Free Elsa - Locks and Keys Activity

My son is currently obsessed with locks and keys.  In this activity I wanted to combine his fascination with unlocking things with his interest in Frozen.  

I searched the internet for images of Princess Elsa and printed one off, laminating it to make sure the image didn't tear easily.  I used an A4 sheet of cardboard (the backing to an A4 paper pad) and placed the image of Elsa in the middle and made a total of 10 holes in the cardboard or on the edge of Elsa's picture by using either a hole punch (if it would reach) or a metal skewer.  I cut off 5 pieces of jewellery chain and fed one end of each chain through one of the holes and around the back of the card, before pulling each chain through the second hole.  I gathered both ends of each chain and locked them with a padlock.  Once I positioned Elsa correctly, I unlocked all of her chains and created the background.

What we used:

A4 sheet of cardboard

Image of Princess Elsa

Laminator 

5 Locks and keys

Black marker pen

I introduced the game to Wugs this morning, showing him how the keys fit into the locks and how the lock releases the chains.  He matched up the red key with the red lock and the pink key with the pink lock and even managed to undo the red lock, which wasn't all that easy (some of the locks were pretty fiddly).  Where the keys and their matching locks were of different colours, he wasn't able to match them, so the game might take a few weeks or months for him to master.  It certainly helped him stay focused and work on fine motor skills such as precision, as well as matching and problem-solving (including the patience that goes with that).

Advent Calendar 2014 Activity – Day 1: God Is With Us Through Creation

Today is the start of this year’s advent calendar activities which are based around the theme “Immanuel – ‘God is with us’”.  (The name given to Jesus by the angel Gabriel when he appears in a dream to Joseph to prophesy Christ’s birth (Matthew 1:23)).  Each day we will be doing an activity that celebrates the ways in which God is present with us.

“…all things have been created through him and for him.  He is before all things and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17) 

I love the holistic spirit of this passage - Jesus is not simply a baby in a manger or a man dying on a cross, but a Person through whom everything finds its purpose and connection with everything else.

My favourite room in our house is the conservatory.  It is full of light and enables us to have a close-up encounter with the animals and plants in the garden without actually being out there and suffering the cold.  This morning I arranged for Wugs to put out some bird seed and nuts to entice more wildlife into the garden.  This simple activity taught him a couple of things: hand control when pouring the food into the containers and an appreciation for animals, who are worthy of our care and attention. 

We went back into the conservatory expecting to see a garden full of squirrels and birds, but all morning we observed only two magpies and a robin in a tree.  This could have something to do with the fact that whenever a bird flew anywhere near the conservatory, Wugs and Dooey would rush to the window and holler “BIRD!!” at the top of their voices so the birds ran away!  I tried to make a game out of being quiet and walking slowly, but this inevitably failed.

                              

Well, as the birds wouldn't come to us, we created our own.  I opened up some air-drying clay and a couple of packets of feathers (new sensory materials for Wugs and Dooey) and helped mould their birds’ bodies and faces with Wugs adding the eyes and feathers (strengthening his fine motor skills).  The birds didn’t look quite like the birds I’ve seen in our garden or seen anywhere else for that matter, but the boys recognised them as such. 

What we used:

Bird feeder

Bird seed and nuts

Air-drying clay

Feathers

Peppercorns (eyes)   

It seems the lonely robin in the tree made quite an impression on Wugs.  This evening, he was asking about the robin, so we looked up a couple of videos on You Tube of robins singing before he went to sleep.  Hopefully the robin will be back in the garden tomorrow so he can see the real thing.  

A Cutting Box

In the final weeks of our stay in Singapore, I was busily packing boxes and needed an activity that would keep Wugs and Dooey entertained for some time. I realised that many of the materials I was throwing in the bin could be recycled into a cutting and colouring activity for them which helps develop fine motor skills.  I arranged the materials that were of varying degrees of toughness in a box and together with a pair of child scissors (for Wugs) and a packet of crayons (for Dooey), I left them to it. Sometimes it's the simplest activities that are the most effective and that was certainly true of this activity. Wugs asked for his cutting box and scissors every morning for a week to the point that we started to name him "The Shredder".

Here is a list of the items in our box:

Unwanted mail
Old magazines
Receipts
Wrapping paper scraps
Coloured transparent paper scraps
Bubble wrap scraps
Foam paper scraps

Mid-Autumn Festival Lanterns

Last month Singapore celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival or "New Moon Festival" as it is sometimes called.  This festival celebrates the harvest and takes place on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the Chinese calendar (on the night of the full moon).  It is a time of thanksgiving and prayer for prosperity and is visually represented in Singapore by the making and carrying of lanterns through the streets of Chinese neighbourhoods, such as Chinatown.

We decided to make lanterns of our own by recycling some artwork the boys produced a few weeks ago and which I blogged about here.   I took down the food colouring paintings from our balcony doors and asked the boys to tear the paper into shreds - an activity that delighted Dooey as he loves tearing things apart and an activity that delighted Wugs because he loves cutting everything up using his new safety scissors.  I blew up two balloons and put together a mixture of white glue and water. Then I asked Wugs to stick the shreds of paper to the balloon using the diluted glue mixture (I had to do this part of the activity for Dooey).  Once the balloons were completely covered with the paper, we applied another layer of glue and let them dry overnight.

              

        

The next morning, we popped our balloons and I cut a hole in the top of each that was big enough to place a small LED light inside.  The paper crinkles a little as the air goes out of the balloon, but it is easy to push back into shape by sliding a hand into the hole at the top and pushing out the sides.  I made a handle for the boys to carry their lanterns by making two holes in the opposite sides of the top part of each lantern and threading a rod through them and then tying a loop of wool to the rod.   Although we didn't join any of the lantern walks that were taking place around Singapore, the boys were thrilled with their little creations and carried them around the condo in the early evening just as it became dark.

What we used:
Balloons
Elmer's glue
Greaseproof paper dyed with food colouring
Rod
Wool
LED lights

Weaving Craft Inspired by Psalm 139

Today Wugs started his first weaving project.  It was inspired by this passage from Psalm 139: 13-16:

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

I've been a bit hesitant to do activities with Wugs that are directly related to bible stories. I remember how bored I used to be learning about this stuff as a child, colouring in little cartoon bible figures in Sunday School and feeling completely disconnected from the characters I was learning about.  And it's this stuff - the real meaning and truth behind the bible stories that I want Wugs and Dooey to understand and appreciate more than anything else and my challenge is to engage them without making the stories feel like "just another story".  I decided to apply a hands-on activity (weaving) that develops fine motor skills to Psalm 139.  The Psalm also ties in with another activity that I have been doing with Wugs, which is looking back on his baby pictures as a way of celebrating his life, recalling fun times and hopefully generating some empathy for his younger brother!

I researched the phrase "you knit me together in my mother's womb" and this brought up some image templates.  I traced the main outline of the baby from the drawing on this site onto white paper and cut it out. I fixed two sheets of black A4 card together (I wanted it to be sturdy as I thought Wugs might struggle with the weaving and tear the card) and then glued the image of the baby onto the card.  Then I cut around the image, leaving about an inch of black border. Using a single hole punch, I went around the black edge and evenly punched some holes.  I attached some thick wool to one of the holes and tied a knot at the back.  As the wool was quite thick, I thought Wugs may struggle to pull it through the hole, so I sellotaped the end of the wool that he would be guiding through the hole into a pointed shape so it would be easier for him to grasp.  The activity was an experiment and I didn't think he would pull the wool completely through or I imagined he would get bored, but he picked up the idea straightaway and insisted he didn't need any help.  We followed up the activity with reading part of the Psalm 139.

What we used:
2 sheets black A4 card
1 sheet white paper
Black marker pen
Glue
Wool
Sellotape
Single hole punch

Singaporean Shop Tiles: Exploring Patterns, Colour and Symmetry

A stunning decorative feature that you cannot miss in Singapore is the beautiful tiles that adorn the traditional Singaporean shophouse.  My parents bought me a book called "Singapore Shophouse", by Julian Davison and Luca Invernizzi Tettoni.  The book is full of the history and images of the shophouse and Wugs loves to flick through it pointing out the pretty designs. Following on from our coloured "glass" tile craft yesterday (that I've featured in the picture on the bottom left), I painted some more tiles in traditional shophouse colours for Wugs to decorate.

The craft yesterday made me realise that Wugs' interest would only last long enough to decorate possibly two tiles, so I decorated the tan-coloured tile using a black marker pen to show what an older child could be capable of.

What we used:
Egg cartons
1 Packet of Heinz Baby Pasta Stars (which looked like miniature flowers)
Le Fantasie flower-shaped pasta
White, red, green, tan-coloured paint
Yellow, red, blue food colouring
White Distilled vinegar
Ziploc/freezer bags
Black Marker pen
Fake flowers
Cornstarch/Corn flour Glue

Yesterday I coloured the pasta by placing it in Ziploc bags, adding the food colouring and a teaspoon of Distilled white vinegar and squishing it around until the pasta had soaked up the colour. Then I left it to dry overnight.

This morning I laid out the materials including the cornstarch glue we prepared for our tile yesterday.  (This was made from 30g of cornstarch/corn flour mixed with 150ml of water.  I mixed just a little of the water and cornstarch to remove any lumps and then I added the rest of the water gradually to the mixture in the saucepan over a low heat).  We covered the egg carton with glue first and then Wugs added the decoration.  The egg carton was a good material to use for creating tiles because it encourages a certain amount of balance not only because of its shape but also because Wugs has used one for counting and sorting before.  It also enabled him to explore the materials and colours without them sticking firmly to the tile.  In fact all day he has returned to the red and green tiles and added bits to them from around the house such as real flowers, pennies etc. I like the fact that the patterns are not permanent, so we might leave them that way, but if we want to display them on the wall, we can easily tap out the pasta that didn't directly stick to the glue and then add another layer of glue to seal them down.

This tile craft was easier (so definitely appropriate for a 2.5 year old) than the glass tile craft we attempted yesterday as it wasn't necessary for Wugs to cover the whole tile and the pasta shapes formed the intricate details and gave a sense of balance to the tile.

Exploring Colour, Symmetry and Light with "Glass" Tiles

Today's craft was inspired by my love of a place in Singapore called Kampong Glam, a neighbourhood with Malay and Middle Eastern influence.  Along its streets are rows and rows of shops selling jewellery, rugs, lamps, fabrics and coloured glass tiles - all with intricate patterns, bright colours and a variety of textures.  I wondered how we could re-create some of this beauty through our crafts and a craft that a 2.5 year old could do.

I managed to get hold of an egg carton that carries 30 eggs and I cut it into squares (so that there are 9 egg holders to every tile).  I will use the other 3 tiles for a Singaporean Shophouse tile project that I have planned tomorrow.  I coloured this tile in white paint so that the tissue paper would easily shine through.  Meanwhile I cut out squares of blue and red coloured transparent paper and squares of tin foil (the tiles I've seen have a combination of coloured glass and mirrors in them) and I thought it would be nice for Wugs to handle a different material other than the coloured paper.  As Wugs would also be sticking the paper to the carton, I made some child-friendly glue using 30g of cornstarch and 150ml of water.  I added some of the water to the cornstarch and stirred it around to remove all of the lumps.  Then I placed it into a saucepan on a low heat and kept stirring the mixture until it boiled.  Once that had cooled down we started to add the glue to the egg carton with a brush.  I found it easier to cover the egg carton with glue before adding the paper as the paper tends to get stuck to the brush and hands and can be frustrating and distracting.

What we used:

Egg carton 

White paint

Blue and red coloured transparent "sweet wrapper" paper

Tin foil

Cornstarch Glue

I found this craft a little challenging for a 2.5 year old as it involves creating symmetry and balance.  Wugs did so in terms of adding the tin foil squares, but I think a child of 4 years or older would appreciate it better.  Having said that, Wugs enjoyed sticking and using the brush to spread the glue and appreciated the reflectiveness of the tin foil.

Loose Parts Play - Jewellery

When I think back to the first activity I did with Wugs, it was an activity based on heuristic play (it was a "treasure basket"- a collection of everyday sensory items (safe for baby) that can be found around the house).  I've returned to that idea this week with our loose parts play.

My jewellery box is a highly sought-after item among my boys. It's kept inside my wardrobe at a height above Wugs' head, but every time I open that wardrobe, he stands on tiptoes and peers into the glass door, his eyes lighting up at all the sparkly colours.  At the weekend I sifted through the items that I was happy for him to play with and set up a loose parts jewellery play space. I used to make jewellery in a past life so I had a few additional accessories - like the tools and metal springs to make spiral bracelets and rings.

Whilst Dooey was sleeping (I have to wait for him to go down as the beads are a potential choking hazard), I presented Wugs with the play space. Immediately Teddy became part of the play and was offered beads to eat that Wugs had lovingly picked out for him and placed in the jewellery box. He was then adorned with bracelets and armlets on his feet, until Wugs removed them and told Teddy emphatically that "These are mine, not yours!" Finally he covered Teddy in bindis, which Teddy was allowed to keep.  One of Wugs' favourite parts of the play was the tools. He used them to bend and mould the pipe cleaners into different shapes. He counted beads and pointed out the colours and talked enthusiastically throughout his play.

For me, it reminded me of why I love heuristic play so much - our possessions say something about who we are, what we have done and where we have been. I saw Wugs handling earrings that I wore when my husband proposed to me in Bali. He put on a bracelet that I made as part of the wedding favours at my wedding - a bracelet that sat in a favour box that I had decorated with the bindis that he was sticking to his bear. The beads were loaded into a congkak board which we have because my husband is Malaysian and the congkak game is a traditional childhood game of Malaysia. There was a sense of my son "playing with history" and at the same time adding to the happy memories of the objects he was playing with.

What we used:
Bracelets
Necklaces
Earrings
Rings
Bindis
Ribbons
Hair bands
Metal springs
Crimpers and pliers
Wooden, jasper and mother of pearl and spacer beads
Armlet
Jewelled box
Pipe cleaners (in case he wished to thread the wooden beads on to it)
Containers

For us, the loose parts play was centred around jewellery because it's an "everyday item" of our home - both for wearing and making, but this loose parts play could be adapted to any hobby where the materials are appropriate for a child to handle.

Hari Raya: Weaving Rice Dumpling Cases - "Ketupat"

The "Ketupat" decorations are very popular at this time of year in Singapore as they have become associated with the end of the Muslim fasting month.  The weaving of rice dumpling cases is a traditional craft of this region and one that children as young as seven have mastered. I decided to give it a try with a lot of help from this video.

"Ketupat" refers to a rice dumpling that is packed and cooked in palm leaves and can be found in South East Asia and the Philippines.  As the rice cooks, it expands to fill the casing and becomes compressed creating the dumpling-like texture. Although the Ketupat's significance is not necessarily religious, it is often connected to the end of the Muslim fasting festival Ramadhan and the beginning of Hari Raya Aidilfitri or Eid ul-Fitr.  According to Javanese tradition, the criss-cross pattern of the woven palm leaves is believed to symbolise sins for which fasting and deliverance is required.  The white rice dumpling is meant to symbolise purity and forgiveness after the fast.

We are hanging our decorations in Wugs' and Dooey's room to remind us to pray for the children who are living in conflict in the Middle East.

What we used:
Balloon ribbons (15mm width and 1m in length for each colour)

Flower Suncatcher

Wugs loves flowers.  I remember a time when he couldn't say "flower" and called it "fowwee".  Everytime we walked up the hill from the shops, he would insist on picking a little orange flower from a hedge that hung over the pavement from the condo next door.  Today we picked leaves and flowers all the way home and made this beautiful, flower suncatcher.  The inspiration for this craft came from this site.

What we used:
Paper plate
Contact paper
Scissors
Flowers and leaves

I cut out a circle in the centre of the paper plate and lay the contact paper (sticky side up) on the bottom of the circle, fixing the paper to the edge of the plate.  Then I placed the flowers in a separate dish for Wugs to decorate.  Once he was finished, I "sealed" the suncatcher flowers by placing contact paper on top (sticky side down) and fixed it around the edge.  (It's not necessary to seal the suncatcher in this way, but as I have a younger toddler who eats everything, I thought it better to seal the flowers inside).  Then I let the suncatcher do precisely that ... soak up the sun on our balcony doors.

Colour Matching Wheel

As Wugs only naps once or twice a week, I've been looking for activities that will keep him entertained in the afternoons when he is too tired to go out, but still requires some stimulation.  I've discovered the wonderful world of busy bags!  They are activities that can fit into a small bag (usually a freezer bag) and can be useful in occupying children when travelling etc.  The colour-matching wheel is popular on the web.  I created this one by drawing around a plate, dividing up the segments and colouring them and the wooden pegs.  Then I laminated the wheel.  This isn't necessary, but I didn't fancy doing all that colouring when the inevitable will happen - some water or juice gets spilt on it.  This was a good activity to teach Wugs about colours and by using the pegs, he got a chance to develop his fine motor skills.

What we used:
White card
Felt tip pens
Wooden pegs
Laminator

Sun Suncatcher

I have been trying to build our activities around particular themes this year.  This month we were focusing on the sky and the weather.  As Wugs has just learned the word for “sun”, it felt appropriate to create a sun-shaped suncatcher. 

What we used:

Contact Paper

Coloured Transparent Paper (red and yellow)

Coloured Tissue Paper (red and yellow)

I cut up the paper into large squares and put it into the tub.

When we attempted this activity previously (see here), we attached the contact paper horizontally to the table.  This time I attached it vertically to the balcony glass door.  This worked much better as it reduced the chances of Wug’s hand and arm getting stuck to the contact paper.  I put the tubs of coloured paper on a chair near the balcony door and left him to play.  He engaged with it straightaway sorting out the tubs of cut up paper.  Although I offered him both yellow and red (anticipating that he would stick both to the contact paper and overlap to create orange) he seemed quite specific about only wanting the yellow coloured transparent paper on the contact paper.  He added to the contact paper over a number of hours (without any instruction from me) until his bath time when I took the paper off the door, backed it with a large sheet of tissue paper and cut out a sun shape.

Suncatcher

I have been longing to set up this suncatcher craft for a while, but I was afraid Wugs would pull the contact paper off the table or glue himself to it and get frustrated.  This activity was a testament to trying new things even if I expect them to end in disaster.  Happily it didn’t.

What you need:

Contact Paper

Coloured Transparent Paper or Coloured Tissue Paper (or both)

Black Masking Tape

I cut up the paper into large squares and put it into a tub.  Then I cut out a large sheet of contact paper and gradually peeled back the first 2 inches and glued them to the table (this can also be done on a patio/balcony door).  I pulled the rest of the backing off and glued the last two inches to the table.  Then I assembled the pots of paper around the contact paper.

It was during this activity that I discovered the importance of stepping back and giving my son freedom to discover colours and textures in his own way (even if that meant some mess in the process).  He enjoyed burying his fingers in the pot of paper and immediately showered the floor with them as if they were confetti.  Once he had finished, I put the paper back in the pot and showed him how to stick it to the contact paper.  He lifted the paper up to his face and peered through it viewing the room through the yellow colour, then the red and finally he began sticking.  

Once he had finished sticking, I used black masking tape to frame the contact paper and stuck it to our balcony doors.  It felt like a mini stained glass window on our balcony doors and a nice colourful addition to our living room.