Thinking Thursdays: Growing

Remember I mentioned we were growing our own herbs from seed kits?  When we left for Norway, the seeds were just beginning to sprout.  They were obviously working hard when we were away (thanks to our kind neighbour who helped us water them):

And now they have grown even more, especially the parsley, which has gone a little bonkers.  The lemon balm is still rather reserved though:

Junior J has been rather excited about those little shoots.  As for me, I'm rather happy with my mint plant, which was actually left over from a bunch of mint we bought at the supermarket.  We plonked it in a glass of water, it grew roots and we potted it, and now its doing pretty well:

And to further explore the topic of plants, we've read two books:

:: One Bean, by Anne Rockwell:  This story traces the life cycle of a bean plant, and its great for any child wanting to plant his own beans!

:: Plant Secrets, by Emily Goodman: Again, this book describes the life cycle of flowering plants.  However, this book uses the example of 4 different plants instead, and gives loads of examples.

Are you growing any plants with your child?

Monday made: Cup Critters (and a giveaway!)

Hello!  How was your weekend?  Little boy and I managed to squeeze in some more crafting over the weekend and got started on these new craft materials from a little Cup Critter kit sent over from Hocusadabra (all the way from Hong Kong!).  Junior J had a good time examining the different parts and experimenting with how everything fit together...

And he was able to help me poke the holes into the cup (using the little tool provided) so that we could attach the various parts using clips... 

At the end of it all, we got a new little penguin friend, with very little mess generated!  I was happy I didn't have to do major cleaning up (which sometimes happens when we work with paints/glue), and the boy was delighted that he managed to make his own feathered friend...

"Hello Mr Penguin!  You are from the South Pole..."

I must say I'm really impressed with the idea behind the whole Makedo range, which includes these Cup Critter kits.  Basically, the various kits provide reusable plastic parts, such as the turquiose re-clips, which are basically fasteners that can hold different parts of your project together securely (unlike glued-on parts which may fall off after constant handling).  Yet they can be easily taken apart too, so you get to reuse them in other projects!  The Cup Critter kits also come with this handy little black tool that helps to punch holes in cardboard/paper (for inserting the re-clips), and was really great since Junior J could use it and I didn't have to worry about him poking his eye out (which you run the risk of, if you use toothpicks or satay sticks!)   

Aside from those reusable parts (which can be saved for the next project after your child's animal friend falls apart from constant "attention"), the Cup Critter kits also came with all the paper parts needed to complete 2 animal friends (even extra eye stickers were provided!).  Little prep needed, no mess to clean up, and useful parts that we can re-use for other projects... We like!

Makedo also has other useful tools/parts, such as the safe-saw (that allows kids to cut cardboard safely without using a penknife) and lock-hinges, which are provided in other kits (you can browse their whole range here).  All in all, there are kits that provide just these tools and parts, which you could use to make your own creations.  There are also kits that come with the tools and parts, along with other materials to make various items from recyclables, such as a dollhouse.  These are great if you don't have a project in mind to start of with, and you get to reuse the parts later on for other projects...

So here's the good news, Hocusadabra is giving away a Cup Critter Kit (the monkey and rabbit combination seen on the right below) to one lucky reader of this blog!  All you need to do to enter would be to:

1. Hop over to our Facebook page and like the page if you haven't done so.

2. Leave a comment under the link for this blog post (on the FB page that is!), sharing about the projects you might try to do with the Makedo kits.  (Please note that only comments on the FB page count, and this giveaway is restricted to those staying in Singapore...)

Giveaway ends next Monday, 19th Sept, at 12 noon.  So just hop over and share ya?  All the best, and have a great week!

~~~~~~~

An update: Our lil cup critters will be heading to their new owner, Cephas, very soon!  Pearlyn, do drop me an email to claim the kit ok?  Congrats, and have fun crafting with the materials!

Messy Mittwoch: Recycling & repurposing

As most of you would know, we're currently trying to declutter the house, and are trying to throw, donate, or giveaway various things that we have.  While that is happening, we still do try to recycle or repurpose various items  too (remember how toilet rolls can be a fashionable find?).  Some of these things end up being useful for doing craft with Junior J:

I find the styrofoam trays that come with some veggies (I usually chuck the meat ones since they can be quite icky)
very handy as paint palettes.  They don't get soggy like paper plates, can be washed after some messy paint fun, and last for quite abit.  When you're done with them as palettes, you can also trim off the bottom and use the grid-like patterns for printing on paper!

Food containers are especially useful.  Glass jars end up holding flowers, and we also save some other sturdier plastic containers (eg. cream cheese and yoghurt containers) for the boy to play in his kitchen:

Feeding his brachiosaurus yoghurt during breakfast.  It started with spoon-feeding,
then the poor dino ended being dunked!

Simple, money-saving fun. :)

"Brachiosaurus fall down into the yoghurt!  He's sticky and needs a shower!"
Now repeat this another 10 times until Mama has fed him all his blueberries and cereal...

Here are some more ideas on kids crafts using recycled materials.  I'm thinking of trying out some of them...  Do you recycle and repurpose materials for your kids to play or craft with?  Do share!  (Pssst, I've been enjoying our conversations over on the Facebook page thus far...)

Monday made: Reusing egg trays

Hello hello!  The weather has been really hot over here, and Junior J has been helping me to water the plants everyday.  Recently, we decided that we would grow some green beans so that he could care for his very own plants.  So I gave him a pot of soil, and a plastic egg tray, and guided him to scoop soil into each compartment, and let him carefully place a few green beans into each section (he got really excited and tipped too many, but I just had to take away some!).

So its been a week since he's planted them, and the beans have already germinated and have started growing (though they are pretty scraggly since they are in the shade, I've gotta find a sunnier spot for them I guess!):

Then the boy has been starting to pick up verbs like "pour" and "hang" so I thought I'd make a little sign for his mini-garden, using corrugated cardboard, and wrapped in plastic cut from a clear-holder to protect it from over-enthusiastic watering from little hands:

Supplies used: Corrugated cardboard (Daiso)
Construction paper and ice-cream stick (Popular)
Lettering (AC Remarks)

So here it is, our very own beany garden!

What I liked about this activity was that it helps Junior J to learn how to be responsible for caring for living things, in this case, plants, while also fine-tuning fine motor skills like scooping, pouring and picking up small objects (beans).

Some tips:
1. Use only the plastic trays, as the cardboard version will get soggy with watering.  Added advantages of using these plastic ones are that as the beans grow bigger, you'll be able to see the roots growing since the plastic is clear!

2. Use a toothpick and poke holes into the base of each compartment, which will allow water to drain.  Kids get really excited and tend to drown the beans in water, and you don't want waterlogged soil!   Cut the cover of the tray, and reuse it by placing it beneath the tray to catch the excess water, and periodically clear this to prevent your garden from breeding mosquitoes.

3.  Plant only about 3 seeds/beans per compartment to prevent overcrowding.

4. You can get your kids to plant one compartment a day, so that you can see the seedlings all at various stages of growth, all at one glance!  Alternatively, plant different seeds in different compartments and make labels for the compartments so that you know which is which.

5. Other uses for plastic egg trays include reusing them as paint palettes, or as a tool for sorting activities. The cardboard version can be used for craftwork to make animals like caterpillars!

How do you reuse your egg trays?

Thinking Thursdays: Treasure in a bottle

We brought Junior J today to the Malaysian High Commission to settle his citizenship application.  We were told we had to bring the little boy there to collect all our forms, only to reach there and be given the forms without requiring the boy's presence at all!  Even though we felt it was quite unncessary to have brought him along, Junior J himself was quite happily occupied during the waiting time since I gave him a new toy: A treasure hunt in a bottle.  

I had read over at Childhood 101 about how you could make treasure bottles filled with rice, and decided to make one yesterday, since I had loads of expired food colouring that was still usable for non-edible projects.  Making it is simple... All you need would be rice (coloured or non-coloured is fine), a plastic drink bottle (yay for recycling!), and little things you could hide amidst the rice for your child to find.

I mixed about 3 tablespoonfuls of water with a few drops of red food colouring (I had read over here that mixing the colouring with water first would help to colour the rice more evenly), and added it to a bowl of rice and stirred until everything was coloured.  You need to let the rice dry before adding it to the bottle, so one way to ensure it dries quickly would be to sun the rice.  Or if you are like me and tend to do these projects at night when your kid is sleeping, you might want to just spread the rice on a plate and leave it in your room overnight if its air-conditioned.   The low humidity helps it to dry out, and the rice should be all ready in the morning when you wake up!

Then you need to fill up the bottle with the rice, I found that using a funnel made from used paper helped to make pouring much faster:

You could add the little treasures midway after some of your rice has been added (I chose a nature theme and used seashells and paper flowers):

And tada!  Your child's very own treasure hunt, in a bottle!  But wait... what's that black thing over there?

Let's give the bottle a good shake... Oh, its a black panther! :)

The boy had a good time shaking, shaking, shaking, and identifying the things he could see... and made growling noises when he saw the panther! 

For this activity, you could use objects that are similarly coloured to the rice to make the treasure hunt more difficult.  Rice is also really good for sensory play, and you could either let your toddler play in a "rice pit", or perhaps set some containers, spoons etc on a table and give them some rice in a bucket to play with (but be warned, it might get messy if they do spill some!).

What other ideas do you have for rice play?  Do share!

Come play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up!

Thinking Thursdays: All boxed up...

Ever given your kid a toy, only to find out that he/she was more interested in the packaging?  We find that is the case with Junior J... so to get more mileage out of the new toy, we give him the packaging (even the plastic wrap is interesting to him, but of course he plays with it under close supervision!)... and he gets the toy a day or two later, when he's done playing with the stuff the toy came in.

We don't restrict ourselves to just toy packaging, and I find that a great resource would be all the packaging you have in the kitchen: Cereal boxes, yoghurt and ice-cream tubs, vitamin bottles etc.  We sometimes give him buttons, and he will spend part of a meal happily occupied in picking them up and putting them into a vitamin bottle, and thereafter using it as a rattle (however, like plastic bags, this must be under close supervision... so we find its a good distraction tool during meals, where we can check that he eats his food, and not the buttons!).

One of my favourites would be the smaller boxes that our muesli bars come in.  A simple box like that can be put to many uses:
:: As a container to carry his toys (like all kids his age, he's fascinated with taking things in and out of containers, and can be kept occupied in the kitchen for 20 minutes just transferring the muesli bars in and out!)
:: As a house for a small stuffed toy
:: As a tool for pouring activities

Also, for older toddlers, boxes are great for craftwork, and I like the idea that we get to reuse materials that normally get thrown in the trash.  Here are some projects that I'm planning to do with the boy when he's older:

:: Cereal box organizers from Martha Stewart

:: Drawer dividers from Lovely Design: I thought the idea of having a drawer for children's plates and cups was great, and they can learn how to put away their tableware into their very own drawer!  (You can download the tutorial here.)

:: Cereal box village from Bella Dia

What other ways do you think we can use packaging during playtime?  Please share!

Come play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up!

Monday musings: Light at the end of the tunnel

Picture taken at Taroko Gorge, Taiwan

Junior J is much better now, and we can say that we are seeing some light at the end of the tunnel... :)  We must say a big thank you to all those dear people who left us messages empathizing with our situation, those who prayed for us, and those who popped by to visit (even when they were actually had alot of work to do).  It has been such a great blessing to have such concerned and caring friends and family!

After my post on Saturday, the boy actually seemed to get worse and his fever spiked up beyond 39 degrees, leaving him restless, cranky and uncomfortable... He spent Saturday night crying and tossing around, and much as we tried, we were unable to make the boy eat his fever meds since he wised up to us trying to introduce all those weird tasting syrups to him in various ways. We were getting a little desperate when a nurse friend suggested we try using paracetamol suppositories, so hubby popped by KKH to get some (Thanks, Strawberry!).  Thankfully he managed to get the meds in, and the boy's fever went down after that.  However, we had given him his antihistamine as well, which made him go gaga in the middle of the night (he woke up and wanted the hubby to carry him to and fro between the windows in our living room, to see the cars in the carpark, at 4 am in the morning!).   

He was much better on Sunday.  The fever was down thanks to the meds, and his coughing was less "tight" and frequent.  We left off the antihistamine yesterday night, so he slept pretty well save for a few bouts of coughing.  Today saw him toddling around the house as per normal, and the fever's gone.  His cough still bothers him though, and he's still really sticky and insists I stay with him, especially at night.  And we're still having a really tough time trying to get his antibiotics in (3 times a day, for 10 days, but I'm very doubtful we'll be able to last out that long!).  I don't blame him, since the smell of the amoxicillin makes me want to puke as well, and has been causing him to have diarrhoea. :(  

Ah well!  I'm glad all in all he's taken a turn for the better... and on an totally unrelated note (except perhaps that its related to Taiwan like the picture above), here's a really interesting concept: An exhibition hall, made from recycled plastic bottles.  

AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying (Via The Star Online)

Called the EcoARK, this is the going to be the main exhibition hall for the Taipei International Floral Exposition that is set to open in November this year.  The structure is built using polli-bricks, which are formed from reprocessing plastic bottles, and is strong enough to withstand major earthquakes and storms.  Also, the structure cost less to build compared to a conventional steel and glass structure, and the processing of plastic produces less carbon emissions compared to if glass was manufactured.  Cool huh? And green too!  Read the full article here.

Here's to a great week ahead! :)