Fishing learning aid

Since we were on a 'fishing' theme with Alicia - scooping fish and the visit to the Underwater World at Sentosa - I made this fishing learning aid for her. It's a versatile learning aid and I've been wanting to do it up for a long time and finally got down to doing it - and finishing it (those are two very different things!).

It's a versatile learning aid because what's on the fish can be easily changed to suit whatever you want to teach (while the fish remain, well, unchanged).

*photos taken on 18 Nov 2010*


Here she's fishing for uppercase letters in the 'pond' (which really is a big piece of felt I bought to make a felt board for her - it's standing in temporarily as a make-shift pond):

I've prepared alphabets (both upper and lower case), numbers 1-20 and some dolch list sight words (which will come in useful in future). Currently we're only playing with the alphabets and numbers.

I can get her to fish for specific alphabets to spell a certain word or just get her to fish for fun - I guess magnets have a certain hold on children :) Her fav activity though is to 'clap' the fish I caught and make it drop... lol.

Taking out another set of alphabets:

Checking out the googly eye on the fish:

We really have so much fun with this! :P

Stir-fried fish slices

I haven't blogged about food in ages! teehee.. well, here's a simple stir-fried fish dish that's healthy and yummy  and one that pleases tots as well! I cooked this some time back... hopefully I got the ingredients right in this recipe... lol. My memory fails me sometimes...

Alright, the real reason why I fried my fish this time was because the slab of red snapper had been sitting in my freezer for ages so I decided I'd better not serve it steamed... :P

Stir-fried fish slices 

 

Ingredients:

• 1 slab of red snapper meat, sliced (not more than 1cm thick)
• a couple of bunches of scallions, washed, cut into 1-2" segments
• thumb-size ginger, shred finely
• 2 cloves garlic, minced

Marinate fish slices with:

• ground white pepper
• light soy sauce
• hua diao jiu
• sesame oil
• 1-2tsp cornflour (so that the fish will not disintegrate when frying)

Sauce:

• oyster sauce
• soy sauce
• sugar (optional)
• ground white pepper
• sesame oil
• water

*Add sauces and condiments according to your own tastes*

Method:

1. Mix all the ingredients needed for the sauce in a bowl and set aside.
2. Heat oil in wok. Add the garlic, ginger and scallion and fry till fragrant.
3. Add the marinated fish slices and stir-fry quickly for a couple of minutes (be gentle with the fish).
4. Add the sauce prepared earlier into the wok and bring to a boil.
5. Add cornflour solution if preferred.
6. Dish and serve hot with rice.

Dress Up Bear

This Dress Up Bear is the quick, simple and attractive solution to practising fine motor skills for tots and preschoolers. It definitely beats practising those fine motor skills on boring Montessori frames!

The Bear's features:

• a zip
• a snap button
• a (normal) big button
• a velcro (pocket)
• a buckle
• (shoe)laces (for practising tying ribbons)

Here are some photos of my little one practising hard:

Trying hard to undo the button:

Zip up! Zip down! Zip, zip, zip! :P

It's buckle time!

Ta-da!

Here's the pic of the Dress Up Bear:

Spelling Bee

Bought a set of Spelling Bee recently for Alicia during Infantino's warehouse sale and here are some pics of her enjoying her new learning aid! :)

Not that useful for now as she doesn't really spell yet but should come in handy when she's slightly older! 

She still has fun naming the pictures and fiddling with the alphabets though. :) and of course, spelling nonsensical words... LOL.

Little learner in action:

Placing the alphabet back into the pocket:

Naming the letters:

Concentrating very hard, as you can see... :P

Here's the learning aid! :)