My artbox

Ever since I've started conducting ALIMKids playgroup , I have endless supplies in my artbox for the arts and crafts session.

Having everything that I need in a box saves time and makes it easier for me to come up with creative projects for the little khalifahs. Azalia also benefits from this as she also gets a chance to do more arts and crafts projects with me.

Here are my current must haves in my art box

1. Hot glue gun (only for me NOT the kids)
2. The staples - scissors, glue, different types of tapes(masking,double sided, cellophane, penknife)
3. Staplers
4. chopsticks
5. paper cups and plates
6. Tempera Paints
7. construction paper.
8. Toilet rolls
9. Random shapes discarde boxes.
10. Beans
11. Cotton balls
12. Ice cream sticks
13. Twine

I have yet to add glitters to my art box because I personally don't like to use them. But the kids love them so I will put them in one day.

How to make ribbon streamers

In the ALIMKids playgroup, one of the tools that we use for the active movement activity are ribbon streamers. Azalia loves them and the little khalifahs in my playgroup also enjoy them tremendously.Sing a song and wave the ribbons about. You can teach them fast and slow movement, high and low, left and right, and also shapes!!

Ribbon streamers are not hard to make. Here's a picture to show how to make them. The longer the length of the ribbon the more fun it is. Of course don't make it too long. I think keeping the length the same height as your kids is sufficient. Enjoy:)

Activity Worksheets downloads.

As I've mentioned in my previous post, "Lets get Creative", I did some activity worksheets for Azalia and I thought of sharing them here. These are some of the ones I remembered to save before I print them.

However, please read below before downloading them.

Download rules:
1.Not for sale or to be used commercially
2.Feel free to change it as you please
3. I did most of it under 15 mins due to time constrain so be kind with your criticism.
4. Images are mostly from the web so I do not own any of the images.
5. Azalia is 3+ so I guess the activities are suitable for 3-4 maybe.

So enjoy and have fun with them!! As I do more I will try and add to the list.

Lets get creative

Azalia loves doing activity books. She loves everything about it. The maze, the matching game, the sequence game, counting game. Everything I tell you. She also loves buying them. Everyday she would want a new one and would try to finish everything the day itself. I've resorted to telling her she can only get a new book after 10 days. The 1st day will start on the day she starts asking for a book and we'll mark the calendar and cross out each time a day passes.

Meanwhile, to keep her occupied I've decided to make my own activity prints based on disney cartoon themes. Besides printing them, I also recycle her old activity books by cutting and pasting the character and making games out of them. On average she will do about 10 activites per night.

The good thing about this is clearly she loves learning. So right now I'm struggling to think what is not too easy for her and not too hard. I want to incorporate life lessons and also some maths, science and spelling in the picture. Who says being a mother is easy. I find myself constantly challenged and having to put my creative hat on. And that hat is not easy to fill.

Fortunately there are lots of WAHM and SAHM who blogs about their home schooling adventures. Currently I'm taking some of their ideas and incorporate them in our themes and the activities that we want to do.

Sure its easier to just buy that book she wants but whats stopping me from doing that is I want her to learn the value of money. I want her to learn the importance of delayed gratification because I think that will teach her to learn patience and be determined. I want her to know that loving her doesn't mean I'll buy everything for her.

Where do I find the time to do this? Lunch time at work, break time and when I get to work early. It's fun seeing her enjoying the things I've prepared for her. And at the same time its amazing what she picks up. Check the sites I've linked below for some ideas of your own. They also have links to awesome resources. Doing DIY not only is cost effective but it lets you be creative too.


The Peterson Party

Counting coconuts

Confessions of a homeschooler

jannahsteps

zaythoun

To Do do

The thing about having an active 2plus year old is you're always thinking of activities for your active child. You want the activities to appeal to the child and also for them to get really active and tired on the way so you can get your weekend rest too.. well at least that's the plan.

Anyway... we've always find things to do for a 3-day weekend. The 2-day weekends are a no brainer but more than that.. we have to put some thought into it. Usually the first day it'll be household chores day. Activities are normally to the playground/swimming pool and at home. The second day we would usually go on an outing, most of the time it's the shopping malls, ie bookstores, kiddy rides, etc. Sometimes to my in-laws. But when we have more than 2 days it's time to put on my thinking cap and think, think, think (to quote tigger, pooh and friends)

The last 3-day weekend we went to Bird Park. Before that it was brunch at Seremban and swimming pool the whole day at Allson Klana Resort with the whole family. Yeah the Yatim clan conquered the whole swimming pool because no one in their right mindh would swim at 2 in the afternoon. So... what about this week??

Well I'm thinking something in KL. I wanted to go to Zoo Melaka and stay there 1 night (WHAT??!! AGAIN!! hey what can I say.. we love the place) but it's a super peak period so that's out of the window. So... my choices are

1. Taman Tasik Titiwangsa - playground and horse ride

2. Zoo Negara

3. Deer Park in Kuala Gandah (ok this is not in KL but it's near so we can make this a day trip!!)

4. Maybe FRIM?? but I think Azalia can't appreciate this yet.

5. Aquaria

6. KLCC park

7. Metropolitan park - playground and KITE!!!!!

Kalau tak mak dgn anak main sorok2 dekat rumah je lah..hahaha

Cornlour Gloop

OMG... I had so much fun doing this!!! and of course Azalia had fun too.

It's soooooo much fun.. and messy but It's sooo worth it.

Ok nampak gayanye mak dier lebih dari anak

Got the recipe online.. buy didn't follow it exactly. Basically all you need is for every 1 cup of Cornflour u add about 0.5 cup of cold water. But 1 cup is not enough to play with so I made about 3 cups.. hehehe.

You don't actually use exactly 0.5cup of water. Just add the water little by little till you get the texture. When properly mixed it should be solid looking but when you put your fingers through it becomes liquid. We loved the texture and just played and played with it. We poured and scooped them with spoons, cups. But the best is to play them with your hands. We even add some colouring to make them more interesting although the colour did stained our hands because we played with them too long.

The kitchen was a mess afterwords but the fun was worth it. Definitely will do this again. Oh to avoid and distraught over ruined clothes (due to the colouring) don't wear good clothes. I took the easy way and let Azalia play with only her pampers on.

The kite project

This wasn't in the list but Alia wanted to buy make one because she saw Barney playing with it on tv.

So I went to the back of the house and took out 6 sticks of lidi from the penyapu lidi(washed of course). Asked my sister for some tracing paper(thank God for a sister who studies architecture..she has loads of them) and took my scissors,some threads, twine and glue and went to work.

The only thing I allowed her to help with is gluing the paper to the kite's frame and scribble on them.

The kite can't fly, is messy looking but did she care.?? nope. she was contented enough with pulling it along with the twine. hehehehe. Will definitely get her a proper kite once she's older but for now.. I think that's sufficient. hehe

Free educational online games - for 1.5 to 3 year olds

Azalia loves the computer because she sees her parents always in front of one. So... since she wants to get in the action too I went hunting for educational games online that could be beneficial to her while she is in front of the computer. I found these and she absolutely loves them.

1. Fisher Price
2. Starfall
3. Youtube - loads of nursery rhymes, sing-a-longs, ABCs and 123s and Alif Ba Ta!!!

Hehe.. You tube isn't actually a game but she loves it too. Playhouse Disney Channels takes too much time to upload so I've kind of given up on them. But I have no problems with these sites.

Will update once I find more. We've actually introduced these sites to her since she was 1.5 year old. Before that we used baby smash so she can smash the keyboard all she wants.

Making friends

Ooh I did make this one project during studying period.. (heheh) It's fun, easy and cheap!! well that is if you already have a colour printer. If not you can print black and white and you and your child can colour them.

Anyway.. It's PAPER DOLLS!!!

Printed them out from this making friends website. Loads of dolls, clothes,hair and accessories to choose from. Really fun!! We printed them out, glued several dolls on a cardboard and then play mix and match the clothes and accessories, glued them all together and there you, a complete paper doll!!

Azalia certainly had fun choosing who wears what and even named them and also she gets to play with glue. Scissors is of course a no no and only mummy gets to use them. This is certainly a project that can be done anytime.

Sugar cookies project done!!

Cookie project done on 11.12.2009

It was a mixture of failure and success. Purpose of the project is to let Azalia mix and stir and pour and play with flour and the of course the cooking cutting bit.

The failed part
The recipe I used turned out to be sticky. Tried to refrigerate it but I think I need bigger cookie cutters. It still got stuck in small corners of the cookie cutter.

The success part
It was fun getting all messy. The flour is EVERYWHERE!! because I let her do the mixing. In order to have fun, everyone needs to just chill and just say.. "It's just flour" teehee. Cookies turned out to be delish by the way and Azalia loved them. Cookie cutter-ed some of them, shaped some into a ball, and piped them too.

MUST DO THIS AGAIN!!

The recipe:
170g butter. softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2.5 cup flour
1tspn vanilla extract
0.5tspn salt
1tspn baking powder

Cream butter and sugar, mix in eggs and vanilla. Combine flour,salt and baking powder. Pre-heat 200 degrees celcius, and bake 5-8 minutes (till the sides are golden brown)

We were suppose to decorate them but Azalia ate all the decorations. Sheesh. Maybe next time

1 down..more to go. But first.. PROJECTS!!!

Since exam is over, I've got a lot of things lined up for me and Azalia.

Several projects have come to mind whilst studying (gile tak focus kan!!) and it's high time I execute them.

Here are some of the ones I have for Azalia

1. Cookie project
2. Cornflour gloop project
3. Building cardboard house/car/whatever project
4. Swimming lessons!! (shu nnt saya sms mtk nombor instructor ye!!TQ!!)
5. Photo album (half completed.. need to complete it A.S.A.P)
6. Sand and water corner. (But I think my parents object to this and Azalia don't seem to like sand very much. Kotor kata nye. aisehman)

And these are my projects

1. Photo albums - UK trips, Spain, Italy and Paris trips and of course graduation.
2. Wall shelves in my room.
3. Notice board in front of my desk
4. Put pictures in frames and find a place to hang them or place them


Aaaahhh these should keep me occupied till results comes out. And then it's back to hitting the books. Sigh.