Book Review : Where's that cat?

~Medha is 35.5 months old~

Last week, we are talking about Farm Animals a lot, then I was searching for some simple books that involved animals, then I came across this simple yet beautiful book from Tulika Publishers.

The cover is pretty simple a picture of an innocuous orange cat looking out of the curtain and I am sure every one will like the text with humorous illustrations.

Title : Where's that Cat?

Author : Manjula Padmanabhan
Age : 3+
Pages : 20
Publisher : Tulika Books

Play dough Moldings

To improve her finger muscle strength and her fine motor skills, I have thought of this activity and she spent nice 2 hours of time with this.

I gave her a batch of play dough and the plastic mould trays I received as part of Mould n Paint Kit by ToyKraft and asked her to make the moulds with play dough.

She liked the idea and started doing it immediately.

This has following benefits :

• Working with clay improves dexterity and uses both small and large muscles. Children use their arms, back and shoulders to mold clay. 
• Working with clay also increases a child’s eye-hand coordination.
• Self-pride of creating shapes using the molds. 
• Filling the molds gives enough exercise to the fingers and hands.

This can be tried with younger kids too with the supervision of not putting clay in the mouth. 

Splendid Sites : Littlefingers.com

The Splendid Sites feature is designed to help you find fun and safe websites to visit with your toddler and kids. Some of the sites are educational in nature and some are just plain fun! If this is your first time visiting, be sure to check out some of the toddler websites that we've featured in the past.

Little Fingers is a website that develops software for children PreK up to 5th grade. While the company has a lot of software that you can purchase, they also have some fun games that you can play for free online.

** Note: Adobe Shockwave required to run online games. **

Guest Post : Are we buckling to our kids by bribing them to do regular work?

I'm so excited to have my first guest post on Medha'sMumMusings to be "Are we buckling to our kids by bribing them to do regular work?" by Charu Swaroop.

It’s a well acknowledged doctrine of parenting that bribery is not a good idea and is engaged in by desperate parents who are buckling under kiddy pressure. Is this really true? Before we agree or disagree, it is important to differentiate between a bribe and an incentive. A parent can say “Let’s have a chocolate or read a book before lunch!” and wonder if he or she has just used bribery. 

Photo Credits : http://lahaiseslair.com/

Sensory Play, Is this Really Necessary?

If you frequent kids activity blogs, you know that “sensory play” has been a hot topic for quite awhile now. There are even entire websites devoted to sensory play for your tots, and while they are super fun to read and full of creative (and sometimes elaborate) ideas, you may find yourself asking, “Is all this REALLY necessary for my child’s development?”

So this post is written as per the research I did on Sensory play in the internet and from the experience of doing one sensory tub activity with Medha.

Book Review : Chocolate Mousse for Greedy Goose

~Medha is 35.5 months old~

Having previously read few other titles by Julia Donaldson, I decided to try and locate another one of her books and across this one. I bought this from PassaroBooks for 150/-. 

The cover is pretty simple with the title and an illustration. The illustration; a goose holding a bowl of mousse, perfectly depicts the title. It gives young readers the chance to look at the picture and link them to the words of the title, a good way of young readers creating an understanding that words have meaning. 

Title : Chocolate Mousse For Greedy Goose

Author : Julia Donaldson
Pages : 24
Publisher : Macmillan Children's Books

Flinto : January Theme - Wild Life Safari

Animals, Zoo, Safari Trips - which kid doesn't like these? I am sure they are one of their favorite things for every kid. This month, Flinto Theme is based on Wild Life Safari. Oh My God, I must say they have picked up the activities very beautifully for this month.

Sneak-peak of the Wild Life Safari Theme Flinto Box contents is here.

Book Review : That's Not My Bunny!!

Touch and Feel Books are must try-out books for babies and toddlers. They respond especially well to books which feature different fabrics, textures and surfaces. These can be particularly good for stimulating the various senses. These books can help young children to collect information and explore the things through their fingers. These are perfect for discussing descriptive words like "SOFT", "BUMPY", "SHINY" etc. 

The prime age for touch and feel books is from toddler-preschool. Because these books are aimed specifically at helping children develop knowledge while increasing the use of their senses, appeal is lost to older generations who more than likely already possess the skills being taught. One of the key advantages to teaching senses and vocabulary through the use of touch and feel books is the connection a child can gain by instantly being rewarded with the texture which the word describes.

We read few Touch and Feel books from library earlier, but this is the first one we bought especially from Usborne's "That's not my....." series. 

Title : That's not my bunny

Author :  Fiona Watt, Rachel Wells

Publisher : Usborne Books

Splendid Sites : LiteracyCenter.net

The Splendid Sites feature is designed to help you find fun and safe websites to visit with your toddler and kids. Some of the sites are educational in nature and some are just plain fun! If this is your first time visiting, be sure to check out some of the toddler websites that we've featured in the past.

LiteracyCenter.net is a site that is devoted to helping children learn to read. 

“At the LiteracyCenter.Net, we believe that learning to read in a first language should be as natural as learning to speak. All research at the Literacy Center begins with parents and teachers because no one knows better what children need than those who love them and teach them.”