From Cubby House to Pizza Shop

This weekend I brought out the cubbyhouse that we made last week (see cubbyhouse ideas post) . It was easy to uncollapse and stick back together with sticky tape.

JJ stuck a pizza restaurant menu onto the front door, and that's when the inspiration hit, we decided to turn the cubbyhouse into a PIZZA SHOP!

I cut out some cardboard pizza bases, some red tomatoes/salami from a real estate magazine, and made shredded cheese from yellow craft paper. It worked a treat, and so fun to make!

How to make a pretend pizza! Put on the shredded cheese.

Add tomatoes (which can also double as salami!)

The boys then put the pizzas into the Pizza Shop oven to bake.

The pizza in the oven

I also taught JJ to take orders, he can almost write the word 'pizza'!

Jae's attempt at writing '1 Pizza' pretty good!! (plus cute picture)

Then, inevitably, SamSam forgot to take his pizza out of the oven for a very long time. We put a pizza in the oven, then had a nap and forgot to take it out.

We had a make believe fire in the shop. Which meant, naturally, that we had to have a fire engine and rescue crew. Cue a cardboard box, red Christmas wrapping paper, paper cutout lights and wheels, and some braces...and voila, a Fire Engine!!!

The smile on SamSam's face shows how much fun they were having.

Fires were breaking out left, right and centre, and every few minutes.  When they got tired of putting out fires, they'd go back to making pizzas. The boys had a great time :)

Home Made Jigsaw Puzzle

Every year when it's time to change your wall calendar to a new year's calendar, don't throw the old one out! You can make it into a home made jigsaw puzzle for your kids!

Our calendar last year was of wild animals, which made it a perfect subject for jigsaws! 

Method
- Ask your children to choose which picture they want to turn into a jigsaw puzzle. JJ liked the bears and SamSam the lions.
- Cut out the picture into a rectangle or square
- Find some thickish cardboard from a box
- If you don't mind the mess, allow your children to paste the glue onto the picture and stick it onto the cardboard. For this exercise I used the liquid, clear glue that comes in a plastic bottle and has a brush underneath the lid. You could also use stick glue, but you'll need to put quite a good layer so that it can hold to the cardboard.

JJ with pictures glued onto cardboard box panels. The piece of paper to the right has lyrics to the song 'If I Were a Butterfly' - a great animal song that I sang with the kids after they chose their pictures.

- Let it the picture dry up. (I put the boys down for an afternoon nap with the promise of cutting up the jigsaw pieces when they woke up - worked a treat).
- Once dry, use some sturdy scissors to cut out jigsaw shapes out of the picture. If you want you could draw with pencil and then cut that out.
- Voila!  The great thing about calendars - you have 12 potential home made jigsaw puzzles!

Homemade Paint

Today we tried potato printing with our own homemade paint!

I cut some potatoes in half and used the knife to cut out some simple shapes - a cross, a circle, some lines and a letter C.

We made our own homemade paint, using flour, water and food colouring. It was fun!

Homemade Paint Recipe:
- 2 cups of plain flour, sifted
- 2 cups of cold water
Stir together flour and water until smooth, split into separate bowls, then add food colouring.

JJ stirring the flour and water for our homemade paint :)

Split the mixture into bowls, add food colouring, and voila! Homemade paint!

Get some small plates, put some kitchen paper roll down to act as the paint pad. Pour on the paint.

Use slightly thicker paper than normal, slip on the painting smocks, then let the painting fun begin!

Boys decide quickly to ditch potatoes in favour of finger painting! (something they've never been allowed to do by their slightly mess conscious mother!).

A great success :)

The boys didn't play as long with the paint as I thought they would - but they really enjoyed actually making the paint. Next time I make it, I will get some stubby paintbrushes as another painting tool.

XNPCSNNJUDW2

Letter T Day

JJ is so eager to learn that last week he wanted to play learning and teaching.

While the boys packed two backpacks with pencil cases and water, and pretended to take the bus to 'school' (by rearranging the cushions on our sofa to look like a bus), I whipped up a very simple lesson plan:

Aim: Teach about the Letter T
Method:

• Writing the letter T
• Reading T words
• Playing a T game
• Singing T songs
• Making a craft - animals that start with T
• Storytime Letter T

I photocopied some writing activity sheets for the letter T. The boys took their pencils and traced the dotted lines and coloured the pictures.

Another activity sheet had words beginning with T. I got the boys to read them out - truck, tomato and television. I took a piece of paper and wrote them as a list, and then we talked about how the letter T sounded. Then we added more words we could think of. We came up with Thomas (naturally), and troublesome (!).

I stuck these words up on a door so they could see them.

It was time for some singing with the letter T.

The only nursery rhymes I could think of with the letter T, were 'I'm a Little Teapot' and 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'. I wrote the titles on a piece of paper, and drew a teapot and a happy star, then stuck it on the door.

Then I pulled out my guitar and boys ran to get their percussion instruments. We sang the songs, and they shook their instruments and walked around the room to the rhythm of the music.

Other pictures and yellow suns are from Sunday school!

Then it was time for a letter T game.

For the game I wrote some words starting with the letter T, cut them up into strips, and put them in a pencil case. The boys had to take turns taking a word out, read it, and then stick it on the object with blue tack. The words we had included, television, toes, tshirt, tap. Toes was a fun one, as they stuck it to Daddy's socks as he sat on the sofa.

JJ holding his school bag

To wrap up, it was craft time with the letter T.

I asked them which animals started with T. I don't think they did very well, so I suggested turtle and tiger. JJ chose to make a turtle, and SamSam the tiger.

The boys LOVE glue. We bought some of those liquid gluesticks at the $2 shop, and they just love squishing the glue out. I drew an outline of the animals, and cut up lots of little pieces of magazine for them to make a collage.

Here's what they made!

Realised later that the tiger's tail is all wrong. Will have to get better at animal drawing!

I had a backup activity in case they wanted more, which was reading to them the letter T from the Richard Scarry book, but it was time to have a run around outside after all this concentration!

Evaluation: The letter T 'day' was a real hit. The boys learned a lot, they were occupied for quite a long time, and for me, having a plan to follow was really good - it made things much easier.

What I'd do next time: I think as the boys get older I'll need to prepare some of these 'lessons' in advance - like having activity sheets already photocopied and art equipment prepared. I found that the boys would get up to mischief while I hurried to prepare everything!

The good thing is that the lesson plan can be duplicated for all other remaining letters, hurrah!!! :)

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

It's a gorgeous new day and I feel ready for anything!

Before breakfast the boys playing with a makeshift car ramp - a long piece of cardboard balanced on a couple of foot stools - and zooming the cars, trains and trucks down it. They're having a great time. Isn't it nice how simple things give so much pleasure!

After brekky they do some drawing and colouring in and complete some Thomas activity sheets. I like doing craft or writing in the morning when the boys have the best concentration.

When I hang out the washing, they blow bubbles and ride around the balcony racing each other.

Back inside JJ asks if we can play Hide and Seek. Hide and Seek is currently a real favourite. It's hilarious to play it with them as they always hide in the same place - in our bed under the covers! When I hide, I like to find good places to hide and take a little rest while they find me!

We make some paper aeroplanes and they fly incredibly well - probably the best planes I've ever made, and it was so easy! Here's a copy of the instructions.

JJ can fly his really accurately. He chooses the number 3 to go on his plane, and SamSam has number 1. They are a definite hit. They find they can put little figurines inside the planes and fly them too!

Chocks away!

We find a boardgame in an old book and play this for a good hour. It's based in an airport and the aim is to get to the aeroplane! Instead of a dice there's a little coin, one side is yellow and the other red. The board has red and yellow squares and whatever colour you throw is the square you move to. Brilliant!

We're getting peckish and decide a train trip into the city would be great. The boys love taking the train. JJ watches out the window as we pass by the stations, and reads out the station names as we go by.

 

5 minutes later, fast asleep

We hop out of the train and get to one of our favourite restaurants. The boys are hungry and eat really well, we have fried rice noodles with beef, and rice with BBQ pork and tofu. When the bill comes, Daddy explains to JJ how much the meal costs and how we work to get money to pay for the meal. JJ just wants to pocket the money and put it in his piggy bank!

Delish

We take the boys for a little run around outside the state library where people are grouped together having lunch and soaking up the lovely weather. It's a nice little green spot in the city to chillax.

Photo taken by SamSam!

Watching the birds on the Melbourne Central clock

We run some errands in the city, and then it's almost time to go home, but not before we stop by Harajuku Pancakes for strawberries with icecream and chocolate sauce pancake. Yumm!

We get home and the boys go straight to bed for their afternoon nap. It's been a lovely day!

In the evening we read 'Stuck in the Mud' a Thomas the Tank Engine early readers book, and 'My Little K Book', followed by devotions. Tonight's devotion is about quiet places, and that it's good to find a quiet place to spend time with God.

'Be still and know that I am God' Psalm 46:10

Good night sweethearts!

Monday

It's 6:15am and they're up!

They are very vocal this morning and SamSam wants to do "dot dot dot". I get out the pens and they dot the paper - SamSam also likes to dot-dot JJ - to their hearts content.

Best coloured pens for toddler kids
I've found the Crayola washable markers to be really great. These ones are a bit chunky, so they're easier for children to hold. The ink really does come off very easily in water - although the red needs a bit more effort to rub away (but not much more!).

The pens also have a recessed nib, which means that when the boys do things like make dots all over the paper, the pen nib doesn't go into the pen - remember when you did that when you were a kid?!

When I first gave the pens to the boys, SamSam was maybe 20 months old, and he couldn't resist scribbling All Over the perfectly white table that the paper sat on! It looked unbelieveably bad. But with a few wipes, it was completely gone!!

Crayola pens are more expensive, but I reckon they are worth it. We also have their washable crayons :)  (If you work for Crayola and want to advertise on my site, please contact me! ;).

They seem quite crafty this morning, so we decorate some more Christmas tree cut-outs that they painted earlier in the week. They must be hungry though, because they end up doing a bit of a half-hearted job! Note to self: feed kids breakfast before doing craft activities!

Breakfast is Yau Char Kway - the Chinese take on doughnuts. They look like long sticks, like Spanish churros. I cut them up and the boys dip them in honey. Yum!

SamSam says one of his pieces of doughnut looks like an owl, and another is a crocodile! I love their imaginations!

After cleaning teeth, faces and hands, and getting changed, we go out to the balcony to hang the washing. The boys are relishing their trike and bike, and also blow bubbles while I hang up the washing and pack their lunches for playgroup.

We love playgroup. The boys play with about eight children of differing ages up to 4 years old. It's held at church and they are run three days a week. They are structured so that there's free playtime, a craft activity, singing & dancing, snack time, and then more playtime. It's also a great opportunity to meet and get to know other mums!

Most churches (of at least medium size) offer a playgroup during the week. They are open to the public and you don't need to be Christian. We pay a small fee of $35 for the term which runs during school term. This covers craft costs, and coffee & tea.

If your child isn't in kinder, then this is a good way to get them used to playing with other kids. Our kids get used to playing with other kids through - playgroup once a week; usually one hour occasional care during the week (while I play tennis with my husband), and then get to mix with more kids at Sunday school.

Just shows that there's lots of different ways to also keep your kids entertained, and growing!

This is what we made at playgroup this week - little SamSam and JJ angels to hang on the tree!

This Saturday the boys will be performing on stage for the very first time, with their playgroup pals. Exciting!

We play a Thomas the Tank Engine 3D cube puzzle that we picked up from the school fair a few days ago. It's quite tricky, and well worth the $1 we paid.

It's nap time and it takes forever to get them have their morning nap as JJ refuses to go down even though he's really tired. I have to put him in the corner four times before he decides it's better to go to sleep than stand in the corner.

After a long nap, we play Dora Bingo - a game I got from the $2 shop a few weeks ago. I'm surprised that JJ remembers it as we haven't played it yet. For $2 the game is pretty good! The boys like to spin the dial and SamSam really likes the feel of the plastic counters.

Today's devotion, SamSam requests one we've had before. It has a drawing of a little girl with a cat, and they are looking for some kittens. The devotion is if we are in need of something, we just need to ask God as he hears our prayers! :) Yippee!

Tonight we're going out for dinner at a Malaysian restaurant in honour of grandpa's visit. We bring our own highchairs to make it easier! (This must be an eccentric thing to do as I don't know anyone else who does it, but that doesn't bother me!). The IKEA high chairs are so easy to dismantle and cart around. The restaurant is used to us bringing them along.

The boys eat really well. We have prawn crackers, char kway teow - a fried rice noodle dish and a sizzling silken tofu dish with egg and pork on rice. Dessert is ice kacang - a kind of Malaysian snow cone with different toppings.

We come home and they ask to ride their bikes around the balcony. After that they come in for a shower, and we read 'Piglets Big Movie' book and 'Mr McGee Goes to the Zoo', then it's bed time.

I love my boys!

Start of Two Honey Pots Blog

So I thought it was a good idea to start journalling what we get up to each day.

JJ is three years old, SamSam is two. With two active and curious boys I have to be on my toes everyday with things to keep their minds busy, their spirits nurtured, and their bodies moving!

Morning
A successful start with the boys sleeping in to 6:45am, Hallelujah!

Since the start of daylight saving, they've been waking up at 5:30am the last few weeks. Last night we plugged every single hole in the window where light could filter in. The room was completely black even at 7am! A very happy mummy.

As a result of a happy, non-sleep deprived mummy, we read 'The Three Little Pigs' in bed. JJ was a little apprehensive about the wolf the first few times we've read this book. He either hid behind me or his brother! He's much better now! SamSam laughs every time the wolf says he'll huff and puff the house down. He also laughs when the pigs say "No by the hair of my chinny, chin, chin!"


While I made one of their favourite breakfasts - boiled eggs and toast soldiers, they amused themselves with the Thomas Sticker book, a brilliant reusable sticker activity given by their aunty :) They get to stick all the engines' faces and numbers on.

JJ the very neat eater.

SamSam, extremely messy eater.

After breakfast with my help they wash their hands and faces, brush their teeth and get changed. I find it doesn't drag on when you get all the getting-ready-stuff out of the way! Also it means if we suddenly decide to go out, it's a much easier process of just plugging on their shoes.

Self-Dressing
JJ dresses himself now. I just put out his clothes on his bed, and ask him to put them on.
I also keep his undies in the same spot each morning, so that when he wakes up he knows where it is. Usually without complaining to me about his wet nappy, he'll simply take off his pull-up nappy put on his undies. So easy!

JJ has also recently started to rummage in the drawer to choose his own clothes. But unfortunately the only drawer he can reach is the one that holds all their pyjamas! I need to get time to swap over the clothes drawers so he can reach his daytime clothes. I don't have the heart to ask him to change out of PJs he's just donned when he's been so good at doing it himself! But he looks quite cute in his PJs walking around the shops!!

I have my eye on a rather cool kids-sized IKEA cupboard that would be perfect for helping in the self-dressing department!

Craft Activity
We tend to do craft or reading after breakfast. I find that starting out with quiet activities, or learning activities is a good way to start the day. They are at their most alert and able to concentrate really well. I tend to ramp up the energy levels towards the end of the day when I want to get them really tired out in readiness for bed!

Today the boys did some drawing. I like to get them to practise holding the pens or crayons properly. They made some really pretty scribbles!

We did some dot-to-dots which is great for practising pencil control. The printout I used was a photocopy from a Thomas The Tank Engine writing book (you'll find Thomas to be a common theme in my postings). I've found our homeoffice printer/photocopier to be an incredible resource. I buy activity books and photocopy whatever activities I want them to do. Means I can reuse the books too!

The last few weeks we've been decorating cut-out Christmas trees in readiness for Christmas cards. So the boys did some painting and glueing (their favourrrrrite). We've got quite a collection of trees now. Might be time for mummy to start pasting them into cards!

Devotions
We read today's devotion which was 'Don't Worry'. I love this little devotions book. It's especially written and illustrated for preschoolers, and so well done. The illustrations are by the same artist who drew the Care Bears!! Very, very sweet.

I feel that devotions are a great way to start to instill in the boys an understanding about the wonderful God who made us and loves us! It also has very good teaching about interacting with others, like sharing, forgiving, taking turns, and things like emotions. Great things for them to understand as they start to go to kindy and playgroups and get so much more social. It's brilliant!!!

TV
Right this very minute the boys are watching a Sesame Street DVD on Numbers and Letters. JJ specifically requested the numbers episode, and they both love it. Usually I only allow them one hour of TV a day, and only in the afternoon. But if it's purely educational I'm a bit less strict.


Library
We live in a really great location that is in walking distance to parks, shops, our health centre and our local library. We usually go once a week to the library and borrow five or six books. We'll read these books once or twice a day, every day, so that the boys really get to understand any new words and concepts. It's exciting to hear Jae use words that he's picked up through reading the books.

More recently I've also found that they like books that have onomatopeia (oohh, I can't believe I actually remember that word! The memories of high school English comes flooding back!). We recently borrowed a really nice book called the 'Rain Train', the writer portrayed the sound of the rain coming down as "A pitter-pat-pat, a pitter-pat-pat a pittery-pittery-pittery-pat". The boys would always laugh at the sound of the words! They love rhythms!

While we were out, we found many interesting things to talk about and play:

Paw prints! Who do you think made these?

SamSam throws stones into a muddy puddle.

JJ finds a snail! We nudge it and it goes back inside its shell.

Lunch
Lunch was fish congee made by Daddy in the pressure cooker! JJ really loves congee in particular. We love the pressure cooker as it's so quick and easy to prepare food. You just cut things up and bung it in the cooker, turn it on, forget about it, and by the time you remember it again, it's ready!!

In the middle of lunch SamSam was dozing off (we're trying to drop his morning nap), so we put him to bed. When there's only one boy to look after it's a great opportunity to do age-specific stuff with them, and you can see they are really quite chuffed that you're spending time solely with them.

Board Games For Toddlers
With SamSam asleep, JJ and I played a Thomas boardgame. I found this really cool collection of simple dice games bound together in an oversized book, at an Op shop in the country for only 50 cents! It has five dice boardgames with Thomas characters! Dice games are great to play with pre-schoolers because they practise counting, taking turns, and the learn the concept of winning and losing graciously (something that I must have struggled with when I grew up!).

Writing Practice
After the game we did some writing practice on one of those write-on/wipe-off books. JJ did a very passable attempt at writing the word 'house'! It's a good book because he can also do dot to dots in it, and I can wipe it all off later with a baby wipe. I just guide him a little bit with writing the letters, and if he wants to draw and doodle then that's fine.


SamSam still has around 1.5 hours sleep, JJ only 30 minutes. So after SamSam has been asleep close to an hour, I put JJ in. When they are both asleep I quickly clear away the lunch dishes (saving the washing for later), and head to bed myself for a quick powernap. I need to get enough energy for the rest of the day!

Makeshift Tent
After a good nap, we're up and at-em! I put up a makeshift tent in the boys room using their sponge sofas for the walls and a small mattress for the roof. They play for a little while and end up playing chase around the apartment.

Kerplunk Toddler Game
By popular demand the Kerplunk game was brought down from the cupboard. They simply love the combination of the coloured sticks, and holes, and marbles! It is especially good for fine motor skill development as it requires a considerable amount of concentration for little ones to thread the sticks through both holes in the cylinder. They also love the sound and excitement of the marbles falling down as they pull out the sticks!

When it comes to boardgames we only play twice before we put the game away. I find that once is too little, and by the third time they'll lose interest in it. It's much better that they still retain a 'keeness' to play the game for the next time. They always help me to put away the game, as well as setup in the beginning.

Afternoon Tea
We don't always have afternoon tea - it depends on how well they ate at lunch. Since SamSam hardly ate, they shared an apple. SamSam is going through some weird eating thing where he chews up the food in his mouth, and then spits it out - all chewed up - on his plate. I have to insist that he puts it back into his mouth, chew properly - "like a crocodile" and 'put it in his tummy.' It seems to be working, but it's a longish process.

I'm starting to wonder if he has an overbite, as his top teeth jutt out a bit from his bottom teeth when they are clenched together. This could be why he's having chewing issues? We have to go to the dentist soon (yikes), so we'll get that checked out.

Wet Weather
We attempt to play outside, but as soon as we get our gumboots on and out to the bikes, it's raining! We run back in, and I'm racking my brains with what to do with two suddenly highly energetic boys.

We commence on a series of games that only hold their attention for a few minutes at a time! I'm trying to figure out what will settle them. We play:

• Music - I put on their favourite music for dancing and using their percussion. We dance and run around their bedroom for two songs, then they get distracted by trying to wrestle each other...
• Stuffed Toy Throwing - I came up with this game a few weeks ago. The boys' beds are positioned head to toe against each other. I found that when they are each in their own beds and they have a big pile of soft toys, they can expend a lot of energy by throwing the toys over the top of the head and foot of the beds. It's bit a like having a pillow fight!
• The stuffed toy throwing morphs into pet shop role playing, and then the play settles down into calmer play.

Role Playing - At the Pet Shop & the Supermarket
The boys really love going to look at the animals at the pet shop. They love rabbits and kittens in particular. We have one stuffed toy rabbit and one toy cat. We pretended they were in the pet shop and they went and bought them (cardboard money) and took them home in a nice box. They pretended to pay money for the pets, and then got in their 'car' and drove home with them. When they got home they fed them, petted them, and put them in the 'rabbit hutch' (the cat went in too).

This play morphed into going to the supermarket - whenever they get into a pretend car, they end up going to the supermarket. We have a very meagre supply of toy fruit - a banana, a tomato and some grapes - which I picked up for a few cents at the local school market, plus some other 2D food I've cut out of supermarket brochures and mounted onto cardboard and laminated. They like pretending to go shopping, putting things in their plastic trolley, putting the food through the cash register, and paying money at the checkout. This can go on for a while, if you get them to take turns being the checkout person, and the person shopping.

The Rain Stops
Thank God, the rain finally stops, and we can go outside and expend some energy. The boys take turns on a second-hand tricycle I picked up yesterday through eBay. Surprise, surprise it's a Thomas tricycle. We go round and round, and round our wrap-around balcony. Thank goodness it's large enough to get some exercise! A good 40 minutes and it's getting cloudy again. We go inside, and it's TV time for the boys, and rest time for mummy!

Dinner is roast lamb with mash potato, courtesy of Daddy chef! JJ eats a huge meal and SamSam is more picky. Mandarins are for dessert. We finish the day with a quick shower, a sit on the sofa next to mummy and read all the library books. Definitely my favourite part of the day.