzzle pieces to insert into the box. After that, she can open the lid to take out the pieces and play again. 

DIY Weighing Scale

Y likes to do measuring and comparison, so we made this weighing scale for him to measure. This is our homemade weighing scale, made from spoilt cloth hanger, strings and recycled bowls. 

We are hanging it on the door, and they are measuring with anything, including lego bricks, pom poms, blocks and etc.

Homeschool Theme: Reptiles

For the past two weeks, we were working on the theme Reptiles.

These were some of the books that we read for this theme:

Chameleon's Colors

A Color of His Own
I found some activities and coloring pages for the book "A Color of His Own" from Creating Learning.

Kids also learn about reptiles from YouTube.
All About Sea Turtles


Reptiles - Learn About Animals For Kids

Singapore June Holiday List 2014

This year June's school holiday will be in Singapore. I am sourcing for activities or programmes for kids to attend in this holiday. These are the activities or programmes that I have found and suitable for kids age 6 and below (my eldest is 6 years old).

1. Children's Seasons
   
   
   
   
   
   Date: 24 May - 29 June 2014
   Venue: Various Museums and Galleries
   
   Click here for more information.
   
   There are activities for different age range. It is worth to try out some of the activities. The admission is free for most of the museum for Singapore PR and citizens.
   
2. Opera in the Park: Singapore Lyric Opera
   
   Date : 07 Jun 2014 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
   Venue : Shaw Foundation Symphony Stage
   
   For more information, click here.
   
   Bring your family and friends to enjoy the music and nature in the park while picnic there.
   
3. Workshop for kids: Hoo... Owls! - A Fun Workshop on Beautiful Birds at Night
   Date: 28 June 2014 (Saturday)
   Time: Workshop: 5.30 - 7.30pm
   Meeting point: Hort Park
   Fee: $25 per child (Suitable for ages 5 to 10)
   
   For more information, click here.
   
4. Kids STOP at Singapore Science Centre
   
   
   Venue: Singapore Science Centre
   Date: Opens from 6 June 2014
   Suitable for 18 months - 8 years old children.
   
   For more information, click here.
   
5. Singapore Zoo - Fun Wild Learning
   
   
   
   When: 7, 8, 14, 15, 21, 22, 28, 29 June 2014 (Sat & Sun)
   Where: Singapore Zoo
   
   Most of the events are suitable for 6 years old and above.
   For more information, click here.
   

DIY Marble Run from Cardboard Food Box

Kids are bored at home, so we decide to make marble run for them to play. We do not have excess toilet rolls, so we cut the cardboard box and roll into tubes to Mae marble run. 

They are so happy to play with this, but it is very fragile. After they played for the day, it was ruined. 

Busy Bag: Straws and cup

This is another busy bag activities for FF, she likes it a lot. Initially she wants to open the lid and pour out straws and put into the cup one by one. This is a pincer grip activity, and also pouring exercise.

F also likes this activity. She put the straws into the cup through the holes on the lid. After FF observed how F did it for few days, FF also managed to put the straws into the cup through the lid. This needs a lot of concentration from her to do it. 

 

As you can see from the photos, this activities is made from recycle items. It is a dessert cup with lid. I punched few holes on the lid with hole punch. Only smaller size straws able to fit through the holes.

Busy bag: Pom Pom Stuff

I had an used milk container that the opening just nice to fit the size of a pom pom. And I think it would be perfect for pom pom stuff, to push in pom pom into the container through the hole. It is a great exercise for her to practice her pincer grip.

 

FF loves this a lot. It is perfect for me to bring to church for her to play with. There are 8 colours of pom poms.

Easter Wreath

Last week, we were preparing for Easter. So, we made a Easter wreath from recycled cardboard. 

I cut out cardboard from cereal box and drew egg shapes on it. Kids cut out the egg shapes and colored them. 

While kids were colored the eggs, I cut out a donut shape from cardboard. Then I folded few cross from recycle paper. The found the simple origami instruction from YouTube. 

After kids were done with decorating the eggs, we pasted them on the donut shaped cardboard to make the Easter wreath. Lastly, glue the cross on it. This is out final product! 

Science Experiment - Paper Mobile

This science experiment is getting from the book that my son borrowed from school, it is called paper mobile.

In this experiment, kids can see that warm air rises and cool air coming down. The warm air is created by using the candle under the mobile. They can see the mobile is spinning. 

Recycle cardboard beads - letter recognition

We have a lot of food boxes, and not sure how to use them. I search through internet and realized that we can use them to make beads, and kids also like beading. 

Y used the beads to arrange letters. Such a great activities to learn alphabets.

 

Chinese New Year decoration - kusudama

Y mentioned he wanted to have decoration for Chinese New Year at home. 

So I was thinking to homemade the decoration. While I was searching for ideas what to make, I saw these beautiful origami ball at Clementi library. 

Thus, I search for the instruction for these paper folding, they are called kusudama.

I upcycled the red packets leftover from the pass few years to make this morning dew kusudama. It is very time consuming but the end result is so nice.