Simple Sensory Play with Salt Tray

Why would you need crayons, pencils, paper, white board to draw when you can have more fun with Salt Tray! Draw pictures, write letters, create patterns, and practice writing names with this simple tray.

The greatest thing about this Salt Tray is it is cheap to setup, educational, you will find all the items around the home and trust me it will entertain your little one for hours! This is a great fun activity for kids of all ages.

You just need a tray/plate and salt. You can also use -

• The lid of a plastic tub or container.
• Cardboard box
• Medium Plastic Container that has low sides

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

Blowing Activity for Oral Motor Skills

I had brought couple of thermocol ball which were at my mom's place, guessing I can use those in some craft activities with Medha. But the very next day we reached Bangalore, Medha happened to see those packets and remembered that those were used in my sister's marriage. (Yes, These are used by the bride and bridegroom in South Indian (Telugu) wedding ceremony for merriment and celebration after they are pronounced man and wife. Bride and groom sit facing each other and pour the mixture of yellow rice and candy pearls on each other's heads. Towards the end of this playful act, families and friends of bride and groom create competitive spirit between the couple screaming for their candidate to come out as a winner ! It is real fun to watch this joyous part of the wedding !! Medha also enjoyed this part a lot in my sister's marriage which happened in October.) And she insisted me to open the packet and give to her so that she can play. I gave one packet of them and she was very happy to touch them as they are soft. 

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.

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

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.

Sun and Moon craft

~Medha is 30 months old~

I happened to see Sun, Moon, Stars peel and stick stickers online. I thought I can teach differences about the things we see in sky in Day time And Night time. So I ordered those stickers.

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.

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.

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

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

Pom-pom Drop

For 1-year-Olds, and toddlers, the best ideas are usually the simplest. Here is a great toddler game that I re-created based on an idea that I found on Pinterest. You could try it too!! :) 

Just gather any paper towel tube/cardboard tube or you can use any plastic tube too which has both sides opening and pom-poms and any cup That's it.

On-U-Mind

While browsing for some unique yet fun and learning included toys for Medha , I came across this toy in online. Though the concept is not totally new I thought this would be interesting for Medha to play with as this is with the balls and colorful balls. :) I bought this for INR 350/-

This has following features: 

• Montessori Toy
• Trains the child's graphical cognitive, hands on ability and patience.
• Nurturing the child's imagination, space preceivation ability and logical thinking.

Flower Painting

Toddlers love to paint. They love everything-color! Medha also no exception. She loved this activity! The best part is, you really don't need anything else except for a few flowers and the kiddie paints.

Items you need for this:

• Kid friendly washable paints 
• Drawing sheets, ( I have used note book pages as I am running out of Drawing Sheets)
• Flowers ( Any flowers, I plucked flowers from the plants in my balcony garden).

Learning shapes through play dough

Medha is not so creative in creating shapes and models using Play dough. She just loves using play dough moulds to create shapes or just repeats whatever I show to make. I was thinking about new ways of exploring Play dough then I came up with following idea.

I remembered that I had printed shapes sheet from 1+1+1=1 sometime back which looks like following.

Book Review : Dancing On Walls

I have bought "Dancing On Walls" story book for Medha's second birthday. Here is my review on this book. 

Title : Dancing on walls

Author : Shamim Padamsee

Publisher : Tulika Publisher