Big ball, Small ball.

Recently I have started some activities with Madiha, the concept of activities for very young babies and todlers are more to motor skill, fine motor skills and language development taking into consideration that at all time we are making them very alert and well aware of their suroundings. Taking some times doing activities with them is also important so that we are actually making an effort to spend quality time with our baby.

The lesson are very short only around 5-10 min, because at this age their concentration span is very short as well. We as parents have to understand that knowledge is like seed that grows into large trees with strong roots inside our child's brain.

 

Presents this 2 balls in front of her and let her plays with them. And say 'ball' and repeat them and repeat them, "ball" "ball"

Then you can introduce another words "big" "big" when she plays with the big one.

And when she takes the small one we will say "small" "small"

Take a note that only says one word at a time. 

Let her plays with them without interuption, once she got bored and starts going to you then we can start playing the ball with her.

This activities then will be repeated at other times and adding more words such as "bounce" "roll" and all associated words.

We should also do this at bath time and says "bath" ,later introduce more associated words like wash, hair, face, hand. During meal time "eat" , then rice, drink, cup.

In my case , as malays I introduce both, sometimes I use the malay words sometimes english. This method is acceptable as long as we singularize the words. One word at a time.

Ms Melissa Christmas gift

Ummi can we celebrate christmas? Ask Harith, no Harith we are muslims, christians celebrate christmas. Often times Harith will get frustrated with my answer. We can observe our friends , teachers celebrating it as a part of my effort to teach him religious tolerance . He wants to make christmas trees, he used to want to have the christmas tree's at home as well. Rather than dismissing his wish I try to go around it and try to use the opportunity for life lessons. I do let him do the christmas tree as a present to his teacher. So, this time our christmas tree to Ms Melissa which is Harith class teacher is made from his recycled color paper. 

The pieces of colored paper is rolled to become a beautiful cylinder shape.

Harith is cutting more paper stripes to role. We have few colorful cylinder , many of green as the leaves color.

Uyay helped as well, as seen the papers are used recycled paper .

Thats how the cylinder looks like.

We made our own DIY tree stamp shape from sponge , stick it on blocks , color them with water color and stamp.

The finished stamp paper waiting to dry.

Harith now started arranging his cylinder into a christmas tree shape, i helped him glue them with glue gun.

Almost done, feeling excited.

Yeay done!!. 

Later on the last day of school just before the winter break Harith bring the christmas tree frame to school to give them to his teacher as a christmas present. I would like him to learn respect, appreciation and understanding that we sometimes are different but can still live together in peace. Our differences are what makes us unique so that we can learn from each other. 

Bee hives

This is a very simole math activities Harith learn at school and later wants to do more of them at home. Its very simple very fast and Uyay get to do them as well.

Thats the only equipments we need. 

Once measured and cut the rectangle paper is folded in two and then fold again in threes. Altogether giving them a 6 edges that are able to make a hexagon shape.

We did this while the boys are having their dinner, and its done in minutes.

Put together the hexagon shape can fit in each other , complementing each other shapes making a bee hives structure. This is math in 3D, math in nature that the school is trying to instilled in the students. Math are life, logic, functional and fun. Math are not work on paper,  frustration, exams, test, complex as i used to understand them at school before.