An Astronaut's Journey into Space

‘Twinkle twinkle little star’ is the rhyme what most of the children learnt first.  I think a kid’s love for space started here. My little one is also not an exception.  She loved to watch the sky for different shapes of clouds, number of colors she could identify from the evening sky, different shapes of moon & changes in its location and watching the bright Venus in the evening sky and its location.

I still remembered the moment she opened her eyes wider and asked, “Isn't it a bright star? Is it a planet?” Then, she called her dad and said, “See, that’s not a bright star. That is the brightest planet.”

The planet song  and the solar system song are our favorite videos.

So, I thought of introducing her some fun facts of our solar system via a simple story ‘An astronaut’s journey into space’. This is how the story goes.

Once an astronaut wanted to find a planet better than our earth to live.  He traveled around the solar system. He found that the last four planets - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are full of gas.  No one can land there.  In Neptune, there is heavy wind blowing.  He found a strong Hurricane there. Uranus is Icy cold.

Then, he went to Saturn.  It has so many thick rings.  Saturn is like a balloon.  It is the lightest planet.

He went to Jupiter, the biggest planet.  We can put 1300 earth into it. There is also a strong hurricane like wind.

In mars there is no oxygen and found a dusty storm. (“Yes ma.  We have to put oxygen mask. I saw this in a movie ‘mars needs moms’”.)

Venus is very hot like he would be melting.  Mercury - the smallest planet is very close to sun.

The astronaut is fed up and said, “Our earth is the best to live”

We also used a small stone to represent the meteorite.

I read this article about the visible planets of  2014  and we watched the evening sky for Jupiter. We found it in the north east around half an hour after sunset (on 25.01.2014). It was so bright all through the night.

Community Helpers: A Paper doll dress up game

I used to make paper dolls chain during my school days and my little one loves dress up games.  So,  I thought of doing paper doll dress up games for community helpers theme.  I cut simple paper dolls, dresses, hair styles, accessories and other tools for community helpers.

It’s a great matching game to match the dress code, accessories and tools our helpers used. While taking each paper doll, she will ask what helper to be created and tell how the dress could be. She'll also search for the tools. Here are our paper dolls of  Doctor, Nurse, Farmer, Taylor, Police and Postman.

A sample for our regular paper doll girl dress up

Less Messy Painting activities

Painting is the messy play what children love.  Whenever my child takes the paint and brush, I told her at least thrice not to paint anything on the wall. The children’s tendency to paint on the wall is irresistible.   So, I am always searching for some alternative painting methods which could also help improving the eye hand coordination. Here are those less messy, easy to clean painting activities for kids(For mom's too)

Marble painting:

Marble painting is one of the easy craft what any child can do and its best to keep child inside the home during winter or rainy days.  Just take a tray, put a paper that fit in to it.  Put few drops of water color (colors of your choice) and then marbles.  Tilt the tray to move the marbles here and there in the tray.  The final outcome will surely be unique and a master piece.

Finally, the masterpiece ...

Salt painting:

Salt painting is another great way of learning color mixing. In a white paper draw a picture ,trace it using glue and apply table salt over it.  Now, using ink filler or eye dropper, gently drop the water colors.  The color spreads, mixes with the adjacent colors and creates new colors with excellent textures. 

Magnetic Painting:

Children love to play with magnets for sure. Hence, magnetic painting will be the double treat for them.  Put few drops of various colors on a thick sheet and place the paper clips or safety pins in the tray. By moving the magnet under the sheet, move the safety pin in all the directions of the sheet.  It’s really fun to watch the safety pin jump and roll over when the magnet is moved.

Nature Study II: Scavenger Hunt For Kids

Scavenger hunt is one of the great activities for kids to  keep them busy.  A scavenger hunt can be made with many themes like alphabets, colors, shapes, backyard, outdoor or seasonal like winter, autumn, summer or Rainy.  Our today’s scavenger hunt theme is nature.

 A scavenger hunt list may be a list of clues, names of the object or pictures. As my little one is only 4 years and not yet started reading, I drew a set of pictures for her hunting. (We can even prepare it using clip art and  take a printout.) Here is the list of items which were drawn (This is only for the readers.  For my surprise my baby understood most of those items except the shell and the nut (pei) of a coconut)

                 1. A cosmos, a black seed, a croton’s leaf, two identical stones

                 2.  Leaf, Leaf, bud of a grass, ant

                                  3. Y’ shaped stick, flower, red leaf, root

                 4.  Black pebble, shell, nut of a coconut, tall grass

                 5.  Leaf, a plant with red stem and green leaf, small pink flowers. .

Some of her questions before going for hunting,

I Row:“Ma, why you drew two stones?”

III Row:“Is this a stick? Can I have to take a stick of this same shape?”

IV Row:“Is this a  pebble or some seed?”

Scavenger hunts keeps the child busy and help to improve her recognition of various objects, shapes and colors.

Make a mess

Do you want to see a big smile on your child’s face?  They do not need any expensive or exclusive toys to play with. Just allow them to have a messy play. Let them play with sand and water, play dough, paints, paper bits, PVC pipes, glue ….. An easy way of entertaining them and educating them.  Children learn with all their five senses; They learn from everything they see, touch, taste, smell and hear. Even though it looks messy for the parents, it’s one of their ways of learning.

A messy play improve their hand eye coordination – a fine motor skill, improves the imaginative play, they tend to know the differences like wet or dry, soft or hard, smooth or rough, big or small… they just learn classification and sorting.

When they play in a group, it improves their social and problem solving skill.

They learn new words;

             Names of the objects like PVC pipes, corn flour, play dough, batter and names of kitchen utensils….

                    Action words like painting, pouring, mixing, digging, scratching, cutting....

                    Sorting words like soft, dry, smooth….

Why do you wait? Keep playing .