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. 

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 : 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 - Fun With Spot

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.

If your child loves the Spot book series by Eric Hill, then you will enjoy the website based on the cute little dog! The site provides some great activities for kids and also resources for parents.

Online sites we buy kid's books

If we have to buy books online, I am sure most of us prefer Amazon, Flipkart or Infibeam. Recently I have come across following sites too. Please do check these and avail benifits if you like.

Kutoohala : 

A space with exclusive children's books, toys, parent and child workshops and story telling sessions. Checkout their website to see the subset of their collection of used books and new books. You will definitely love this as you can get international authors used books in a reasonable price. They have added only subset of books in their website, if you are in Bangalore, please visit their store to see full range of their book collection. I haven't been there to see their full collection.

I have bought around 5-6 used books along with few CBT publications books through their online site. Though they're used,  condition is good.

PassaroBooks :

It started recently, in 2013, with the objective of offering low cost, high quality Pre-owned imported (UK/US) books to the Indian public.They also have (new) activity books, children’s books (Geronimo Stilton, Hardy Boys, Diary of a Wimpy kid) etc of Indian editions from various publications. 

I had bought around 30+ costly books at a reasonable price from them. And condition of books is almost like NEW.

Pappadum : 

It is co-founded by Priyanka Raghunath and Harini Lakshminarayan and offers us eco-friendly range of products for children aged 0-5. There is clothing, books and stationery, toys and much more. They do have a unique collection of books like Olivia books etc. But they don't have a catalogue to browse through. You have to check their pinterest board here to see the books and they are very friendly and prompt in responding to your queries on price and availability of books. 

And I keep updating this post whenever I come across such sites. Keep browsing and get your kid reading wide collection of books. 

Book Review : Postman Bear

~Medha is 33.5 months old~

Received this book as part of Little Reader's Nook December kit. And also Devaki mentioned that all Julia Donaldson's "Acorn Wood" series are beautiful for younger kids.

Title : Postman Bear

Author :  Julia Donaldson

Pages : 14
Publisher : Macmillan Children's Books

Website Review : Peekuboo

Peekuboo is a FREE interactive site for toddlers and parents that has online books that your child can read through. There are a variety of books and games.

Review : My Little Chatter Box - Tale In A Mail

After subscribing to Little Reader's Nook, I had came across My Little Chatter Box (MLCB) "Tale In a Mail" box. This is also just similar to Little Reader's Nook. Their each box will have 3 books, some activity cards, and some information cards about the books. 

I thought of subscribing to this too as I really impressed with the books they are selecting for each theme every month. Some of my close friends asked me to know do I need to subscribe to 2 when both are same? I had thought about this lot of times and finally decided to go ahead for 2 reasons: 

• Medha loves books and lot of books. We read again and again at least 10 books per a month. 
• Both subscription boxes are different in terms of the themes and books they select.

Pattern Match Activity

Pattern Match is an engaging pattern matching exercise for kids. It is designed to enable children to learn and grasp the concepts of patterns and sequencing in a fun way. In this simple exercise, kids study the given pattern and identify the missing shape or symbol, to complete the sequence. This exercise will help to lay the foundation for logical thinking as well as teach kids the names of some basic colors, shapes and symbols. It will help to reinforce the child’s understanding of the basic concepts of maths.

I wanted Medha to do some pattern making activities hence I thought of creating some pattern cards myself instead of buying. I was thinking which would be good to start with pattern make. Then I remembered the wooden shapes pieces puzzle bought recently. 

Book review : Hippo has a hat

~Medha is 33.5 months old~

One of my new friend, Rajeswari, suggested this book for Medha as it's a big hit for her daughter. As this book is also from Julia Donaldson, the author of Room On the Broom book, without second thought I ordered this book for Medha. OMG, how I missed this book all these days. I should have own this book right from when Medha is a toddler.  Better than never, here is our review. 

Title : Hippo Has A Hat

Author :  Julia Donaldson

Publisher : Macmillan Children\'s Books (2010)

Book Review : What Makes a Rainbow?

~Medha is 32.5 months old~

I received this book from Devaki, as part of Little Reader's Nook November kit. This book is also called as MAGIC RIBBON BOOK. I must thank her for this beautiful book as part of kit. Medha loves this book and calls this as Color Ribbon Book. :) 

Title : What Makes a Rainbow?
Author : Betty Ann Schwartz

Publisher : Piggy Toes Press
No. of Pages : 14

Learning Letters Game

~Medha is 33.5 months old~

The people who was reading my blog from beginning already knows that Medha had learned all the alphabets and numbers mostly by playing matching games. Here is another variety of matching letters. 

To play this matching game, you'll need:

• Post-it notes
• An ABC poster or floor mat (We used our foam floor mat, but a poster on the Wall would work as well)

First Books of Medha

Today I am going to mention the very first books of Medha. Sorry dear without mentioning these books your book-list is incomplete. We had these books along with My First Board Books since Medha was 6 months. 

These board book are die cut in the shape of the animals/birds depicted in the story. Look at me series of board books for toddlers and preschool children's depict baby animals and their mothers. The stories complement full color illustration on every page that are handsomely rendered in a naturalistic style.

Each book is only 4-8 pages and beautiful pictures of baby animals with their mothers. Medha loves to explore these books more for the baby animal pictures. 

Jabbing beads in playdough

~Medha is 33.5 months old~

Lacing beads is a fun activity but Medha is bored of that hence I thought of combining beads with play dough which is also a fun activity. I and Medha did something similar when she was 1.5 years old. But later we didn't try this again so I decided to go with this activity day before yesterday.

Jabbing the beads into the play dough is a great sensory activity, and kids can make some pretty interesting creations this way.  In this activity children press the beads into a shallow play dough tray.  You can also try buttons or Straws or mini blocks or any thing small.

I showed jabbing one bead on the flatten play dough then she loved the idea and asked to handover all the beads.

Recipes : Homemade Play Dough for Medha

~Medha is 33.5 months old~

Medha loves play dough a lot and she likes all the activities that include play dough. So I decided to prepare play dough at home once we are running out of commercial play dough we bought already. It is completely non toxic, so it's especially great for toddlers or children who still might be inclined to put their creations in their mouths. :) It also is super easy and takes hardly any time at all. It didn't take more than 10 minutes for me. This is Super Simple to prepare at home. I am sure you will also like it and try once for your kids.

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

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. 

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.

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.