We’ve had another busy month with lots of play and learning at our place . This month, most of the key activities have been centred around some of our favourite books we’ve been reading. Here’s a little roundup of a few of my favourite activities we’ve been up to this month. ~ The Artist Who Painted A Blue Horse ~ Eric Carle books are always a big favourite at our place. The children really enjoyed identifying the various animals pictured in the ‘The Artist Who Painted A Blue Horse’ and naming the surprising colours of each animal. A blue horse? A green lion? A purple fox? I personally found this book to be a great tool for reinforcing learning the names of colours through identifying the unusual colours of each familiar animal in the story. I prompted the children to share and talk about what animal they would choose to paint and what colour they would paint it. Each child eagerly shared their choice of animals and colour to come up with really fantastic and unusual animal col...

Many, many years ago, at a small group meeting of one of the previous churches I attended before I was married, the group leader called out the usual invitation for people to ‘share’ any personal testimonies or words of encouragement with the group. As each person jumped in to share one after another, each sharing was received with applause or jubilant ‘hallelujahs’. God is good. Life is good. So-and-so were having a tough time recently but their prayers were answered and life is fantastic now. I was still very new to the group, but that evening I plucked up my courage and raised my hand. “Yes, sister? What would you like to share?” the leader piped up exuberantly. All eyes were upon me, looking at me expectantly. I took a deep breath and decided to go out on a limb and share something a bit different – a personal difficulty I was going through in my life at that time. I cannot recall the details exactly, but I knew it had something to do with work. And I was going through a really t...

One of the things I mentioned in my new year post was to try and share more of the play and learning activities we do at our family day care . So to kick things off in this department, here is a little roundup post of some of the activity highlights we got up to this past month… Chinese New Year Over Chinese New Year, I put together a Chinese New Year sensory bin based the colour theme of red, yellow and gold. I filled the box with various sensory items like pom-poms, bean bags, golden beads, red packets and tangerines. I also used the red packets for a simple puzzle craft activity. I cut the red packets into sections for the children to assemble into a Chinese New Year theme paper collage. *Chinese New Year sensory play inspiration from Things to Share & Remember ***** Where is the Green Sheep Extending on a couple of the children’s interests in the story book ‘Where is the Green Sheep’ by Mem Fox , I made this coloured sheep felt play set for our felt board. We used th...

Just giving a bit of airtime to my favourite little boy in the world. He happens to dressed up here as a pirate for a friend’s Tinkerbell theme birthday party he was attending. What do you think? Actually the truth is, this is also meant to be a bit of airtime for the pirate costume I put together on my own—haha! It’s a big step up from the previous pirate set I made two years ago. Nathan was very patient and obliging while I directed him in various poses for this mini photoshoot. But after the sixth or seventh one, he finally told me, “ Okay, that’s enough, mummy ”. “ Wait, just one more, last one! ” I protest. “ Sigh. Ooookaaay, just this LAST one, mummy ”. LOL. Oh dear. What a boy. What a mother! Dear Nathan growing to be such a terrific little chap. He has such an incredibly kind heart and an inquisitive mind. Lego is still his number one top favourite interest. Almost every day he comes up with the most original and clever creations of his own. He always looks forward to ...

“Gracie had a teddy bear, Her fur was chocolate brown, And everywhere that Gracie went, The bear was sure to go.” What is the magic that turns the floppiest little bear into a very real, loyal and trusted companion? "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you,then you become Real." ― Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit ***** Meet Teddy. She belongs to this little girl. Some facts we know about Teddy so far… Teddy is a girl. So says her owner and best pal, Gracie. She likes to drink tea. Pretend tea. She enjoys reading books. She likes to watch ‘Playschool’. And ‘Frozen’. And ‘Tinkerbell’. Well, pretty much whatever her pal Gracie likes, she likes too. She likes to go to sleep. Only at the same time as her pal, Gracie. And she likes waking up. Next to Gracie. Of course. She misses her Gracie very much whenever...

I make it no secret that I love boys . I love having a little superhero, prince charming, knight in shining armour, pirate, policeman and fireman around. Plus it’s good to have someone you can call on whenever we’re hit with a big dragon or monster infestation at our place. But make no mistake. I’m a big advocate for girls as well. Especially one-of-a-kind girls like this one. When Grace was born , I resolved not to fall into the usual girly-girl practices. I avoided surrounding Grace with pink and frills. I encouraged her to play with trucks and trains and Lego. I let her dress up in superhero capes . I consciously avoided always letting her have the pink bowl or pink cup. Despite all my efforts, I cannot deny that I am still a mummy to a little girl. And little girls are meant to be dressed in floral, frilly things. { A floral reversible skirt custom-made especially for my little girl } ***** A couple of weeks ago, Nathan was enjoying his afternoon tea in his usual leisurel...

What do you do when you have an overabundant harvest of grapes in your garden? Despite my very apparent and sad neglect of our grapevine, year after year , it remains faithful. Even after eating our abundant fair share, giving them away and letting many, many of them shrivel up or fall to the ground, there were still heaps and heaps of heavy bunches of these dark purple grapes left on our vine. Earlier this week while I was working , one of my little girls noticed a generously sized bunch of grapes, hanging very low close to the ground, peeking out from under the leaves. She enquired about it and asked if she could try them. I generally do not offer these grapes to the kids on a regular basis as these grapes happen to have pips in them. So I warned her about the pips, but she was still keen to try them. So I said okay, as long as she was careful about the pips. Without missing a beat, she plucked one off, popped them into her mouth, spat out the pip and ate it up. Then she turned ...

So today marks the first day of the new school year for us folks in Western Australia. Nathan seemed to ease back into the whole school routine pretty easily without any drama or fuss. I think the person who is stressing out the most about the whole thing is me. Apart from the usual emotional hoo-haa over his first day… (side question: Is it really true that every single kindy child gets completely reshuffled into a new pre-primary class? Why does it seem like Nathan is the only child from his previous kindy class that’s been reshuffled into this particular pre-primary class?)… there’s also a new daily drill of lunch and recess food prep. Oh my goodness. What on earth do you pack in a kid’s lunchbox every day for five days straight? I also prepare morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea everyday for all my family day care kids. It’s not easy juggling four individual food preferences and quirks, whilst maintaining a good balance of health, nutrition and variety. By dinnertime, I’m ba...

The age of your firstborn child is always the marker of the number of parenting years you’ve survived lived. That’s just one of the many reasons why firstborn children are special. (Item: I am a firstborn child). So in my case, that’s five years. Five years of parenthood. And five years with this terrific little fellow. So what has this past year leading up to five been like? Well in a few key words, it includes… School (i.e. kindy) New friends . Memorable dates . Swimming lessons. Discovering new interests . Deepening conversations . Everyday kindnesses . And Lego . Lots of it . For his birthday , hubby and I bought him this mega-sized Lego City police station set. Actually we bought it during the Boxing Day sales the previous year and intended to keep it as a surprise for his fifth birthday. As hubby was discreetly trying to sneak away to pay for it, Nathan spotted him and asked who it was for. So we had to tell him the truth. He was very cool about the whole thing...

Nathan going to kindy This is just sort of a surprise hello after my unannouced extended blogging break. January has always been kind of a slow month, going into energy-saving mode after the busy December holiday season. I’ve been induging in the rare luxury of just chilling out in my spare time doing nothing in particular, especially after finishing a highly intensive year in 2015… with Nathan going to kindy (and learning to juggle the school drop-off and pick-ups into our daily routine), two almost back-to-back trips to Singapore (and Bali ) and Kota Kinabalu for my brothers’ weddings , and getting down to business to finish off my Diploma in Early Childhood Education . And in between all those big highlights, the year was just jammed packed with lots of learning, work and play … intercepted by incredible and profoundly beautiful stories and scenes like this one about four-year-old kindness and friendship , and this one about two-year-old support for tough moments in life, ...