My ways of helping Medha to love reading

Helping your children enjoy reading is one of the most important things you can do as a parent and it's well worth the investment of your time and energy.

Book Review : Up Down by Tulika

I was impressed with the given description for the book and immediately got this for Medha from library. It’s a simple story about a little boy who wants to play on a see-saw, but all his animal playmates are either too light or heavy for him – until a little girl comes along.

Title : Up Down

Author :  Vinayak Varma

Publisher : Tulika
Pages : 16
Ages:  3-6
Bilingual: English-Bengali, English-Hindi, English-Kannada, English-Tamil, English-Telugu

What is Fine Motor Skills?

Hope all of you know what Fine Motor skills are! Okay if not, it is the ability to use the mussels that control the movement of fingers, thumb and hand, in co-ordination with the eyes.

By preschool age, a child normally will be able to these simple tasks by themselves:

• button up a shirt
• using a pencil or a crayon
• paste objects
• pick blocks and stack them
• use of a scissors
• cut pieces of paper into small pieces
• tie a shoe lace
• pour water from a jug to a cup
• the use of cutlery

The day when you were born!!

Dear daughter,

The best thing about the 9 months of pregnancy was guessing whether you'll be a girl or a boy! Yes, we had never assumed whether you'll be a boy or a girl. But just before few days of delivery I strongly assumed that it's a GIRL. Not sure why!!! 

When the moment finally came, the time you were born..a girl..your father was the happiest, as I guess, he knew you'll always be his little girl who'll favor him over mumma!

Skill O Fun Wooden Learning Toys

I had first picked up their products at Toys n Toys, Bangalore 2 years back, to encourage Medha's fine mortar skills. This was my first purchase from Skill-O-Fun toys range for Medha. 

Print any post or Save as PDF

Introducing another new feature on the Blog... Have you seen the new Download / Print button at the end of each post? 

You can email any post to your dear ones and save as PDF. You can also exclude the specific content while printing or saving. 

Now you can easily save any post (with pictures or without pictures) as a PDF onto your desktop.. And read it offline. Go on try it for a favorite post of yours.. Don't forget to tell me which post you downloaded / would like to download. :) 

Book review : Thumb Thumb Series - Tulika’s Thumbprint Books

Today we are reviewing the Thumb Thumb series – Tulika’s Thumbprint Books. Just about 10 pages each, about the size of a 5x7 photo album, in paperback, packed with wonder. 

There is no discounting the appeal of simplicity and playfulness in reading to kids. Thumbprint makes up the art work, and a few simple sentences makes up the story, such as it is. Each book affirms 'I can read this book' at the end which is empowering for beginner readers.

Our 4th Happy Anniversary!!!!

When I got married to Rajesh 4 years back, both of us were sure we've found our soul mates. That feeling/belief has only become stronger now....  HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!! :) 

Color Collage Making Activity

Again for the color recognition confidence activity, I got Medha to do Color Collage Making Activity. For this I thought of starting with 3 basic colors Blue, Green, Yellow.

Materials:

• Chart papers of colors I wanted to teach/practice. I didn't find exact green color chart hence I went ahead with the shade of green and explained Medha that it's LIGHT GREEN color.
• Various pictures in the colors I picked above. This I googled for few pictures with color mentioned. ex: 'green color pictures for kids', 'yellow color pictures for kids' etc.

Happy Anniversary

"We began as strangers. 

We became friends. 

We became one with each other... 

We remain as one forever. 

Happy Wedding Anniversary

To The One I Love!"

You are the greatest gift from GOD. I have no important wish to have you for the rest of my life. 

"Love is like a lump of gold,

Hard to get, hard to hold.

Out of all the people I've met, 

You are the one I can't forget, 

I do believe that God 

created you for me to love, 

He choose you from all the rest,

because He knew you would 

love me best!!!!"

When we first met,  I had no idea you would be so important to me. :) I LOVE BEING MARRIED TO YOU!!!

We have walked 4 years together

on this journey of life....

We have shared joy and trouble, 

tender times as well as strife.

God has surely blessed us ,

He has given us undying love

That has proven not to dim.

Each day is such a blessing

When I spend that day with you

I am more than ever thankful 

for the day we said, "I do."

I Loved you YESTERDAY,

I Love you STILL,

I always HAVE, 

I always WILL.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

Book Actvities Brown bear Brown bear what do u see?

To increase the confidence in identifying the colors, I wanted to get Medha to match colors with the color of each animal in Brown Bear Brown Bear What do you see? book. But the question is which one to give for matching. First I looked for crayons she had right now, but I didn't find some colors which are in the book. And then I checked her pom-poms, even in that I didn't find few colors.

Later I decided to print/buy some color papers and thought of asking her to match. But suddenly I remembered that I have an unopened play dough  box I bought for Medha. Luckily it has every color I need for matching with those of book.

Book Review : Brown Bear Brown Bear What do you see?

This week we focused more on Colors and confidence activity for already known colors. So I picked 'Brown Bear Brown Bear What do you See?' - a picture book by Bill Martin Jr. Pictures by Eric Carle.

Title : Brown Bear Brown Bear What do you See?

Author : Eric Carle 

Publisher : Penguin

Now Follow the blog by your mail

I am happy to announce to all my friends and readers of my blog that now you can follow up all my post using Follow by Email option. You don't have to keep visiting my blog to see if any new thing added here. 

You can find this option on the right hand side of the blog page :) 

Just enter your email id and Submit. The page takes you to enter verification text and you have verified yourself, you will start receiving mails everyday if there is any new content posted to the blog. No matter whether I share it on Google+ or Facebook, you won't miss even single post. So what are you waiting for, subscribe yourself. :)

Peel n Stick Craft : Parrot

As Medha liked No cutting no gluing peel and stick Butterfly craft, I bought one more similar to this but PARROT this time.

As the activity process is same as butterfly, I am not repeating it again except that sharing picture :)  :)

Review : Little Reader's Nook

I spoke to Devaki over phone after I saw the post about Reading Books Kit Subscription Box in facebook. I was very impressed with the idea of picking best books for a theme and send to customers. I thought of giving a try by keeping following things in the mind:

• I don't have to read reviews to find out which book will be good for Medha and 
• No shopping stress
• I can get tips to raise Medha as a good reader 
• Books are as per a new Theme every month 
• Age appropriate books
• Vocabulary tips 

Tissue Art

From the day I saw the Tissue Art for Kids in Pinterest, I was searching for tissue papers to make this at home for Medha. But luckily I found Tissue Art Kit itself for Kids online. Big Time Saver for a working mom like me :)  

If you have time you can do this at home too with different color tissue papers by dipping available normal tissues in color and dry them. Instead of sticky papers, try school labels just to begin with. If you want to try more, you can cut a chart paper into various shapes and apply fevicol or fevistick all over the paper and ask them to stick the color paper pieces you prepared. Easy right?? 

I thought of trying this at home, but I couldn't find time to do. And before I invest time, I found the one in online. Thought of trying it if Medha likes it. Unfortunately she didn't like it much. But I don't give up and will surely try same activity after few days again :) 

Flinto Subscription Boxes - September Theme

As I mentioned in my previous post flinto-subscription-october-boxes I bought their last month box too. It is SPACE ADVENTURE. 

Here is sneak-peak of September month's theme box of FLINTO. 

Book Review : Good Night Gorilla

Now I am not completely sure what it was about this book that held Medha’s interest for months. For a few months this was honestly Medha’s favorite book (probably around 9 months). At 9 months this was her must read bedtime book. :)

Title : Good Night Gorilla

Author :  Peggy Rathmann

Publisher : G.P.Putnam's Sons

Book review : What Shall I Make?

I have got "What Shall I make?" story book for Medha from the library. Here is our review on this book. 

Title : What Shall I make

Author :  Nandini Nayar 

Publisher : Tulika Publisher

Happy Engagement Anniversary

Our love is like

The ocean

So beautiful and 

So vast.

Thanks for being 

A part of my life 

Happy

engagement anniversary my dear

May our anniversary lead to many more glorious years of happiness and joy. Let's celebrate and make this occasion too a memorable one. 

I love you more and more each year that pass. I'm excited to begin another year of our married life. 

 HAPPY ENGAGEMENT ANNIVERSARY

Visit to a park

We visited a park after long time today along with Medha. She enjoyed alot with all the rides and grass and sand. Few pics only I was able to take as this time Medha decided when to take picture :P