Big Bad Wolf 2015 (#BBW 2015)

Big Bad Wolf #BBW2015 book sales has started since 4th December 2015 till 14 December 2015. It is time again for us to replenish our reading and activity materials. BBW 2015 is truly a book heaven and letting me alone there, I might have ended up buying lots of books.. Hmmm I just love reading.. Same goes to little reya. Since she is a baby we used to read for her various bedtime stories and Grolier's I Wonder Why Series using the talking pen.

All this reading activities certainly has cultivate love for reading and books deep in her. She were super excited when we arrived at the sale and pulled the trolley by her own while browsing her books. We vet thru all the books before proceeding to the counter. BBW has certainly made shopping with a toddler a breeze. They provided lots of trolley, counter for storing your books before proceeding for payments, play area and restaurants to get a quick bite. They do have amazing discounts for stationery as well, near the entrance.

I don't have enough of it but had to stop shopping when little Reya starts to feel sleepy. Definitely worth it and money on books is not a waste;-)

I see it as an asset.. Way to build our home library! Below are some photos of the sale and our catch on the day!

Yeah!! it is only in Malaysia 24 hours shopping of books.. no one minds you even you are on your pyjamas..:-) 

Reya @ Bukit Merah Laketown Resort

Bukit Merah is a small lake town located in Perak. Merah is a Malay word and it means red; Red Hill. We did a quick trip there over Diwali holidays. It was my first time up there and the view was so fascinating. Bukit Merah Laketown Resort as its name offers many attractions and facilites.

They have waterpark, orang utan island and an eco-park. We went there quite late and did not make it to the orang utan island and an eco-park. The waterpark it self is so huge and we did not managed to explore all the attractions there. They also have accomodations ranging from waterfront villas, water village and hotel if you wish to put up a night with loved ones and continue to explore the gem the next day. List of accomodations are as below:

1) Laketown Hotel at Bukit Merah
2) Kampung Air (Water Chalet) at Bukit Merah

Reya was super excited to get to play in water.. her most favourite thing is to bath. She will be very happy to be in water for hours. They have childrens and adult's slow river rides, kids water playground, giant wave pool and flume rides which we did not discover during our trip.

There were also plenty of covered waiting areas with table and benches for those who wish to only wait by the pool side to relax and watch their children having fun.

Eco-park is an eco-tourism and educational place where children and adults get close and experience animals. Below are the list of parks:

1) Nature Trails/walk- enjoy he fascninating mother' nature and bird watching
2) Skycycle- enjoy 200 m mid air tour across the tropical forest
3) Pets Park- get to touch and feed small and domesticated like rabbits
4) Predator Park- Watch the reptiles cobra, vipers snake and python in safe enclosure
5) Many other attractions like, crocodile enclosure, sun bear and deer enclosure also tropical trek to obesrve gibbons and binturongs.

I would say that this place is reasonably rated and most of the facilities are safe. The entry price for the water parks is as follows:

to get more information on this exciting place visit:http://www.bukitmerahresort.com.my/

Reya gets to enter for free as children below (90cm). I personally loved the experience as the facility provided were not so bad for the price we paid and the experience Reya got in a water theme park.
They also have changing rooms and lockers to keep things safe.

It started to rain when we decide to leave the park. Definitely can visit again to cover other places here.

Ear Piercing Ceremony

Ear piercing is an important ceremony in Hindu traditions. It is another milestone, sacrament and believe that piercing of a hole in the lower lobes of the ear have benefits of acupuncture. 

Ear piercing usually performed on 10th, 12th or 16th day after child's birth.  Some choose to perform it during 6th or 7th months after birth. The ritual is also performed on odd years after birth of a child, for example on 3rd or 5th year. During this age it is believed that the ear lobes of a child is soft and the pain will be mild. There are two methods sought after for ear piercing, either by a needle or shooter/ piercing guns. I have done some reading and gathered experience from other moms on both methods.


Here are some pro's and cons of piercing with a gun and needle:

Piercing Gun

Pro's

a)  Almost painless and quick; 

b) Child will almost not realise because of the numb spray will be applied  immediately after piercing; and 

c) Earrings are often pre-sterilise and packaged

Con's

a) Uses low quality jewellery (studs only) that often leads to skin irritation and prolongs the healing time;
b) Higher chances of infections; and
c) uneven piercing

Piercing with needle

Pro's
a) Also a quick process;

b) Healing is faster as less tissue trauma on ears as needle is often sharp; and

c) Various choice of earrings that can be used with needle piercing (especially for hindu custom where we will be using gold jewellery) 

Con's

a) Most of the time it is done without a numb spray; often leads child to painful ordeal and second ear piercing will be a struggle

Back to little Reya's ear piercing ceremony. My hubs has long planned for having Reya's ear piercing ceremony and prayers in Butterworth which my parents had agreed immediately. A chance to visit mom's hometown is always an immediate yes for them, includes my brother who longed for a break.

Initially we planned for getting her ear pierced using a shooter/ piercing gun. But after weighing all the pros and cons we resorted for needle piercing. Reya's ear pierced by an experienced goldsmith on 30th August 2015 (Sunday), 11.10 am. It was so joyful to see our 3 years old girl with an earring on for the first time. She cried during the piercing and after awhile almost didn't realise she was wearing one and plays as usual. 

Reya's excited look before the piercing done.
Beautiful Maha Mariamman Temple in Butterworth as background here.

This photo was taken at evening on the same day during our visit to Arulmigu Balathandayuthapani Temple in Penang

Thank you for reading!!

Raising Smart Toddlers

It is every parents dream to raise smart children so that in future they will be able to achieve success and contribute to the community. Often said that every child is born as a brand new white canvas and we as parents will color and mould them with correct attitudes and habits. I have did some research on how to raise a smart kid/toddlers and came across various tips:

a) Building a child's spirit by asking to try harder. Praising in each effort tend to make them work harder and build their confidence and they learn not to give up easily;

b) Reading to a child helps build vocabulary. The more new words a child hear the better the brain development. Exposing a child to various diversified word help them in reading, writing and spelling skills later on;

c) Guiding children according to their social emotional development cue. As parents we need to support our children to identify and help to express the emotional cues. For example when one of Reya's friend accidentally bumped on her and both fell down, we can say "ops it was an accident" to help them overcome negativity. Same goes when the child do some thing good like sharing on toys or wait for turns while playing patiently, give out lots of praises so that the child keep up with the good habit.

Some of their social emotional developments milestones are as follows:

** more information on social emotional development can be obtained from https://www.virtuallabschool.org/preschool/social-emotional/lesson-2 and http://www.cdc.gov/NCBDDD/actearly/pdf/checklists/All_Checklists.pdf

d) Encourage curiosity and continuous learning at home even your child is going to a preschool;

e) Giving some opportunity for the child to be independent (only for things that are tolerable) ex: choosing a dress, an activity during a play time or which story book to read during bedtime. Healthy independence will help them to build their decision making skills; and

f)  Sometimes unstructured activities is good for children. So now and than skip that routine and indulge in fun activities together with your child. This will create strong bonding and they are at their best when they feel valued and loved for who they are!

Thank you for reading and share with us on what your tips for raising smart toddlers.

Sensory Play: Icy Week

Sensory play is Reya's most favorite activity at the moment besides coloring and pretend plays. This week we are exploring ice and some vocabs related to it. As always, sensory plays promotes imaginations and creativity as there is no right and wrong answers to it. Just experimenting and developing self-esteem as they kept try and exploring.

She is able to identify waters, wet, frozen, solid and liquids. She had so much of fun.. Some pictures of our activities:

1) Ocean Theme in Icy Waters

Things we will need is lots of ice cubes and block ices, a container and some ocean animals

2) Fizzy Ice

Things we will need are:

- crushed iced and some cubed ice in a container
- vinegar
- blue food coloring to give a blue water effect
-syringe
- baking soda

Firstly mix vinegar with food coloring. Use crushed ice on a bowl/container and add in baking soda. Add another mound of crushed ice on the baking soda. Use the medicine dropper/syringe to squeeze in colored vinegar to the crushed ice and observe the fizzy bubbling sounds.

Reya was amused by this and kept asking for more ice. We ran out of ice super fast..This definitely addictive and while doing we chatted about what she saw, the reactions and experiment with lots of colors.

3) Ice Painting

Things we will need:


- Water mixed with some baking soda and leave in freezer till it become solid and the color   will be white
- colors ( we use crayola washable paints)
- paint brushes

Once the water is frozen till solid, color as per imagination and create super cool arts. The mixture can be washed and recolor to recreate so many designs and experiments with color.

It was so much fun to see Reya explore and focusing on the activites. Mission accomplished and she kept wanting to play with more ice.. Looks like icy week to be continued....

Thank you for reading.

Finger Painting

Long pending post... yeah mommy super super busy lately. Little Reya? Have been amazingly good girl nowadays and morning is a breeze to get her to school. Quite settled down now. Our home schooling still continues and we are playing with lots of colors recently.

What we did last Sunday was finger painting. The benefit of it is huge and it's a long list, here is some of

Firstly is bonding time with your child (yes, please put all the gadgets away and indulge in this activity with your little ones)

Strengthen hands and helps with fine motor skills

Increase creativity and imaginations

Boosting their self-esteem when we display their works around the house

Experimenting textures, colors and smells

Artistic development

Express thoughts and ideas through painting 

Improve hand and eye co-ordination

You will need lots of colors (crayola hand washable paints) and papers.. Some of Little Reya's work below:

Reya @ Q-Dees Puncak Jalil

It have been such a long long break from my last post. 5/5/15 is such a memorable date for me and hubs. The day of our little Reya joins preschool. Her first uniform, small bag and little pencil box are such unforgettable moments and experience. Another milestone of our little one.

The ultimate reason we are off to get her into preschools, so that she learns to make friends, improve her language and get used to school structure, schedules and activities. After much surveys of preschools around our neighborhood, we came across a Q-Dees centre. Our first visit, is to know about their syllabus (surely! they have a structured learning for preschoolers). We made an appointment with Mdm Woon, the principal and met her for getting more information.  Mdm Woon brought us to visit the entire school. They have CCTV, toddler friendly toilets, play area, kitchen and their main door remains locked most of the time. The school is so clean and safety of the childrens is their utmost priority i would say. We felt this is the most suitable environment and registered Reya on our second visit.

On her first day, Reya was so excited of the thought of going to a new school. She did not cry at all and once reached she didn't cry but was clingy to me as it is a new place and faces for her. We slowly left when the teacher is around and came back 4 hours later. We were told she started to cry and ask for amma after the snack time and settled when teacher said amma will be back in a while. When we fetch her she was so happy and back to her grandma's house. The next following week was all cries when we drop her off at school. But Mdm Woon will always be by Reya to console her and Reya settle down quite fast with her. A big relieve thinking Reya is in good hands during the preschool.

The fee structure i would say is very competitive and no much different with other normal centers out there. For early discovery programmes they focuses on the following:

English Play Imagination to encourage children to grow imaginations. Imaginations builds a variety of skills such as problem solving, language, social and communication skills. Every class is occupied with a television for a multimedia learning. Childrens also have fun while learning the language mainly through dance, songs and actions.

Fliptec Memory Programme, toddlers do have the ability to retain memories even at a very young age. They are like a sponge and able to make more neural connections. This syllabus helps to strengthen photographic memory and develop logical and reasoning skills.

Self help Skills and Fun Exercise - Through fun exercise, children's fine and gross motor skills are further developed and refined. Children also learn to fold clothes, button up shirts and pour a cup of water all by themselves.

Maths and Science- Learning maths and science through teaching methodology that involves learning through exploration and experimentation. Scientific and pre number concepts are cleverly introduced through experiments and simple demostartions that make seemingly complex concepts easy to understand.

Character Building - Learning good habits from good manners to polite speech.

You can get more information on Q-Dees programmes at http://www.q-dees.com/about.php

Definitely the rest of the neighborhood preschools don't covers this much for a preschool. Worth the money paid and so far Reya's progress:

a) Speaks simple english at home
b) Having a better pencil grip and stay focused in activity
c) Sleeps well at night (her sleep pattern change as she is also taking short nap in afternoon)
d) She came back from school on mother's day week with a self made craft. All tears to saw my little ones self made art and craft. So valuable that i will treasure it!. (Yeah it is nearing father's day and her dad is anticipating one from her too) Bunch of thank you for her awesome class teacher and Mdm Woon for their patience and time dedicated in nurturing all childrens.

Finally here are some pictures of Reya and early days of school!

First day and first lesson 

Singing song with expression (this is around second day and after crying when i left her she settle down and engaged in her class activities) 

First week's last class with sports attire and this day also she cried when i dropped her but with her teachers' magical touch she was able to settle down!

Little Reya having fun in class.

This love stick is what Reya prepared for me from her school. Will definitely treasure this. Heartfelt thanks to all the teachers @Q-Dees for their never ending commitments, love and patience with all their little ones

p/s: the photos in her class and during activities are sent by Mdm Woon, credits to her in capturing the memorable moments.

Ball and Glue Coloring

Hi all! Have been very busy past few weeks. Hubs and i were going around preschools around our neighborhood to enroll Reya. Main reason is for her to make friends, socialize and to have fun playtime. I will be sharing some reviews on preschools around our area soon.

I have slowed down on our home schooling..but stick to some main weekday activities as below:

1) Coloring 

2) Grolier (Primo Logico)

3) Bedtime stories~ every day without fail though i'm sleepy;-) 

Weekend is at usual pace and after her Opus Musical Class on Saturday we will continue with arts and craft at home.

We did some ball and glue coloring.. here is the objective of the play, method and some pictures of it.

Objectives:

1) Bonding time! yes, we always have fun playing with colors together

2) to enhance creativity

3) improve coordination and motor skills

For ball coloring, get a an A4 card box or other suitable box and layer with a paper. Drop a few dots of water color on the paper and drop a small ball into the box. Get your toddler to shake and move the box around so that the rolling ball in the box create some amazing and colorful art!!

Reya rolling the ball in the box

Finally it become a nice art at the end and Reya was amazed 

For glue coloring you will need a bottle of glue and water color/food coloring (10 drops). Just unscrew the glue cap and drop 10 or more drops of water color or food coloring into the glue bottle. Replace the cover and shake the bottle to mix. Add more color drops to create darker color and your glue is ready for play. I prepared the glue and passed to Reya with some art blocks for her to draw as per her own creativity. usually we will display all her artwork on the wall in her room so that to encourage her to participate and also be more creative.

That's all for now and thank you for reading. Please drop a comment and share some of your ideas on activity with toddlers..

Cheers!

Making Collage With Toddler

Reya is not so keen to play with glue. I guess she don't like its sticky texture. Nevertheless i include some glue activity so that she gets used to it. Collage means to glue (in french). We will only need some easy set ups and things as below:

1) roughly teared off small pieces of paper from some old magazines and newspapers;

2) art blocks or A3 size papers; and

3) lots of glue 

The main objectives of doing collage is to:

1) develop fine motor skills;

2) teaches cause and effect;  

3) great hand- eye activity; 

4) opportunity to a child to express creativity;

5) develops awareness to sticky sensation; and

6) language development

Here are some pictures of our work in progress and final art of making collage a fish and a tree.. the rest of the work are abstracts... he he he

Cheers and do try this out with your toddlers and let me know how it turns out!!

Thank you for dropping by.

Reya Turns 3!!!

Time flies super super fast. 8 April 2012 is Reya's birthday. We are truly blessed and the happiest in the world to have such an adorable, well behaved and smart child.

Before the temple visit.. she is so cheerful!

Got special blessing and lord's malai for her!! Blissful

Gift from grandma

After visiting temple in the morning we went for a simple breakfast and head to Mid Valley Mega mall. We had ice creams at the Magnum Cafe and yes its so delicious! definitely worth a try and Reya enjoyed to the last piece of it.

'Hmm..what to eat?? so maney varieties of it"..Reya wonders@Magnum Cafe Mid Valley

After that, she had lots of fun playing before we returned home and prepare for the cake cutting in the evening. She had her nap and flower bath..(yes! flower bath. this little gal is enjoying flower bath since her 1st birthday..grandma's must do on her birthday.

Happy Birthday Baby!!! We love you to the max! and may you be blessed with all the good things, superb health and knowledge!

Sensory Bin: Oats and Salt

Here is a quick update on our recent sensory activities:

Things you'll need-
1) Large container
2) Oats
3) Salt
3) small plastics cups and spoon for scooping

this is how she played:

While doing this she said she is baking a cake for me!!.. she love it and spend a good 1 hour for playing and even asked some water to give it a good mix.

Time well spent and mommy gets to do a quick meal for lunch while she's busy playing!