Snoopyeo said that the nature of my blog has changed. From backpacking and diving to family and kids. Yup, my ancient friend whom I haven't met in 10years (!?)... I have moved on and most of my friends are in this stage of their life too. You should try too (or are u already married w kids?!)...
On the topic of young parents with young kids, I thought I should do an informative blog, sharing with all our experience (omg, YY for once you are useful!). Not the most qualified person to advise on what activities to engage a 2-3 years old coz I will never get the mother of the year award with my minimum efforts but Ken is a great dad at planning activities.
The Singapore Zoo
http://www.zoo.com.sg
Pride and joy of Singapore. This is a must go for family with young kids. Great variety of animals and numerous cool shady areas for feeding the young ones. Rainforest kids world inside must be the dream of every 2 - 40 years olds, everytime I go there, I want to get wet. The friend of the zoo membership will be your best purchase of the year! Go grab one today.
Reinforce learning by going through A-Z animals at home. This can be in the form of an animal chart or an animal pictorial book.
http://www.birdpark.com.sg
If you want to demonstrate to your kid what is a classic example of a scam, come to the bird park - the home of sad looking birds (mostly parrots). If I really want to see parrots, I can go to a neighbourhood pet shop. In the bird park, you can however see a very rare sight. Colorful birds jailed in dense smelly cages while crows hopped outside go "chirp chirp chirp". (translated bird language : hahaha stupid birds, this must be the price of beauty... bye bye)
Gardens By the Bay
http://www.gardensbythebay.com.sg
Impressive. Blew me away with its architecture as well as the interior landscaping. Great for slow strolls (think air-con) and photo taking. The downside is that husbands are usually not interested in the different species of flowers and they get bored real fast.
http://www.amazoniafun.com
A word of warning, do not bring your kid there alone, go with at least one other adult or you will be begging your child to stop. The 8m high obstacle course is exhausting! Slides, ball pits, trampoline, suspension bridges, tunnels etc... Megan was fearless and had a hell of a time and but I struggled, fell, slipped, sprained my neck, bruised my angle... fine, everywhere hurts!! In the end, Kenneth, me and our helper had to take turns to accompany her when she slided down and declared " let's try again!! TRY AGAIN!!"
The Little Gym, Marina Square
http://www.thelittlegym.com.sg
We enrolled Megan in the little gym for one season and would love to have her continue if not for the terrible renovation taking place in Marina Sq. Excellent circularium by professional coaches. Learning motor skills by encouraging kids to try their best certainly train kids to feel secure taking risks and become more confident. Downside : Expensive.
Kids love parties and Zachary's birthday party was a huge success with lots of balloons, slides, swings and a gorgeous cake. Just look at Megan's eyes and you know she was having fun. Such events are great for children to learn social skills and for adults to catch up with friends.
Building blocks is a great educational toy. With infinite imagination, your kid will never get bored with this toy. Have a competition on building tall, building long, building shapes. If she loses some pieces under the sofa, it provides great entertainment looking at her trying to get them out.
Bought my set from Spotlight. It is a great hit with Megan. So far Megan is only keen to mould worms, snakes, balloons and baskets full of grapes which she carried around the house.
Plasticine is messy so only allow kids to play them on their own work table and nowhere else so you only need to clean a small square area. Because Megan's table is beside our sofa, she does spill over at times. Whack them! After every session, check their fingers, plasticine is going to get stuck underneath their nails and you can't wash them out. Try brushing or just trimming the nails. Unexpected upside: Megan started volunteering to have her nails cut.
Reading
It is essential that children pick up the habit of reading. At this age, picking up knowledge from books is secondary, Megan hitting the bookshelves when she is bored (read: instead of hounding me) is priceless.
In my old place, we had a study separated from our bedroom (so that we do not get distracted by the comfy bed). One entire wall of the study is bookshelves which Mimi stocked with story books, encyropedias, art and music books. Me and my sis each have our own 700mm x 1800mm study table at the age of 10 and 7. That was where we spent most of our time and in hindsight, a great place to prepare for exams during schooling age. Having a house big enough to have a large study and art work room has always been a vision of mine.
Books are expensive in Singapore, I bought Megan's storybooks in Philippines and China. The libraries are also very well stocked with good children books. Borrowing from the library has its advantages, mother and child know that these books will only be around for two weeks so will actually read them.
We kept forgetting to communicate to Megan in Mandarin. Need to work on this. Anyway this blog is about activities so how can I make learning mandarin an activity to engage the kid for a period of time? Since Megan knew her 1-200 numeric very well, I started working on her recognition of 一二三四五. Wrote 一二三四五 on the visible side of folded paper, the digital numeric on the covered side and stuck them on Megan's door. Every time she walked in and out of her room, I played a game "what is this?". Her recital of 一二三四五六七八九十 is perfect but so far still confuses the character 4 and 5.
Painting
Forget about toy watercolor sets. Buy poster colors for a more vibrant hue. Invest in a good set of soft crayons sold in art shops, not the cheap types in bookshops. Cartridge paper should be A2 or A3 sizes. A pail of water and a good size color palette for her to squeeze paints by herself and mix them. Always have a cloth for her to clean up spills and dry her brushes. I experimented with different brushes and Megan preferred my expensive no. 14 horsehair watercolor brush to the nylon ones I bought for her.
See, even a 33 months old kid can tell the difference between a good tool and a mediocre one. Because it makes a great difference in her enjoyment of painting. A good brush holds water well, a good crayon paints effortlessly. The correct set of tools is important in determining if your kid is willing to spend time on the activity. Again, we only allowed Megan to paint while sitting at her low work table or at her room desk. If she dare draw one line anywhere else, whoever up there better bless her!!! But she never did because her low table is a specific furniture piece where most of her activities happen and she knows it.
When I am in the mood, I will reinforce learning by painting events that just happened. After a day cycling at the park, we will paint bicycles, trees, birds, flowers, millipedes, clouds etc. Encourage the child to recall and narrate all the things she played and saw. Using painting as a tool, she will learn story telling skills. Whatever she said, I will draw and double checked with her if everything is correct. When I am not in the mood, I will just leave her to paint anything she wants. You can tell she is good at abstracts.
The process of painting need not be an end in itself. To encourage her to feel pride in her work, we installed a huge magnetic wall to pin up her prized works. The wall is managed by her instead of us and she decides what goes up and comes down. When delighted with her masterpiece, she would run to me with her painting in both hands and shout "come on, let's pin, let's pin!". These days, she just re-adjust the wall by herself. Here is one of the areas she knows she is the boss. Although technically she is the boss most of the time.
One day I got tired of drawing with Megan and thought I could just pre-draw people and houses and cut them out for her to piece together. Started with faces, different types of hair, eyes, noses, mouths, limbs, clothes etc. Megan wanted to join me in the cutting so I bought her a pair of kids scissors and gave her triangle roofs to cut. Kids scissors are so blunt, they are practically useless but served its purpose of discouraging kids from using scissors again. Give your child a big space to compose her village.
Beware of the kids scissors though. My FIL woke up on the sofa one day to find Megan cutting his hair. Stupid scissors cannot cut paper but can cut hair!!!
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