Toddler science and cooking

feb21-2

K had his first foray into a toddler’s science experiment; melting ice.

I made plastic bags of ice and ice cubes and place them in his water table. K exclaimed, “Ice heavy…cold…hard!” while he moved the big block of ice around the table.

feb21-3

“Oh melting ice!”

He was intrigued when I pointed out that the ice was melting, shrinking in size and turning into water. He seemed to have understood when all the ice melted into water, and remarked, “No more ice, ice melt”.

feb21-1

And as always, he will end up drinking some water from the water table. Did not helped that I said “Don’t drink!” countless times. Then I recalled reading that parents should say things that they want the toddler to do, instead of not do, as they have a tendency to miss out of the “don’t” part of the instruction. So I tried, “Water dirty, can play with water only,” And that was much more effective. Note to self : don’t use don’t

Of late, K has become quite helpful. He often offers, “Me help,” when he sees me cleaning or taking things. And he has to be given the chance to help, or he will get upset.

Got him to help to make his own lunch yesterday; pizza. As this is his first time helping me make his own food, I was so happy to see him focused in doing his task well and not make a mess at all.

feb21-4

1. Putting the tomato sauce

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2. Adding the barbeque chicken

feb21-6

3. Topping it up with onions, then cheese

He then watched the helper put it in the oven, wanted to “see” the pizza baking every few minutes. And I could see the look of satisfaction when he readily chomped down every piece of pizza that he was given during lunch.

Something I have learnt from this; what he helps to prepare, he eats. So guess I will have an additional cook at home from now on.

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Checklist for homeschool

For the past 1 week, I have been really tied up with home business and have not been spending much time with K. Now that I have started to re-organise my schedule to include managing the home business, there needs to be more thought placed behind the organisation of activities for K’s home school.

K has been spending most of his time doing unstructured play. Since I am a mom who thinks that a child learns best through play, I do not take pride in rote learning. Thus I am not worried that K who will be turning 2 in mid March, cannot recite the alphabets from A-Z or numbers from 1-10.

Just finished reading this book “Child of our time – Early learning“. I am further convinced that it is even more essential in this day and age, that a child learns to be resourceful, creative and flexible. And home life needs to be the key catalyst to nurture the child in those areas, and help develop his love for learning.

According to this book, there are a list of important things that parents can do to help their children ease into pre-school and help them do well in primary school and beyond. It is not rocket science but definitely a practical checklist for developing K’s home learning environment.

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Just give him water and puffy paints

Water play is one of K’s favorite activity. Just 1 measuring cup and 2 plastic cups is enough to keep him occupied for at least half an hour. Great for the development of his fine motor skills and self- control.

I noticed that K has been quite obsessed lately with squeezing his body moisturiser out of its tube, so I made him some puffy paints. I got 4 squeezy bottles from Daiso, filled it up with 1/2 cup of flour, about slightly less than half a cup of water and a few blobs of washable crayola paint.

Made pastel colours of yellow, green, blue and pink…

And K was so thrilled by his new art experience, that he made these expressions when asked to pose for the camera…

Puff Paints expressions

He was quite amused when the squeezy bottles started creating some rude noises, seems like he is quite into slapstick humour like his dad…

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2061438&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1

K’s puffy paint art
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