Sensory Play: Reptiles and Amphibians (With paper craft Lizards)

Sensory bins with various themes like farm animals, pond life, jungle, ocean and desert …are our very frequent activities.  Today, we made a sensory bin with a theme ‘Reptiles and Amphibians’.   As we don’t have any lizards in our miniature toy set, I thought of making it using paper.  Here is the tutorial of how I made a chameleon. 

Take a paper and draw one side of chameleon as shown.

Cut it. Let the tail be long enough.  

Using a toothpick or stick roll the end of tail.

Stick a black bindhi or glue a  mustard for eyes.

Cut a Thin red strip(split any one side) and glue it as the tongue.

Grabbing the insect using its long sticky tongue.

  

Lizards.  

I am not satisfied with the final outcome of the light color lizard.  The tail is not good.  So What, I said, “This Lizard lost its tail. Even if a lizard loses it's tail, the tail will grow and soon it will grow to its original shape and size.  Now only this lizard’s tail is growing.”

“Mmm.  I know this Ma.  That day, we read this in a story ‘can you give me your tail’.

Lizards have sticky legs too.

As Janani is only 4 years old, I just introduced the names of reptiles and amphibians and some simple facts.

Reptiles in the tub: Snake, Lizards, Tortoise, Crocodile, Alligators and Dinosaurs.

Amphibians in the tub: Frogs and Toads.

Reference:http://www.skiptomylou.org

Love you Ma

I don’t know, what drives me to post this. But, definitely I want to do it.

Today, when we are doing an activity, suddenly my little one kissed me and said, “Love you Ma.”  I was very happy . A little guilty too. I never said these words to my wonderful mom.

In many countries, parents are teaching their children to say, “Love you mom, Love you Dad.”   In our place, we don’t have such habit. My mom raised me and my brother to this level. She lives each and every second for our welfare. Even now, she comes to our house at 3.30pm by bus (My parents are living 8 Kms away from my place), tidy up my house, takes care of my girl ……and will go home in the evening. Whether it is a hot summer day or a  rainy day, she never fails to do it.

Today, my little one reminded me all these facts, taught me how happy a mother would be when she heard such a nice words.

Definitely, my mom won’t read this.  But, I want to say, “Love you Ma.”

Egg counting and Balance for Mathematics

My little one enjoys counting. Hence, I drew a set of bird-nest with some numbers (not in any particular order) written beside. I asked her to count and put the eggs (made of APF dough) in the nest. Within few minutes she finished it.  

Then, I made a balance to teach my kid about greater than, less than, equal to, addition and subtraction.  The balance was made using the available pain balm lids, ice cream sticks and a piece of thick sheet. After many trial and errors, I came up with a perfect balance.  Generally, my little one likes to play with the coloured pastas I made. It worked out very well.  She put pastas in both sides to balance it.

For the initial level I used only small numbers (The balance is also small). 

Pencil Shavings Art

My little one was given with a school project of creating a fish using pencil shavings. We made the fish using pencil shavings along with few other sea creatures.

But, when browsing through the internet, I found some more interesting ideas at martaltes. My little one started compelling me to make some human faces with pencil shavings hair. Just like me, she loves drawing human faces.we made the following by incorporating pencil shavings and art.

 My daughter loves this one very much (This is her work in my drawing)

Ice Age Play

Entertaining the kids isn’t an easy job.  We cannot let them sit before the TV always or we can’t make them play with their usual toys every time. One easy and inexpensive way to engage them for hours is frozen balls.

Fill the balloons with water , put small toys inside and freeze them to make frozen balls. Similarly, take different shapes of small bowls, fill with water and toys and freeze them.  You can add colours and sparklers to make it even more attractive.

I also used this play to introduce her some solid shapes like spear, cylinder, cubic and cuboid.

My little one was so excited to take her toys till the ice melts to release it. She named this play as ‘Ice age play’

Terrarium

I love terrariums and an article about a 50 years old terrarium drives me to try a closed terrarium. I think they are the best to teach kids about earth eco system. Our First Terrarium shown below is almost 9 months old. I watered the plant, the first day I planted it (First week of February 2013) and it is still growing without the need for watering.

This is our second one. I kept the bottle in a corner of a window. Hence, the plant leans towards light (Photo-tropism).  Terrarium is the best to teach about parts of a plant, transpiration and Photosynthesis process.

It is very easy to make a terrarium of your own with the following simple things,

A glass container

A small plant

Active charcoal

Handful of small pebbles

Soil

Active moss (optional)

Wash the glass container using mild soap and hot water and dry it.  Put the pebbles (Used for draining the excess water) then the charcoal (which keeps the soil fresh) then the soil.  Carefully place the plant. Just spray a little water and close the bottle. Keep the terrarium in indirect sunlight. Water the plant only if the soil is dried.

Handmade Toys and Story Telling

Who don't love stories? My fairy ‘J’ loves storybooks like anything. 'Little Red Riding Hood' is one of her favourite stories. I don't know how many times we read it before. 

So, this time to make it little more interesting, I prepared some toys using toothpaste tubes, and it came out very well.  (In our place, we don’t get peg dolls. So, I replace the peg wooden doll by half cut tooth paste tube.) Then I dressed the tubes to make various characters like little red, wood cutter and Red’s grandma. Then, our story telling session begins with those handmade toys.

Introducing the Woodcutter and his axe.

Now, my fairy ‘J’ is interrupting, “Little red’s mother is missing.” What to do? We are running short of toothpaste tubes. So, our story continues without little red’s mother.

They lived happily ever after. 

We really enjoyed both the toy making process and story telling. 

Fairy 'J': "Amma, Shall we play 'Cindrella' next?"
Me: " Time for homework. Shall we have it on another day?"