Are you addicted to Pinterest yet? I am! So when I saw Tina Gray has a Pinterest blog link-up, I jumped at the chance to share my Pinterest offerings with you.
Recently, Missy 10 became Missy 11! (Her party will be in a few weeks’ time, so I’ll post all about it then) Anyway… Her favourite birthday present was her new Kindle. For those of you not familiar, a Kindle is an ebook reader that fits something like 3,500 books into it. The screen is anti-glare, so it’s just as easy on your eyes as a paper book. We’ve been blown away by how cheap the ebook versions of her favourite books are; most are around $2-$8! Our daughter loves to read a lot, and tends to go through a lot of books in a short space of time.
What I’m really loving though, being such a tight-arse and all, is all the free ebooks you can get for the Kindle. So today, for ‘Ooh.. That’s Pinteresting’, I’m sharing with you my new Pinterest board about free Kindle ebooks that are suited to school-aged children.
A lot of the free ebooks for kids are the classics that a lot of us grew up with as kids ourselves: Treasure Island, The Jungle Book and my personal favourite, Heidi.
We’re pretty much Kindle mad here at the moment. My daughter’s Kindle was $156 at Woolies (Australia). I’ve since heard that there is a new Kindle Fire reader for $199 (in colour) and another one for $79. I’m planning to get a Kindle of some sort before uni starts as I think it’d make my readings a lot simpler to organise.
Do you have a Kindle, or are you thinking of getting one? What are your thoughts on them?
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?
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?
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.
Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.
- Ancient proverb
Following on from my recent post about initiative, I involved Mr 4 and Missy 2 in washing some clothes. I had lots of laundry to catch up on and hang out to dry. So I set up a plastic tub with warm water and Ecostore laundry powder (nice and gentle for little hands) and some laundry that had minimal soiling. Being a water activity, of course it’s important to always supervise young children.
Doing household chores together is a great learning opportunity for kids. They learnt/talked about:
- the different names of clothing: ‘what type of clothing is this?’ Eg, shirt, dress, undies, etc.
- the concept of people having a place in the family, and their own possessions: ‘who’s shirt is this?’
- colours: ‘what colour is this shirt?’
- cause and effect: ‘why is the water becoming so brown?’
- the sequence of events: first the children used soapy water, then scrubbed the clothing, then we rinsed with clear water, squeezed the excess liquid out and finally we hung them out to dry.
- how to play together. Missy 2 and Mr 4 had a few disagreements during this activity. This gave us a chance to talk about their feelings and listen to each other.
- sensory awareness: children can learn about concepts such as wet/dry, warm/cold, etc.
The children also got a huge amount of exercise for their little muscles! Picking up wet clothing can be heavy work…
It also puts their fine motor skills through their paces as they squeeze… squeeeze… squeeeeeeeeze! the water out of the clothes.
You can also let them help with pegging the clothes out to dry on a small, child-height clothesline. I didn’t, only because we had two puppies with very dirty feet hanging around! But at least this kept my kids busy whilst I hung out all the wet clothes.
What household chores do your children like to help with?
3. Encourage your child to talk to other children and adults.
4. Give them opportunities to listen. A great example is listening to a recorded story.
5. Dramatic play – eg, dressing up, puppet play, etc.
6. Talk about feelings. This can make it easier for your child to put sad or angry feelings into words as they arise.
7. Encourage your child to draw and talk about what they are doing.
8. Go sightseeing. Your child will be full of questions! It’s also a great way for children to name the things they see.
9. Sing and dance to music. Talk about your movements: shaking, twisting, wobbling, going faster, going slow, stop, go! Talk about the music: is it quiet or loud? Happy, sad, angry music? You get the idea.
So yeah, it was my birthday a few days ago… Been having a wonderful time, despite having to stay home waiting for a plumber to come around. My birthday strangely was celebrated more heavily yesterday than the actual birthday the day before. So, after a solid case of cabin fever we realised we were beyond overdue to shop for our groceries. With Missy 9 at school, we took Mr 4 and Missy 2 shopping with us.
We like to teach them how to shop and get them as involved in the process as possible, bringing items from the shelves to the trolley, and packing the groceries away when we get home. These jobs, they do with relish. They’re learning excellent self-help skills that will serve them well in grown-up life.
…But today when we went shopping, they learnt that food doesn’t just come from the supermarket. In fact, now it’s Spring, everything looks different when we drive to the supermarket. And it was that drive that taught more about where food truly comes from than anything we could ever teach them at the shops.
Because this is what they saw out of our car’s window today. Fields and fields of bright yellow canola. They didn’t know what canola was, of course, so we explained to them about margarine and canola oil as foods, and they looked confused. Mr 4 asked, ‘so do we eat the flowers?’ Which led to a conversation about how the oil needs to be pressed out of the plants and made into margarine, or just sold as the oil itself. I could see him thinking it over. To give you some idea of what the hills we drove through looked like, we had splashes of bright yellow and vivid emerald green to look at for most of the drive.
We also talked to the kids about that deep green in the fields. It’s also food we buy at each grocery trip. Wheat. So our kids learnt about how the wheat grains get crushed to make flour for our bread and pasta, etc.
I don’t have a photo, but my fiance stopped the car to let the kids out to talk to some calves, and yes, that became another supermarket topic too! Missy 2 ended that convo with an enthusiastic, ‘bye moo!’
Aww…
(I must make a special thank you to my lovely fiance who gave me the phone/camera these photos were taken on, for my birthday. Love you!)
Written on September 2nd, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Uncategorized
Missy 2 and Mr 4 had fun in the Spring weather making amazing chalk drawings. Missy 2 is obsessed with drawing, and she does it often. It’s good to let them experience different ways of doing things they love.
This activity held Mr 4′s attention for a long amount of time. His drawings are becoming more detailed, and he is putting more mental planning into his art as he gets older.
Drawing is an important part of childrens’ play. It gives them an opportunity to be creative. It’s a great fine motor activity, yet it’s also highly cognitive.
I added water to the chalk bucket to let the colours really ‘pop’. This is also a good thing to do if anyone involved has asthma, it can reduce the amount of chalk dust floating around somewhat. Although, as Missy 2 soon learnt, we still end up wearing the results of our work!
Daisy, our lovely puppy, insisted on being right in the thick of all the proceedings, of course. Once the children tired of drawing, they had a nice run with the dog. What a fun start to Spring.
Written on September 1st, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Uncategorized
I know in this current generation of parents, we all feel that we’ve come a long way in being able to talk closely with our children. But if we’re all truly honest with ourselves, sometimes we can unconsciously ‘block’ our child’s feelings when they are trying to express them to us. As I talk about reflective listening, you can find more ways to connect with your child when they are expressing their feelings with you.
Think about when your child is upset. How often have we all felt that it was our job to ‘fix’ it? If our children tell us they are dumb, we reassure them, ‘oh no, you’re very clever!’, or if a loved possession is broken, we rush in to put it back together. This is a positive thing, right?
Well, yes, but not always. Sometimes when we deny our child’s feelings of inadequacy by not acknowledging they feel ‘dumb’, for example, it removes the child’s option to express how they feel about that. As parents, we want our children to feel good about themselves and confident. It pains us to know that they feel in some way not good enough. So we do what we can to try to take it away.
It’s great to fix a broken toy, but do we sometimes bypass the child’s resentment of the child who broke it? Or their frustration that they weren’t able to stop themselves from dropping it?
Kids can pick up on our reactions to their feelings, and in time they may begin protecting us by not telling us if they are upset. It never hurts as parents to be aware of the need to let our children have their feelings and express them. Of course, it’s not acceptable for our children to hurt others or deliberately break things as an anger release, but there are other ways they can let that anger out. They could punch a pillow, stamp their feet, talk with or hug you.
Acknowledge your own feelings, and your child will benefit.
I’ve talked before about our reactions to our own feelings being taught to our children. If we can talk honestly about how we are feeling (without burdening a child with concepts beyond their capabilities), then they will learn that it’s perfectly acceptable to feel the whole gamut of emotions. The more switched on we are to our emotions, the more aware we can be of our child’s.
Talk about the past
I remember when I was 11, and starting to wear bras. My mum asked me if I saw any on a shop rack that I liked. I tried my luck, and pointed to a lacy, black one! Of course, my mum said no. Later down the track, when I was about 15 years old, my beloved Gram told me a story about how when she was a teen, all the girls at school wore black bloomers, but her mother forbade it.
She told me how desperately she and her sisters wished they could wear them too. Then, they moved to a school with a uniform with compulsory black bloomers! My Gram and her sisters were over the moon, and their mother, not amused, insisted that they wore white bloomers underneath to ensure that the black fabric did not touch their skin.
Although she was in her 80′s and I was in my teens, I felt a connection. This woman knew exactly what it was like to be a teen, to want to express herself, and experiencing the seemingly unfair rules that made her yearn for it even more. It made me feel close to her, and more able to tell her about my thoughts.
Listen and reflect
When your child is upset, angry or refusing to do something, listen. Hear what they are saying, then be a mirror and in your own words, reflect that feeling back at them. Your child will open up on a much deeper level than if you simply told them to cheer up. I’ll give you an example:
Today, Mr 4 had repeatedly hit Missy 2. I would hear her cries and see her clutching her face. Me, being pained to see my little girl suffer, wanted to ‘fix’ the problem, and tell my son to stop hitting her. But the reason behind the hitting wasn’t being addressed in this way. So he hit her again.
‘Stop hitting her!’ I scolded, and was met with an angry, defiant face. Then, I realised in trying to ‘fix’ things, I was blocking his emotion. So, I took a deep breath.
‘I can see you are angry at Missy 2′.
‘Yeah, she keeps touching my HAIR!! I don’t want her to touch it!’
‘And that’s annoying you, and now you’re mad,’ I replied.
‘Yes!’ he said. I told him I understood why that was making him angry. Now was the time to let him know that it’s fine to be angry about that, but he must not hit anyone because it hurts. I asked him to tell his sister in a calm voice about how angry he was about her touching his hair. (I resisted the urge to say that I couldn’t blame her, because his hair is beautiful! Don’t block, Sharon!)
He did. She said sorry and stopped touching his hair, and he stopped hitting her.
So, would you try this idea? I remember when I first read about it, it seemed very fake and unnatural. But the reverse is true. It’s such an easy way to open the door to your child’s feelings and resolve issues. It’s as simple as hearing your child telling you, either verbally or non-verbally how they are feeling, and then you saying back to them, how they feel. Let me know if these ideas work for you.
So, you may have just read my post about how we decluttered a bunch of plastic out of our kitchen. Missy 2 spontaneously started posting with a container that has a pour spout on it.
What is posting? Well, it couldn’t be simpler. It’s putting something in a hole. I’m ignoring your snickers by the way, this is a family site! Hehe.
Toddlers love the repetition of putting in one object after another, taking them all out, starting again.
A toddler can learn so much from such a simple task. They enhance their eye-hand co-ordination, they learn about concepts such as ‘in’, ‘out’, ‘through’, ‘push’ and sometimes, ‘open,’ ‘close’. If an adult talks with them about what they are doing, they can reinforce the words as a language experience. Posting can take on a dramatic part in childrens’ play, too.
Do you have anything around the house that your toddlers play posting activities with? The ideas are endless!
