Telling The Time [3Y8M]

I have started some simple activities with Angel on our leisure time such as simple word recognition, arts and crafts, logical thinking, simple math, etc but the one she was most interested in was “telling the time”. *Ya, I know, better be late then never :P :P* As our table clock has the little short hand for alarm hence she is always confused between the short hand and the alarm indicator. So finally I have to resort for this little cardboard clock which can be easily found in any book store and oh boy, she was so happy with her new toy!

She is progressing well and would correctly indicate where the “X” O-Clock and Half-Past “X” and still practicing her ‘a quarter past’ and ‘a quarter to’. For example, when it’s 3:45 PM, she would confused whether it is a quarter to 2 or a quarter to 3 coz her eyes will always telling her that it's not yet reaching the number 3 so it shouldn’t be a quarter to 3 :P

On every napping time, She would now asked me the same old question which is, "Mommy, what time do I sleep" and "Mommy, what time do I wake up?" without fail. Lately she also starts digging out all her previous Mickey watches which she got as a gift from us and wear it to bed all the time and even thinking to wear them to bath. When she found out all the batteries have run flat, she would tell me that her watches are all 'broken'!! *smile*

I am not planning to replaced the batteries as yet for all her watches were showing 'digital time' (xx : xx pm)and I don't want to confused her further with what she has learn at this moment. Maybe one of these days, I would get her a decent mechanical hands indicating watch to have more ‘practice’. Too bad that I don't have my own garden here or else, I would even considering getting my own Sundials on one of those nice Pedestal bases which will surely looks great in a beautiful garden :P

The Lacing Beads

This is the newest addition I bought for Angel last month. The wooden beads are Thailand made (I bought in Bangkok) and very good quality too. They were made from soft rubberwood and painted in soy ink which is definitely safe for young toddlers, and comes with different shapes and colours with a tiny hole in the middle of the beads. Kids were required to thread the laces through the beads in order to make necklace or anything out of their imagination. I love the fact that it’s a very good toy for exposing young toddler to a new motor skill - Treading that is as I bet Angel didn’t get to do that quite often in her daily activities. Also, I think it’s also very good in showing young toddlers the logic of sequence as well as a good training for their hand-eye coordination.

I just couldn't have enough watching her looking 101% concentrated in getting the laces to pass through those beads but so far, she only manage to get few done before asking for help! It should be a good training for Angel’s patience as well because it’s not an easy task wanting an active kid like Angel to be able to sit still on her high chair and doing the treading process without making much noise or big movements. Once she is having enough of her treading which is only 5 - 10 minutes as a start, I would let her come down and start exercising her little muscles :) So far, I can only say that she is getting better in that area day by day ^_^ Way to go Angel!!!

Angel seldom looks so serious in playing with her new toy :) Can see that she is trying very very hard ^_^ Oh ..... I love the look so much!

Homemade Play Dough

Play dough is one of my favourite toy during my childhood. But those play dough I used to have last time were those plastersin use by my parents to ‘seal up’ water leaking in the house / sink which will left an unpleasant smells on the hands after getting in touch with them. They don’t came with an attractive colour too. In present, there are a lot more choices of play dough in the market for kids which comes with all sorts of equipments to do any shapes. However, although it stated toxic free in most of the play dough but I am not sure how safe were the play dough for sensitive skins like Angel so to be safe, I have decided to let Angel make her own homemade play dough instead. She is so happy that mommy is letting her getting involved in another ‘project’ after her previous cake baking sessions few days ago and it was really such great fun as the busy-body daddy was also eager to ‘help out’ in the kitchen. What an unusual family activities there :P

^ ^ Mixing and stirring ….. Angel is having such a great time in the kitchen! Her water pouring skills has improved so much!
Ingredients:
2 cups of flour
4 tbsp cream of tartar
2 tbsp cooking oil
1 cup salt
2 cups water
Food colouring

Method:
1) Mix all ingredients in a saucepan (except food colouring), stir over medium heat for 4 – 5 minutes until mixture become dough like texture.
2) Knead into a smoother form and add in food colouring.
3) Store in air tight container

^ ^ We only manage to settle with these colours due to mommy's fault in getting the right food colouring :P :P
When I try to mix my yellow colouring into the play dough, only I realise that it comes with a very pleasant smell …… ghee!! When I read the label, It’s not yellow colouring but butter milk flavouring instead *smack head*. So Angel has to settle without the yellow and green colour for her play dough due to mommy’s fault. She was extremely excited and even showing me the gesture of putting the dough into her mouth and eat. Hahaha ….. my girl would put anything into her mouth!! She didn’t manage to shape anything out from the dough yet but she was having such a great time kneading and pinching the dough and also destroying me and hubby’s work!

^ ^ Watching and learning from mommy and daddy’s. My cookies cutters were make to good use that day :)
So we did something for Angel that night …… the Sun + Moon and the horrifying looking Bear is from daddy :) Not bad for a start and to kill the boring night :) I think with more practice, Angel will be getting the idea of playing the play dough instead of trying to ‘eat’ them all the time :)

^ ^ Daddy and Mommy’s 'Not-So-Presentable' creations :P

Something She Loves - Books and Puzzles

Angel loves books a lot but she has a short span of concentration, maybe 10 - 15 minutes maximum per session but she just loves them very much and would flip them and name those objects she recognised very loudly. Book shops are the place where I normally hang around now instead of toys department and I can sit there for hours just to pick up few books for Angel. If she saw me coming home with another brand new book, she would be screaming in joy and wanted to have a look what’s inside the book. Yes, that’s how happy my little girl is when I give her the book and I am more then happy to read her a story everyday :)

My very happy baby with her new book :P

Apart from the normal books, this is another type of magnetic sticker book which she absolutely adores ….. she would play with them everyday arranging those shapes into their designated place and name them one by one, telling me their colours and also trying to find the missing shapes out from the pages by sticking the correct magnets on it (i.e. Wheel – Circle, roof – triangle, etc). And each page comes with few line of easy to read wordings making a very simple story. This activity is very interesting for young toddlers like Angel training their eye hand coordination as well as learning shapes, colours, simple wordings, objects while having a whole great fun doing it! Even I will join in sometimes too :P

Sorting and identifing different shapes and colours on her magnetic sticker book
Apart from books, she also loves doing puzzle very much. This puzzle is not the same as those normal picture puzzles which I got but it's an educational jigsaw puzzle for young toddler where Angel gets to learn to match the same pair and also differentiate the LEFT from the RIGHT. I found this puzzle at a small bookstore in Bangkok. I first started the puzzle with her when she was 1 ½ years old. At that time, hubby still told me it’s too advance for her but Angel seems to be very interested in that and surprised daddy in just 2 days time where she completed the entire puzzle all by herself. Even now she still plays with it couple times per week :)

Trying to pair her puzzle :)

Then we proceed to the harder ones, matching the head to the body to different types of animals. I still remember vividly that Angel would scream in frustration and mess up all the puzzle throwing them all onto the floor when she was first expose to this puzzle because she can’t seems to get them right! LoL So as not to discourage her, I always showing her the correct matching ‘unintentionally’ so that she won’t reject trying them. And after 2 week +, she manages to complete the entire puzzle and name out all the 20 animals on the board such as Squirrel (kui-rel), Panda (Ah-daaa), Rhino (ai-no), Raccoon (koon), Fox (fox), Leopard (perd perd), etc but of course, in her not so ‘accurate’ pronunciations 2 weeks later following that LoL. Since then, she has completed 2 more different types of puzzles of the same kind and some other types of very simple puzzles but still, she would always take out and play with her beloved OLD puzzles whenever she 'misses' them now and then.

Matching the face and recognising animals

Progressing with Shapes and Colours [1Y9M]

I am glad that Angel loves to learn and especially these few days / pass weeks, she was the one who took out all her learning tools and make me or hubby sit with her and repeat her picture book / stories book again and again and again and again until we almost threw-up by just looking at that particular book / story LoL However, we will and will be more then willing to continue our effort in supporting her constant desire for knowledge and the passion to explore with new things in her life. Although I might not come equipped with the knowledge and tools in this particular area (so pai-seh to admit this but it’s true :P) but I am trying my very best to upgrade myself everyday as well as constantly attended to her needs in expending her knowledge through some very useful yet entertaining learning kits or cards or books around us, as well as obtaining more real life experience from doing more outings together as well as from quite a number of very inspirational blog of some very experienced and dedicated mommies in the ‘blog’; and also from the extensive learning resources from the internet for some very fun + interesting activities to play or to do with my little Angel at home :P. It can be a ‘good pass time’ activities for me too coz it certainly requires a lot of preparation work before hand :P

There is no doubt that the main source of knowledge as well as the new skills learned by Angel are from what she normally sees and senses around her everyday. I am not speaking / referring to knowledge in terms of academic terms in the future at this moment (oh no … that’s certainly not my MAIN purposes), but more of learning to maximized her potential as well as fulfilling the thirst of knowledge at her age now, at her own time (normally 15 - 20 minutes per day), following her own pace / speed (e.g. through singing, exploring with colours and numbers, arts, animals, words, creativities work, role play, tracing, cake baking - yup :P, outings, etc) without sacrificing the fun of it. I do believe that playtime is the MOST IMPORTANT activities for her age at this moment so I will try to make the best out of her playtime too. FUN is very important not only to her but to me especially LoL I hope that I am able to cope with her constant thirst of learning new things everyday with the hope that my little girl will enjoy the way she and Mommy are learning together, playing together, spending time together and growing up together :)

My little Angel’s development following her ABCs and 123s :

So far, Angel manages to point and tell the following with her 'baby' pronunciations.

Colours
1) Red - Wret
2) Yellow - Ye-o
3) Blue - Byuu
4) Green - Geen
5) Orange - Or-wen
6) Black - back
7) White - white
8) Purple - per per

Shapes
1) Triangle - ang-gle
2) Square - wear :P
3) Circle - Cir
4) Oval - ovel
5) Diamond - ah-mond
6) Star - star
7) Heart - heart
8) Crescent / Moon - moon
9) Cross - Kross
10) Rectangle - tangle

i = 1, q = 9 & Craving for Food.

All these while I am showing Angel ABC in the capital letters with only a smaller lower case at the bottom and today, when she keep pulling me for her ABC session again while I am having my breakfast (oh no, not again, sigh …..), somehow due to hunger or maybe I am still half way in my dreamland, I just pointed at the lower case then she reads in a slower-then-usual pace “a,b,c,b,0,f,9, …,1,1, …, ect.” I didn’t realize it at first but wonder how come she is not paying attention anymore until I saw where my fingers were pointing at. No wonder i = 1, g and q = 9, I haven’t introduced Angel to the lower case as yet, I don’t want to rush things :) Anyway, I am glad that she is paying attention to what she reads after all. Sorry girl, it’s mommy’s fault :P

But at the mean time, q does looks like 9 and so does g ……oh dear. How am I going to teach her the lower case which is much more complicated then capital letters and tell her A is ‘A’ is the same as ‘a’, and B is ‘B’ and ‘b’ *scratching head* Or should I proceed to the word approach now and comes back to the phonics later?

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Angel is extremely hungry today too. After finishing her 1 bottle of 9 oz milk early in the morning, 10 minutes later she asked for “Nen-Nen” again (seldom happens) and after looking at her flat tummy, I give in and there goes another 9 oz of milk. Then 1 ½ hour later, she asked for maam maam again but didn’t finished her cereal though :( She is craving for food today :)

P/S: Just in case you were wondering, lately Angel has been making a lot of initiations for me to teach her new things / words and I am trying to attend to her constant interest / thirst to learn.

Having Fun With Stickers

Angel loves playing with stickers so much from the first day that I let her exercised her little fingers and imaginations with those cute little stickers. She absolutely loves it and always looking forward to her 5 – 10 minutes of pure sticker fun time whenever I have the time to do it with her. Through this activity, she gets to refine her fine motor skills and improved her pasting abilities while having so much fun at the same time. Furthermore, I think it helps to enhance her sense of shapes, positioning and also creativity while acquiring new vocabulary too.

It’s absolutely fun watching her making her own master piece out of those cute little stickers and she just can’t wait to gets her hands on another few more pages :) For mommies who love to have this type of stickers for their little ones, a lot of similar stickers activities booklet can be easily found in various good bookstores (e.g. Popul*ar, MP*H, Border*s, etc) with lots of options to choose from too. I just simply love doing this kind of fun activities with my little Angel because not just she is having so much fun, me and even hubby is having such a good time watching her doing her little creations while spending a quality playtime with her too :)

1,2,3 and A,B,C [1Y10M]

The time has come, It surely was a great milestone achieved on Angel’s development. In terms of speech progress,

1) she is taking her own ‘sweet time’ and she speaks not many words which make sense to us as yet despite a few simple single / double words so far. She babbles a lot in her own baby language still.

2) she refused to co-operate with us most of the time if we asked her to point and tell / speaks … naughty little girl. She would only communicate / point whenever she feels like it *urrgh ...*

Hence most of the time, I am taking it slowly and let her progress / developed her skills at her own pace, helping along the way (i.e. I do the readings / singing and she just listens of follow if she likes to) and giving her more encouragements and praises, hoping that she will be more opened up in her speech and not being afraid to speak up.

So last week when my mom told me that Angel recites her ABC and 123 to her, I didn’t believe her at first until I heard her myself. What a surprise!! So after a few days of waiting, finally I managed to capture some ‘evidence’ using my mobile phone (she hate camera!) to show her daddy who was also having the same reaction as me :D

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1 - 10
She could count 1 – 10 but still, she would pronounce Seven as ‘Tu-tu’ instead of ‘S-e-v-e-n’ :P She can’t pronounce Se- or -ven yet. (she just woke up from her sleep in the video, kekekeke)

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A - Z
She could recite A-Z but skipping the K and L in the video but these days, she has picked up the K and now waiting for the missing 'L' to join in the family :) She would also pronounce the ‘W’ as “Tu-tu” coz she couldn't say 'W' :P. This is actually the very first few times that she actually recite her ABC to my mom of course. We were expecting her first few ABCDE for a start actually but was surprised that she could do so many letters for a start .. cheeky little girl.

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More Surprises to Come?
Few days after that when we was at the train station, suddenly hubby rushed towards me telling me that Angel could read numbers!!! Hahahaha ….. I laugh at him of course telling him that Angel is reciting her 1 - 10 actually. Hubby shook his head furiously and told me Angel could really READ the numbers …… so what hubby did was he walked to the platform and asking Angel to look up on the singboard of Platform Number 4 and Angel spotted it happily and pointed to the signboard calling out
Angel: Fourrrr …..

Then we walked to platform Number 5, Angel quicky pointed at the signboard happily saying
Angel: Fiiiiive …..

Then we pointed at signboard platform Number 6,
Angel: Seixxx ..... *Pointing and smiling happily*

Then we walked back to platform 1 and once she saw it, she paused for awhile then pointing at it giggled happily and said
Angel: Onnne ….

Then we are so happy and walking to signboard Number 8 then she says
Angel: Eitttt …… (that’s how she pronounce 8, kekekeke)

When we reached home, I quickly grab and pointed at the remote control’s small little buttons and asked her again, she really could tell me the number 1 – 9 correctly (thinking hard of course) until I pointed at the number ‘0’ at the bottom expecting a 10 and she burst out
Angel: Oooo …… (as in the alphabet ‘O’).

I know it's a normal learning progress for kids her age but still, It’s just was such a magical moment to actually hear her saying her first sets of 123s and ABCs :) I just can’t stop myself from having this contented smiles on my face for the entire night, just can’t help it actually :) :) Now I am cracking my brain again, apart from continue to fine tune her complete sets of A - Z and 1-10, and also continue to exposed her on shapes, colours, drawings, stories readings, etc what other fun activities can I do with my little 1 year old coming to 2 next?

P/S: I am jotting these down for my remembrance of Angel's growing ups, so I hope it doesn't boded you all as I know it's quite a long winded post sometimes, can't help it though :P