Matching upper and lower case (with stickers)

Alicia chanced upon some stickers a few days back and insisted she wanted to stick them somewhere. Since she was intent on using the stickers, I decided that I should not just let the stickers go to waste... hence this on-the-spot activity! :P

It's a simple activity that anyone can do up and it requires little preparation so it's great for parents strapped for time. :) I first came across a similar activity at Activity Mom so when Alicia asked to play with stickers, I immediately decided that it was time to try this activity out with her.

All you need:

• a piece of paper - preferably not in the colour of any of the stickers you're using (I used a scrap piece of construction paper :) )
• markers
• pen
• liquid paper or silver pen (optional - for writing on dark coloured stickers (I didn't have it on hand, if not I'd have used it))
• labelling stickers

Simply write the upper/ lower case letters on the paper and draw a circle around each alphabet and write a set of alphabets (upper/lower case) on the stickers. Here I wrote the upper case on the paper and the lower case on the stickers but you can choose to do it the other way round. It really depends on what your focus is.

The extra marks on the paper are Alicia's doodles - she wanted to draw on the paper when she saw me writing!

Get your tot to pick out any letter on the paper then look for the matching alphabet on the stickers. (That's a lot simpler than looking for the alphabet on the paper since the letters are all mixed up!)

 Stick it on!

The next two photos were taken by Alicia! I thought they captured quite a nice angle of the materials we used for the activity though they were a bit blurry....

Well, it's normal that your tot can't sit through all 26 letters! The activity can always be revisited and completed over a few days! :)

Homemade fish finger(s)

After Alicia showed signs of getting sick of her usual baked cod, I decided to add something new to her menu - something which my hubby has been stopping me from adding since a long time ago: breaded cod. :P He's always saying that it's too heaty etc. and since she was very young back then, I also thought it wise to keep fried food to a minimum. Now that she's reached the 30months mark this month, I felt that it was time. :)

I didn't photograph the fish fingers, but here's Alicia eating it on one occasion (scroll down for recipe):

Getting ready to eat! AHHHHH!!

Picking the crumbs to eat first...

Posing with her fish finger :)

Homemade fish finger 

serves 1 tot

Ingredients:

• 1 slice of cod (about 60g)
• 1 egg, beaten
• breadcrumbs (probably about 2 tbsp - I didn't measure)
• a teeny weeny pinch of salt
• a little ground white pepper
• cornflour
• oil

Method:

1. Mix the breadcrumbs with the salt and pepper evenly.
2. Place the slice of cod into the beaten egg, then coat it with cornflour.
3. Return the cod into the egg then coat it with breadcrumbs.
4. Add some oil into a non-stick pan and shallow fry the fish finger till golden brown before turning over to brown the other side.
5. Place the fish on a sheet of kitchen towel to remove any excess oil.
6. Let it cool before serving to prevent burns.
7. (You can fry an omelette for yourself/ your tot with the remaining egg.)

You can repeat the breading process for more fish fingers before frying them.

1 beaten egg can be used to coat 8-10 fish fingers.

Learning Mandarin: Colours

Alicia used to dislike Mandarin but she's started to pick it up a bit more readily. I thought it was time to revisit some of the learning aids I made for her earlier so that's what we did since about two weeks back. :)

I got her to remove all the chinese word cards from the bilingual learning aids (for colours) and I got her to repeat the chinese words after me. I placed paper clips on each of the chinese word cards and she'd do the fishing using the fishing rod from the fishing learning aid I made for her earlier. After she 'caught' the card, we'd read the words together again before she placed it back on the cards (on the wall).

Look at the happy girl, learning Mandarin! lol.

One of her strange poses... with the fishing rod in her hand

蓝色!

红色!

橙色!

绿色!

I shan't bore you with more photos, but I'm sure you can see how happy she is doing this simple activity from the photos! :) *happy mummy*

Learning to count with ice-cubes

Alicia doesn't really like numbers or math for that matter... so I try to vary the way I teach her how to count.

Here's an activity I did with her about two weeks ago: counting coloured ice-cubes.

What you need:

• ice-cubes in two colours (colour of ice-cubes are up to your preference: I had 6 blue and 6 red ice-cubes)
• a couple of scoops
• two big bowls or two basins
• a rag (just in case)

Set up the activity as shown:

Besides the obvious fun the tot derives from scooping ice-cubes (read: improving fine motor skills) and counting ice-cubes as your tot scoops each one over to the other basin, you can also give specific instructions to your tot such as 'scoop a blue ice-cube for mummy' or 'scoop two red ice-cubes'. 

Questions you can ask (for math): 

(after scooping 2 blue ice-cubes and 1 red ice-cube) 

'how many blue/red ice-cubes are there (in the new basin)?' 

'how many ice-cubes are there altogether?'

(after scooping 1 or 2 more ice-cubes) 

'How many ice-cubes are there now altogether?'

You can get your tot to touch ice-cubes as well for the tactile experience.

Once the ice-cubes start melting and the colours start to mix, you can talk about colour changes (science).

Weird pose!

She enjoys pouring the water and ice-cubes after she's scooped all the ice-cubes over

And she repeats the activity over and over...........

止咳化痰饮料 (drink for ridding cough and phlegm)

I've been suffering from cough for quite awhile since I caught the flu bug from Alicia earlier in the year.

This is one of the drinks I tried brewing in my desperate attempt to get well. I'm not sure how many times I'm supposed to drink it before I get well, but I only tried twice and I stopped - cough didn't go away, but phlegm did though. :)

Anyway, my doctor just told me yesterday that my cough is more likely due to throat and airway sensitivity so he didn't prescribe me with new cough syrup; instead he offered me medication for my throat. I hope it works!


止咳化痰饮料 (drink for ridding cough and phlegm)


Ingredients:

• 1/2 liang chuan bei (川贝)
• 1tsp bitter almond
• 1tsp sweet almond
• 4 figs
• 1 dried orange (ju bing)
• 1L water

Method:

1. Rinse the herbs.
2. Place herbs in 1L of water and bring to a boil.
3. Simmer for 45min and it's done :)

For tot's consumption:

I checked with the TCM hall and the assistant informed me that this drink is suitable for tots suffering from cough and phlegm but in small amounts. :)

Fun with syringes

Alicia was down with flu earlier in the year and she's since been hooked on syringes - she even requests for water to be fed via syringe sometimes, long after she recovered from flu! Well, as long as water gets into that little mouth, that's more important for me! :P

Since she loves syringes, I thought well, why not just let her play with them and figure out how syringes work? It makes a great activity for her since she loves waterplay and syringes have just become the newest addition to the little basin!

All you need is a small tub of water, a couple of syringes and you're good to go! :) 

Learning to use a syringe can be really interesting for a tot - learning the mechanics of getting the water into the syringe and of course, their favourite part would be to 'shoot' the water out from it! 

My little one posing for cam:

Done with posing, she's getting ready for the activity