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Showing posts from July, 2014

A simple outdoor activity: Nature Bracelets

Nature bracelets made by the kids One thing I try to do every day with the kids is to get them outdoors. Whether it’s just in our backyard or taking a walk around the block or heading to the nearby playground/park together. Last week, I decided to vary our usual walk with a very simple activity to help the kids focus a little bit more on their surroundings during our stroll. Nature Bracelets (Adapted from Centre for Childhood Creativity ) Supplies: masking tape or duct tape. Wrap the tape around the child’s wrist with the sticky side out to create a sticky wristband. Then go for a walk outside and encourage children to look for various nature items to decorate their bracelets with – small leaves, flower petals, twigs or bits of wood. Talk about the objects they discovered, encourage children to describe the details on their objects. You can also discuss why some items (or living creatures) might be appropriate or not appropriate to stick on their wristbands. This simple

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Malaysian style sago pudding

It all started when I had asked hubs to pick up a pack of tapioca ‘boba’ pearls from the oriental grocers for an edible water beads sensory activity I wanted to do with my kids. He came home with the wrong type of sago pearls which were the mini-sized ones. He obligingly agreed to go back and look for the right type of tapioca pearls I wanted and I chucked the pack of mini tapioca pearls into my pantry and forgot about them for a while. Then I stumbled across this recipe for a Malaysian style sago pudding which sounded so delicious I knew I had to try it out. It turned out tasting absolutely incredible and was so simple to make, I had to share it. Malaysian Sago Pudding (Adapted from Malaysia Kitchen ) Ingredients 4-5 cups water (approximately 1 litre) 1 cup sago or tapioca pearls* 1/4 tsp pandan paste OR pandan aroma paste, not pandan essence (optional) 90g palm sugar** shaved with a knife + 2 tbsp water 1 1/2 cups coconut milk*** Vegetable oil (for greasing moulds) * Origi

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Washi-fied

So washi madness has struck our home. Ever since the acquisition of this collection of washi tape to my craft stash, I’ve been going mad over all sorts of ways to washi-tape stuff around the house. So I thought I’d share some of the fun ways I’ve been putting my washi tape collection to use… Ice-cream stick ‘people’ dressed in washi-tape clothing Washi tape cards TP-roll binoculars (made by the kids) decorated with washi tape Washi-fied clothes pegs P.S. If you’re into washi tape, I’ve recently started a new ‘ washi fun ’ board to my pinterest collection .

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Writing about why I write

When the lovely Druimé from Snippets and Spirits asked me along to join in this blog hop series about why we write what we write, I was honoured and glad to jump on board. This was definitely a challenging post to write as it required me to dig deep into my own aims and motivations on why I write and keep on writing. There are five specific questions I had to answer for this series. So without further ceremony, I’ll just dive in… A post shared by Serenely (@livingserenely) on Feb 24, 2014 at 5:40am PST Armed and ready with my trusty writing companion #1. Why I write? There are many interconnecting reasons for this. I suspect some of my friends think that this is simply a way to satisfy some inner narcissistic part of me. Actually the reason I started blogging in the first place (nine years ago) was to keep friends and family living overseas updated on the everyday mundane things happening in my life. In the process, I discovered that I really enjoyed the process of journa

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Freezing the picture: Grace at one year old

Dearest Grace … One year ago , you were a tiny, velvety little bundle in my arms. And now a year later, here you are, a giggly, smiley, roly-poly little girl. With all the bigger kids for company at our house these days, you are often the youngest one in the group. Everyone adores you to bits and calls you ‘Baby’. So much so, that I think you actually believe that is your name. But your size and age doesn’t really matter as you always insist on tagging along in all the bigger kids’ activities and are quite capable of holding up your own. I know you are growing fast, but I still can’t help calling you my baby girl, to cling on to your baby-ness for as long as I can before it slips away. If I could, I wish I could preserve a little bit of your baby-ness and bottle it up to keep forever. If only I could. So as a consolation, here is my feeble attempt to freeze this picture of you now… Things you love Walking – which officially commenced at 11 months old which was quite early compa

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Grace turns one

Last week, our dear little Grace turned one. She’s been growing so fast, sometimes it feels like she is already well past the one-year old mark. At first when I first started thinking and planning what to do for her birthday celebrations several weeks ago, I thought we were going to throw the usual big one-year-old birthday bash with the whole shenanigan. I even made a start on the washi tape party invitations which I had pinned months ago. But after an honest evaluation of the situation, I realised that all I really wanted was simply for our family to be together. I very much wanted to make a big fuss over the birthday girl and prepare up a really special celebratory meal for her, but not necessarily for ten to twenty other people. So after much consideration, I decided to make Grace’s birthday party a really exclusive one, so I could dedicate all my energy into making it special just for her, instead of wearing myself out trying to impress a big crowd. After all, this is her very

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Designing our own ‘lift the flap’ book

Last week, I shared about a ‘ Write Your Own Book ’ activity that I did with Nathan. Nathan enjoyed the activity so much so I decided to extend that idea with another similar activity, but this time take it up a level. Designing our very own Lift The Flap’ Book! You can refer back to my post last week on how to assemble the little booklets. The only addition to this activity is to cut out smaller sized squares from coloured paper for the ‘flaps’ and glue or sticky tape to attach the ‘flaps’ on the pages of the book. The pictures should be pretty self-explanatory… Here is a snapshot of Nathan’s finished masterpiece! Hope you’re having a lovely week everyone ^_^

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A day in the life of a family day care educator

I think people often wonder what I do all day now that I’m at home for most of the week running my family day care. So I thought I’d share a bit of insight on my typical daily working routine… 6.45-7.15am Wake up, wash and get dressed for the day. 7.00-7.30am My own kids start waking up. Get them dressed and fed. 7.30-8.30am Day care kids start arriving. Free play (outdoor/indoor) 8.30-9.00am Mat time and story time. First round of nappy changes. 9.00-9.30am Morning tea. 9.30-10.00am Put babies down for morning nap. Older kids have some TV time. 10.00-10.30am Structured activity or learning experience for older kids. 10.30-11.30am Babies wake up from morning nap. Free play (outdoor/indoor). 11.30-12.15pm Second round of nappy changes. Lunch time. 12.15-12.30pm Pack up toys together. 12.30-1.00pm Story time. Get ready for afternoon nap/rest time. 1.00-1.30pm Wash dishes and clean up table, kitchen and play area. Prepare afternoon tea for kids. 1.30-2.00pm Eat my lunch. 2.

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Two beautiful additions to our library

Just sharing a couple of lovely items that arrived in the post last week… These photobooks were created and printed through Photobox which I had won courtesy of a giveaway hosted by Eva at The Multitasking Mummy (thanks, Eva!). It actually took quite a long time to put together as it was a massive project to compile all my digital photos scattered everywhere and arrange them into beautiful and meaningful collages (especially due to the perfectionist streak in me). Thanks to the generosity of the people at Photobox, I was able to put together not just one, but two photobooks... The first one is a compilation of photos of our family and extended family members which I arranged it into a story book format and titled it ‘Our Family’. It’s been lovely to be able to sit down with Nathan and Grace and pore through photos of grandma, grandpa, and all their uncles and aunties who live far away and talk about them together. The second one is actually a children’s book written by my dea

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“Write your own book” activity for children

A few weeks back, I wrote about my son the doodler . Since then, his drawings have been evolving and getting more and more varied and sophisticated. He has been using up sheets and sheets of paper (and a few walls) at a rapid pace, faster than I could keep up with. Then I stumbled across this awesome idea from Katie at A Little Pinch of Perfect to get the kids to write a story book. It was the perfect way to build on his interest in drawing and doodling. So one afternoon, I suggested to Nathan that we write a story for daddy. He jumped at the idea right away. Here’s an outline of how we did this activity… Materials 1 sheet of coloured A4 paper 2-3 sheets of plain white A4 paper Pens, pencils, markers/textas for drawing Assembling the booklets Stack the sheets of the white A4 paper together with the sheet of coloured paper on top. Fold it in half, and staple the edges together to form a little booklet. [I’ve actually made several ‘doodle books’ using this method for Nathan to