Toddler | Hear Mum Roar

Advertisers’ Review

Written on July 15th, 2011 by Hear Mum Roar in Cognitive, Gross motor, Music, Organisation, Preschool aged, Reviews, Saving money, School aged, Toddler

I’ve been lucky enough to have awesome advertisers at Hear Mum Roar. I always choose companies that sell products I would actually buy and use myself. If you only saw some of the rubbish I’m asked to advertise and actually knock back.. Anyway, some of my advertisers have been lovely enough to send out some samples of their wares, so I felt it was time to shine the spotlight upon them.

Little Dance Invitations are a fantastic place to go for everything party related. They have the cutest themes for kids, ranging from tv characters, to cute little Kokeshi Doll lollipops and everything else that interests children. They also do invitations and party supplies for adult parties. What I also love about this online store is that they can customise party goods with the birthday person’s photo.Next time we have a birthday party, I’ll be definitely going through Little Dance.

Bright Star Kids sell cute kids labels, wall stickers, bag tags, and all sorts of other cool stuff. I recently was sent some small name labels for all of my three kids…

I’ve blocked out parts of their names privacy reasons, but I left part of the lettering there so you can see the different fonts used. Missy 3 loves the fairy on her labels and always tells me it’s going to fly away! So cute.. I also love that if I put a name label on anything of hers, she’ll drink it, for example, water. She wasn’t keen on water for a while, but now she has a label on her water bottle, she’s drinking lots of water and is much healthier for it.

I’m also pleased to find these labels as Mr 5 is starting school next year, and it’ll be much easier with two kids at school if I can be prepared with labels now. It’s helping to build the excitement in him, also.

Forever Clover sells a new range of school-aged girls’ swap cards.

When I first saw these, I fell in love with them instantly! These cards were created as an antidote to the sexualisation of girls in our society. Your daughter can join the free Forever Clover Club online. Missy 10 has joined and loves it! You can read their Forever Clover girls’ blog with stories of their adventures. If your daughter is a member of the club, she can even comment!

The cards and packaging are made from renewable resources and starting a collection is very wallet-friendly, so anyone can start collecting and swapping! All three of my kids have been given some, and they absolutely love them.

KelliOne is the home of handmade toys. Simple concepts that kids will love and very cute too! Kelli was kind enough to send out three ribbon wands for the kids to play with.

Here, you can see Mr 5 happily fishing with his. This is a brilliant, open-ended toy for toddlers, preschoolers and school aged kids alike. They can get exercise as they twirl around in or outdoors, dance to music, draw shapes in the air, pretend they’re walking a dog on a leash, in short, they can do whatever they can imagine! KelliOne also can make these wands for weddings, and I’m thinking when we get married one of these days, I’ll order some for the guests! I can imagine how beautiful the wedding photos would be with ribbons swirls from happy guests, in our custom colours.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about these companies. They all have such great stuff and are lovely people to deal with.

Pin It

2 Comments -

Quiet Time With Caterpillars

Written on February 5th, 2011 by Hear Mum Roar in Challenges, Cognitive, Experiences, February 2011, Language, Preschool aged, School aged, Toddler

Ok, I know it’s really hard to see the caterpillars in this jar. But I promise you, there’s loads of the buggers in there. I should know. I was sitting outside, trying to enjoy a quiet cup of dandelion tea away from the chaos inside, when they were climbing all over my legs.

I went back inside, to face the noise and arguments of my two younger children. It was afternoon, they’d played everything, done everything, and were at a loose end. I racked my brains as to what I could get them to do that would get them engrossed, happy and above all, quiet. Preferably for a long time. And aside from waiting until we get our own chooks to eat up all the caterpillars, how the hell was I going to get rid of them? Normally they don’t bother me, but there were so many of them and they were becoming a nuisance.

Sometimes, two problems come together to form a solution when you’re a mum, don’t they? I scooped as many caterpillars into a jar with some grass as I could. I plonked it on the table inside and told the kids to look at it. Was there ever a simpler way to keep kids quiet for a cranky mum than this?

They looked at it for ages. They were so excited! They talked about the colour of the caterpillars, about what they like to eat, how they turn into butterflies. Missy 10 is handy to have around at times like this, as she stores so much animal trivia in her head! She told them that some butterflies like to eat their cocoon, that some caterpillars shoot out poison and it can sting and make you itchy (spitfires).

Once they lost interest, I emptied the jar back into the yard, but thankfully, further away from our house where they were bothering me. They haven’t been back. It’s amazing how things just sort themselves out somedays, isn’t it?

Other reading:

Dealing with anger in children

Sibling rivalry solutions

Motherhood: cinch or sentence?

How do I stop tantrums?

Learning through everyday play

Teaching kindness to animals

Is it ever ok to lose your cool?

Evening adventure

Keepin’ it real

Slow down

Finding the time to do it all – time saving tips

Pin It

4 Comments -

Cute Sandwich Cutter

Written on February 5th, 2011 by Hear Mum Roar in Baby, February 2011, Food, In the home, Preschool aged, School aged, Toddler

I got this cute little gadget when I had a bento splurge recently at J List.

I get so bloody sick of making the same old boring sandwiches everyday. Sure, Missy 10 helps out when she can, but it’s nice to break up the monotony for the kids and I. All you do is press the cutter into a sandwich, and it cuts four bite-sized sandwiches with crusts removed. (The crust that was cut off was so thin, I was hardly wasting any at all)

I love that it’s probably easier than dragging a knife through the bread and ripping it. I love knowing that the kids are more likely to sit down for longer and actually eat what I’ve made them. Most of all, I love the smile it brings to their faces. Plus, it’s so much more fun to open your lunch box to something so cute.

PS – this isn’t a sponsored post, just something I bought myself and loved the idea of.

Other reading:

The origins of food

Kids growing mushrooms

Picking our mushrooms

Buying in bulk

Our fruit garden is planted

Mr Three makes pea and ham soup

Quick rice pudding for cheats

A BPA free home the tight-arse way

Homemade LCM’s

Our experience with baby led solids

How to prevent childhood obesity

School supplies on a budget

Pin It

21 Comments -

Coloured Window Art

Written on February 1st, 2011 by Hear Mum Roar in Art, Cognitive, Craft, Experiences, February 2011, Fine motor, Preschool aged, Toddler

I love doing coloured window art with young kids. It’s easy, yet something out of the ordinary for them. I find it holds their interest for ages. As you can see, all I’ve done is cut up some collage-type materials for the children; today it was fabric scraps. Other times, I’ve given the children flattened cup cake cases, confetti from the hole punch, chopped wool scraps, chopped streamers, basically whatever I’ve had lying around. It’s also important to make sure nothing would be a choking hazard for your kids. I’m lucky in that my kids are past the stage of putting craft/art items in their mouths, but if you know yours will (it’s the under 3′s we need to be careful with, generally), simply use bigger, safer pieces and supervise.

Then, I provide the kids with a sheet of clear contact with the adhesive side facing upward. I turn each corner underneath to stick it to the table. Now all the kids need to is to stick their collage pieces on to their hearts’ content. Once they finished each masterpiece, I stuck it to the window for them.

…Until the kids decided to do it for themselves.

I love that this is an open-ended activity that doesn’t add any pressure to look like anything in particular. However, if you keep the backing sheet from the contact you’ve cut for your child, you can stick the finished piece back onto the backing paper. This lets a child take their art work home, or give it to their grandparents as a very special gift. Once it’s in its new home, it can still be proudly displayed on a window.

This is a great time of year to be doing this activity too, because I find after doing back to school shopping, I have loads of contact to spare.

Other reading:

The useful box

Kids’ craft: lacing

Ten ‘clean’ craft ideas your kids will love

Kids craft ideas for non-crafty mums

Art for children who hate mess

Our art gallery

Canvas painting for kids

Playdough, homemade

Flower play

Pin It

2 Comments -

Childhood regression

Written on January 30th, 2011 by Hear Mum Roar in Behaviour, Challenges, Emotional, January 2011, Parenting, Preschool aged, School aged, Social, Toddler

Has your potty-trained child ever started to suddenly struggle with their toileting? Have you ever had a four year old start throwing tantrums all over again, right when you thought you were past all that? Has your preschooler ever suddenly become clingy to you, almost wanting to be ‘babied’ by you? You’re not alone, and it’s perfectly normal.

When a child regresses in their behaviour or in their development, it can really freak us parents out! We just get comfortable after our child becomes more competent at new skills, they become more independent and we look forward to just a little bit of smooth sailing for a little while. Then this happens! We sometimes worry where we’ve gone wrong, did we miss something?

Mr 4 has been regressing in a lot of areas lately at home. He’s gone ‘backwards’ in his potty training, is becoming more clingy towards me, has started having the occasional (but explosive!) tantrum here and there and generally seeks out situations where he can be ‘babied’ by me. He also tries to create situations to get more attention from me after he’s gone to bed than usual.

Usually when our children start acting out of character in different ways all at once, it’s enough to trigger most parents into realising that something’s awry. We have an instinct for a reason, and when our child shows regressive behaviour, it’s time to listen to that instinct.

What can cause regression in a child?

This list is not exhaustive, but there are many situations that can cause a child to regress:

- Death of a family member, friend or pet

- Divorce or separation

- Moving to a new home

- A sick parent/guardian or sibling

- When a parent/guardian starts a new job

- Starting a new childcare centre/preschool/school

- Being bullied at school

- Pregnancy/the birth of a new sibling

- Unrest in the household (for example, parents arguing frequently, domestic violence, etc)

- Sometimes, as a child gains a lot of independence, it can lead to feelings of insecurity of not being the baby anymore.

….and the list goes on.

As a parent, in most cases, you’d be aware of your child’s situation, except for bullying (but we can probe for that!). When you scan this list, I’m sure you’ll have noticed that there is a common thread in most of these causes: change. To begin to understand your child’s regression, looking for major changes in your child’s life is a great place to start.

With Mr 4, we pinpointed his regression as being related to his father’s recent stint in hospital again, along with the knowledge that my partner will be going back to hospital again soon. Another significant aspect of our home life for us to consider was the fact that everyday, my son watches me care for my partner, helping him with his medicine and tasks he finds difficult. Also, because my partner has severe OCD, our sons sees his dad have meltdowns, and me talking him down from it.

Mr 4 has a two year old sister who’s begun potty training, and despite her constant fights for independence, needs more help from me generally than he does. Honestly, is it any wonder he’s reacting this way? Having talked to him about this, he feels that help or care, is equivalent to love. In his eyes, the person getting the most help, is getting the most love. Simply put, he wants a piece of the pie!

During our talk, I let him know that he can have love from me anytime he wants. He doesn’t have to have a ‘need’ for me to do something for him. Anytime he wants to, he can ask me for a kiss, or a cuddle. I can put aside time during the day to play with him, or he can hang out with me while I’m doing other things. When he’s my helper, that’s special time together too.

Most importantly, I made it clear to him that Missy 2 isn’t always going to be so needy. She’s potty training, and soon will be able to go to the toilet by herself, without any help from me. He realises now that she’s doing more and more things for herself everyday, so that makes him feel a little better. I drew his attention to the fact that as I help his dad, I’m working on helping him to be able to more things for himself, too, and that he’s slowly getting better.

I’m finding in the past week or two, he’s still quite fragile about things, but instead of reverting to regressive behaviour, is taking advantage of those other ways we talked about for him and I to spend time together. We spent one afternoon with him making a ‘parcel’ from the postie, over and over again. He simply got a box, filled it with different toys, and delivered it to me with a grin: ‘I’ve got a parcel for you!’ Then I would admire all the wonderful ‘surprises’ he’d given me. He chats with me, does chores with me, watches me do things, and asks me for lots and lots of cuddles!

Does this mean I wasn’t available or providing opportunities for this to happen before this happened? Of course not! It’s just that he hadn’t made the distinction that I was there for him as well, it’s just that he didn’t need the same sort of help that his sister and dad needed. That the love and time I give him usually, counts in just the same way.

The other thing that I’m doing to deal with this, is I’m giving him lots of opportunities to talk about his fears, worries and feelings in general. Basically, I find that when my children have regressed, after I find out the cause, I talk with them about it as well as try to replace this new behaviour with something a little healthier. I’ve not had the need yet for my children to ever have counselling over any big changes in their lives, but if I felt it was needed, I’d provide it in a heartbeat.

I’d love to hear everyone else’s tips on how they deal with their children’s regressive times in life.

Other reading:
Finding the source of your child’s anger

Helping kids to make choices

Emotional development – how to help children talk about feelings

Reflective listening

Pin It

4 Comments -

Smart Trike – the Bike Stroller

Written on December 13th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Baby, December 2010, Gross motor, Preschool aged, Reviews, Toddler

Sponsored by The Mother Media

I was fortunate enough to receive the Rolls Royce of bikes. And prams. All in one. I’ve seen these tricycles before with the pram handle at the back, and always coveted them.

The model I’m reviewing is the Smart-Trike 3 in 1. There’s already been fights over it between Missy 2 and Mr 4. Luckily, it can be adapted to suit them both!

Some of you would already be familiar with the original Smart-Trike Deluxe. The Zoo 3 in 1 offers all those award winning features, with a unique design that kids love. (Of course, I love the design because it’s in the Hear Mum Roar colour scheme!)

You can use the Zoo 3 in 1 with babies from the age of 10 months, as a baby stroller. Missy 2 below is sitting in the bike, set up the way it would be used for a baby. It’s still very comfortable even for a two year old with this set-up. Set up for babies, you get a quality, padded, washable seat and padded seat belt. It also has padded arm rests. I’m a bit jealous, because it looks more comfy than our lounge…

The seat has long back support, and there are these little side foot rests for when your child might not feel like pedaling. These fold up and out of the way for older children. I love all the special little extras, too. It has a cup holder on the front of the handle bars. I couldn’t believe Smart-Trike even went to the effort of providing a toy mobile phone and a cute little place to clip it onto the back of the handle bars! And the toy phone actually lights up and makes sounds. I’ve made a short video showing the phone in action:

Too damned cute…

When your child is 15 months and older, you can easily remove the padded seat, seat belt and arm rests if you like. Once your child is 24 months and up, you can take the pram handle off, letting your child ride it around like a regular tricycle:

…But it’s much trendier than your average tricycle!

For mums and dads, the steering handle can be adjusted to suit your height (being a short-arse mum, I can’t tell you how grateful I am). It has telescopic, five-point steering and a built-in clutch.I love how when I’m steering the pram, I’m actually moving the handles on the child’s part of the bike, too. This gives your child an excellent sense of steering early on. I find the zip-up pouch on the handle useful for my spare change and keys.

This bike is extremely sturdy, exceeding all European Safety Standards. It has a sun shade which can be adjusted up and down at varying angles, and makes such a cute clicking noise. I took the Smart Trike for spin, walking to the shops and around the block.

Because it has anti-slip resistance and great road performance, I was able to push my daughter along grass, bumpy rocks and tree roots. I also could easily push the bike up our local shop’s steps with no hassles. There is a little brake at the back of the trike, similar to that of a pram.

What I love about the Smart-Trike is the fact that if I’m out shopping with my daughter, she can still have some gross motor exercise as we go. It keeps her busy, what with riding and talking on her little mobile phone. I love knowing that once she grows out of the stage where I push her in the bike, she can take her gross-motor skills and co-ordination to the next level. Also, Mr 4 can ride it as a bike, too.

Now, as some of you may know, we don’t celebrate Christmas. However, if you do, this is a present that would definitely last a child through to the next Christmas, possibly even the one after that, so you’re getting value for money.

Take a look at the Smart-Trike range in this online catalogue. You’ll be able to see that this bike comes in a range of colours.

So, where can you buy the Smart-Trike? You can find it at Toys ‘R’ Us, Target and Big W. The price ranges from $179-$189.

I have received the above product for free courtesy of Smart-Trike

Pin It

10 Comments -

Mattel’s Laugh and Learn Learning Book

Written on November 2nd, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Baby, Cognitive, Fine motor, Language, Music, November 2010, Reviews, Toddler

Sponsored by Nuffnang

Look at what Missy 2 was lucky enough to receive in the post. It’s a Laugh and Learn Learning Book from Mattel. This title is called, ‘Counting animal friends’. It’s an interactive book with a cute sun button which lights up and depending on which page your child is looking at, makes different sounds. It:

- reads the story to the child
- counts the animals
- makes the animal sounds
- plays songs

I think this book is adorable, and the sound isn’t too noisy or annoying, like some toys. My kids are all obsessed with books, so this caught everyone’s attention. Anything that promotes a love of reading to my kids is encouraged by me.

This book is aimed at babies and toddlers between 9-36 months old. Missy 2 has become utterly attached to it. She sits down playing with it for long periods, pointing at the animals and making the sounds. She likes saying the numbers, too. Her favourite part is looking at the ducks in the book, pretending to flap her ‘wings’ and saying, ‘quack quack!’. She’s even taken to falling asleep on top of it every night.

This book is highly age/stage appropriate, being very simple and appealing to this age group. Mr 4 is extremely interested in counting and numbers at the moment, and as soon as he spotted the book, asked, ‘has this got numbers? Cool!’

I’d also like to add my own little story about Mattel toys. We have always bought a lot of Mattel toys over the years, because they last a very long time. My two younger kids are still playing with a lot of Missy 10′s toys from when she was a baby. They love pushing around her push-along activity puppy and playing with her Little People dollhouse, car, bus, and of course, the dolls that come with it.

As any parent could tell you, little kids can be rough on their toys. Most of our Mattel toys have been thrown around at some time or another, either due to a tantrum, or just from excitement. But all our Mattel toys are still going strong.

But what I am really wanting to tell you about it, is what happened with some of our Mattel toys during our flood in the childrens’ playroom. We had a Mattel Flip Phone on the floor, and a Laugh and Learn Learning Home, which you can see here, both got saturated.

At first, the electronics in these toys didn’t work. But after a couple of weeks, once they’d dried out, they were working again! So please, if your Mattel toys ever get wet and stop working, don’t throw them out! Let them dry out, and they should be fine. We’re very impressed here.

Now I’m going to leave you with a quick video of Missy 2 enjoying her new book. It shows you how the book works, and how much she likes playing with it.

What’s your child’s favourite Mattel toy? Or your favourite, even?

Pin It

Please Comment -

Child art- ball painting

Written on October 30th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Art, Cognitive, Fine motor, Messy play, October 2010, Preschool aged, School aged, Toddler

If you have a child who loves to paint, but is looking for something a bit different to simply using a paintbrush, they will love this. It’s the weekend here, and Missy 2 was once again begging to paint. Missy 10′s been away at school when the little ones have been painting, so it was nice for her to get the chance to join in.

So, how did we paint with balls? I got a big plastic box, and Blu-tacked some paper to the bottom of the inside.

I sat each ball in a different bowl or container for separate colours. Then, the kids just picked up a slippery ball, dropped it onto their paper, and moved the box to make the balls roll.

Kids have so much fun with this activity and learn a lot without realising it. They get to:

- work their fine motor muscles, trying extra hard to pick up those slippery balls
- experiment with gravity and physics, tipping the box this way and that to make the ball go where they want it to on the page
- challenge their eye-hand co-ordination in a more intense way than usual. It’s one thing to try to watch something, and get your hands to work together with your vision, but imagine trying to do that when the ball has a mind of its own!
- learn about colours mixing together, as one coloured ball rolls over previous stripes painted by other colours.
- apply trial and error to see what happens if they use smaller balls, such as marbles (for the over 3′s, of course we have to be vigilant about choking risks), tennis balls, or even basketballs.
- learn about cause and effect: what happens if we use a four-sided container? What about a round container? The child will observe one is more likely to give stripes and criss-crossing lines, the other will give more rounded, spiral shapes.

One thing I’ve never gotten around to trying though, when doing this activity is painting with a football! If anyone’s child ever gives that go, let me know how it went.

Other reading:

Mesh-dab prints

Rainbow art

Canvas painting for kids

Flowers are red

Art for children who hate mess

String painting

Pin It

4 Comments -

Emotional development – how to help children talk about feelings

Written on October 28th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Cognitive, Emotional, Language, October 2010, Preschool aged, Social, Toddler

I’ve talked before about the importance of encouraging our children to discuss feelings.

I’ve made some very simple felt pieces to attach to circular faces which have been stuck to the fridge. Our little ones can have fun rearranging the the facial features into different emotions. This is an effective way for children to learn about self expression, reading the body language of others, and having empathy for others.

This is a language rich activity to also help children discuss colours, label facial features, but most of all, to give words to their feelings and become familiar with using them.

It’s handy to have little circles of felt for this purpose, especially for those times when a big felt board is not handy. I think it’d also look great on a child’s bedroom wall.

Best of all? It’s cheap, and very easy to do.

Do your children enjoy felt play?

Other reading:

Dealing with anger in children

How do I stop tantrums?

Emotional development – initiative

Reflective listening

Sibling rivalry solutions

Is it ever ok to lose your cool?

Pin It

Please Comment -

Child art – string painting

Written on October 28th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Art, Cognitive, Fine motor, Language, Messy play, October 2010, Preschool aged, Toddler

‘Please Mum, I do painting?’ is the plea I hear from Missy 2 on a regular basis lately. She talks about it all day long. She just adores it.

So, my partner and my son went out to run some errands, and Missy 10 was off at school. This left just Missy 2 and I for some Mum and daughter time. Bliss.

I decided to let her engage in some string painting.

This couldn’t have been simpler to set up. I just tied some lengths of string to clothes pegs then let her dip it in the paint, and squiggle it across the paper.

What I love about this activity is that there cannot be any pressure on the child to make the painting ‘look like’ something. Regular readers will know that open ended art/craft/play in general is something I like to get on the soap box about!

Hands up who thinks she’s enjoying herself?

Missy 2, much in the adventurous spirit of any toddler, got all experimental after a little while. This is cool, don’t try to fight it… Even though an activity has been set up in one way, it’s great if it ends up evolving into something else entirely. Our children need to explore the paint, the paper, their hands, textures, concepts, and so on. Just roll with it.

See how she just immerses herself further and further into the experience? What have your children painted lately?

As you can see, I’ve shown where I usually write the child’s name and date (I didn’t put my child’s actual name for privacy reasons). Labelling artwork in this way reinforces name recognition, and writing it on the left side mimicks the pattern in which we typically read and write. I like to add the date for sentimental reasons, but it could easily be left off.

Other reading:

The useful box

Our art gallery

Art for children who hate mess

Pin It

2 Comments -

Category Archives: Toddler