Thinking Thursdays: Learning about polar animals (II)

So aside from those polar animal activities that I shared in the last post, Junior J also got to work his counting (using a penguin puzzle from here, which counts from 31-40), as well as the roll and graph activity from here (which got him so excited he threw the dice so many times that it split open!)

Activities aside, we read a couple of books on the Arctic and Antarctic:

:: North: The Amazing Story of Arctic Migration, by Nick Dowson
This was my favourite book of the lot. Stunning illustrations outline the migration of many animals as they head their way to the Arctic for the summer. I learnt quite a bit myself from reading this book to Junior J, and we loved pouring over the pictures. We'll probably be revisiting this book again for another thematic study!

:: Pipaluk and the Whales, by John Himmelman
We didn't manage to read this over here, but borrowed it from the library previously when we were back in SG. This story is based on a true incident where thousands of beluga whales were found by Russian villagers trapped in ice.  The villagers helped to keep the hole open for the whales, and eventually the whales were rescued when an ice-breaker cut a channel to the sea, and led them out by playing classical music!

:: Polar Bear, Arctic Hare, by Eileen Spinelli
This book introduces the many creatures that can be found in the Arctic through poetry, which I thought was a nice change from reading prose.

:: How Big is a Million?, by Anna Milbourne
Ok, this wasn't so much about polar animals, but I included it because there were seals and penguins! We revisited this book as Junior J loves reading about Pipkin the penguin, who tries to find out how big a million really is. Its quite a good book for introducing large numbers like hundreds and thousands.

:: Little Cliff and the Cold Place, by Clifton Taulbert
Little Cliff learns about the Arctic and wants to go there. Read about how his father manages to bring the Arctic to Cliff instead!

Do you have any favourite reads on polar lands? Have a blessed weekend, and we'll be back next week to share about what we were learning about Chinese New Year!

Thinking Thursdays: Learning about polar animals (I)

Hello! Here's some of the activities we did while learning about polar animals: 

:: Duplo block puzzles: I cut up these flashcards and pasted them on Duplo blocks for the boy to assemble!

:: Dot to dot puzzles: The boy simply loves dot to dot puzzles, so we did a couple of penguin ones (from here).

:: Identifying the beginning letters of each animal with a pegging activity (from here):

:: We did a feed the penguin activity, where I printed the penguins, laminated and mounted them on yoghurt containers. Then the boy was given pictures, and he was supposed to identify their starting sounds and feed the correct penguins! (You can get the penguins and the pictures from here.) He was really happy at the end of the activity, and declared that all the penguins were full, and managed to learn a little phonics at the same time. :)

Be back tomorrow to share more activities, as well as the books we read!

How to keep your baby occupied for 20 minutes #1

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Thankful Tuesdays: Right now

Recently, I made a decision to turn down some design team work. As I pondered over whether to take the offer up, the thought flitted through my head: if only they were older, and I had more me time. There are times where I admit I half look forward to being able to have more time to craft. Having no need to nurse a little one that still wakes up many times a night. Not needing to be an octopus during meals and have to feed two little mouths, plus my own. 

And then I am reminded that these times, right now, are so very precious. The times when the boys still want to hold my hand, and enjoy doing it. The times when the main word that comes flying out of their mouths is "Mama! Mama! Mama!". The times when they still retain that childlike faith and wonder. No amount of me-time spent cutting paper is going to be able to replace that. 

So I am thankful for right now. For:

:: A little heart that shows concern for the welfare of his animal friends.

:: The everyday messes that celebrate growth (and yes, he's finally growing after we took him off dairy and eggs)...

... as well as the messes that encompass learning:

:: The privilege to stay home and experience all that with the boys.

:: The times spent growing together as a family.

I am thankful for times right now. How about you? What are you thankful for?


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Monday Made: Polar Animals lapbook

Hello! We've recently started lapbooking during our homelearning sessions. We were looking at polar animals, so Junior J and I did a lapbook on the topic, our first lapbook ever!

:: The lapbook was made using some Book Depository packaging, and I covered the outside with white  paper. Junior J pasted some polar animals (from a printable here) on the cover, added some "icebergs" with paint, and also got to try his hand at typing the title in Powerpoint (he chose the font and got to print it out, and was pretty excited about it!). 

:: This is how the inside looks. I was too lazy to type out the titles, so I just wrote them out using a marker. There's a map to show him where the Arctic and Antarctic regions are, as well as 3 little flipbooks that show him examples of animals from both regions, as well as some that live in the sea. (Update: You can download the printables for the flipbook and map here! Do note that the Beluga whale goes under "Sea Animals", but I've squeezed it into another page to save on paper! )

:: I prepared the flipbooks, and stuck on the names of the animals inside the books. Then the boy got to match the pictures to their names (he cannot read yet, but was able to figure it out by sounding out the first letter for each animal name), and paste them down. 

:: We also watched a short video on the adaptations of penguins and polar bears (you can view it here), and I printed and laminated a couple of pictures of animals and their adaptations (from this site, I used the snowshoe hare chart as a substitute for the arctic hare):

:: And at the back of the lapbook, we pasted a chart of various types of penguins. We used bits of washi tape of varying colours and patterns to identify each type...

... then measured off their heights on the wall with another matching piece of washi tape. That got the boy rather excited and we also measured his height, as well as the height of some of his toy dinosaurs too! (We read "Measuring Penny" before we did this exercise, just to review the idea of measurements and the use of units.) Turns out, he's taller than the King penguin, but shorter than the Emperor penguin!

Not too sure if this is how you do lapbooking, but we did have fun! Will share more activities and books that we covered in future posts, so stay tuned...

Junior J's 4th: His dinosaur day

Yesterday was Junior J's birthday. We didn't have a party this time round, since he isn't close to the other kids here that are around his age. Instead, we just tried to make his day a little extra special. Since he loved dinosaurs so much, I decided it would be a dino-filled day for him!

I had wanted to make some dino-themed bentos for him for breakfast and lunch, like this one that I made previously. However, the boy woke up two hours before his usual wake up time (the first time it has happened ever!) and refused to go back to sleep, so I had to keep him occupied while I prepared breakfast. Thankfully I had managed to string up the birthday bunting (recycled from baby J's 1st birthday, but with dinosaurs added) before he woke up!

So in the end, breakfast was a simple cream cheese sandwich with a brachiosaurus cut out, and some rainbow sprinkles (I don't usually give the boy sprinkles, but I thought it won't hurt to use them once a year), along with some blueberries and grapes, plus his usual cup of milk.

Lunch prep was really rushed, so it was some pasta in chicken soup plus an omelette. I cut out a T-Rex using a cookie cutter and surrounded it with some veggies (for some reason it reminds me of those hidden pictures in those tests you take for colour-blindness?):

Then when he woke up he had his birthday muffins for tea (the dinosaurs for both the bunting and cake toppers were printed from here, and I baked these using this recipe, but added some cocoa powder since he loves chocolate):

And we ended off the day with dinner at an Italian place, Il Borgo, which had the yummiest fish soup and foccacia bread ever:

And the rest of the day? Well, he spent it pouring over dinosaur books...

... telling lots of dinosaur stories, and puzzling over a new dino puzzle that he received as a present!

I think he had a pretty good dino-filled day!

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And now, he is four

You turned four today. Yes, four! The days are long but the years are certainly short, and with a blink of an eye, you have grown from this:

To this: 

You've grown into this fellow that never fails to crack me up with your prattling, the one who tells me dozens of stories everyday, the one who sometimes can make me so so mad. You pick up songs very quickly, and I've heard you singing Chinese songs and even hymns which we listen to.

You've become quite the monkey. Always bouncing and jumping around. Life is never quiet when you are awake! And you are quite the typical boy. You hate washing your hair (and would cover your eyes with your hands), and you told me matter-of-factly that "sometimes I stick my pi-sai on the wall". You roar and you growl, and you are still very dinosaur crazy (so much so that all your presents seem to be dinosaur ones!). And speaking of crazy, you are nuts about garlic, such that Mama has to chop up a few cloves to go with our veggies, and all of them get eaten up by you (Papa says you are the most protected boy against vampires!).

You've matured this year, especially with having to be a korkor to your lil brother. You now share your toys with him willingly (most of the time), and seeing the two of you play together always brings a smile to my face. 

Its been a blessing, these four years of carrying you and loving you and reading to you while you sit in our laps. We love you, and here's a big happy birthday to our lil "breadacrunchasaurus"!

Love, 

Your Mama & Papa.

Wordless Wednesday: Funny face

When we take photographs and ask Junior J to "smile!", it always results in him turning and hiding his face from the camera. So we've resorted to asking him to give us a "funny face". Which he happily complies. At least that's better than not seeing his face at all! (And this was taken on a day that he decided his bear was cold, and needed to be zipped up in his sweater. All. day. long.)

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Thankful Tuesday: Full days

Life has been really full these days, and I thought I should take a breather, and give thanks. Am so grateful to God for:

:: Always reminding us that He is there to be our strength and hope.

:: Days spent tramping about in the snow.

:: Getting some headway in terms of home-learning this year. I've been trying to be a little more organized, and I'm glad that Junior J is now more willing to explore and learn. Previously, he wasn't too keen on many of the activities that I planned, and I must admit I got pretty discouraged. I am heartened and am going to press on! 

:: Warm clothes on cold days. It's been subzero temperatures for the past week, and its been quite a chore to bundle the kids up to go out, but at least we can go out because we do have all that coldwear!

:: The baby, who seems to be putting on a little weight, and picking up words at the rate of two a day. He never fails to make us smile with his excited "tor zhai!" (belly-button) whenever we give him a bath.

:: Brotherly love: These two boys are always getting into some sort of mischief everyday. I am so glad that Junior J has his little brother to play with, especially since he doesn't get to go to school here and we don't know many kids his age. (For some reason, this is one of their favourite activities in the morning when I am in the kitchen prepping breakfast. They find the washing machine irresistible!)

:: The hubs, who's a great dad, and never fails to try lighten my load when he can.

:: Big piping hot cups of tea on cold wintry days.

How about you? What are you thankful for? 

PS: I'm taking a break from running the linky this week, but do come back to link up with your blessings next week. I realized I do miss reading all your thankful posts!

Weekend wanderings: Snow

Hello! How was your weekend? It's been snowing quite a bit this week, so we've been out most mornings playing and tramping along in this new white world around us. Just yesterday, we had some pretty heavy snowfall, and the boys had fun romping about after church. And Junior J got to try making snow angels (just look at the expression on his face!).

We've been quite blessed to experience this, since there hasn't been snow in the area for the past two years! That aside, I've been really busy trying to sort out our home-learning (thus the silence here), but I hope to be back to blogging more frequently soon... here's to a blessed week ahead!

Weekend wanderings: Snowflakes

It was supposed to be a cold, sunny day, but it suddenly started snowing while we were getting ready for church. By the time we reached our church compound, it was white, white, everywhere (and yes, that's Junior J giving us his "funny grimace" which always appears when we ask him to smile).

The falling flurries of white fascinated both the boys, but this fascinated me and the hubby even more:

Snowflakes. Each one perfect, piling up in a layer of icy loveliness, and melting away if you tried to catch them. These beautiful structures inspired Wilson Bentley, who photographed more than 5000 of these:

Photo Source: Snowflake Bentley

And the amazing thing was that he found that each snowflake was unique, and its design was never repeated. (You can find out more about his work here, plus view more photomicrographs of snowflakes.) No wonder that he described them as miracles. Such an amazing Creator we have, that even pays attention to such fine details!

Saturday scrapping: Personalized notebooks

Hello! How has your week been? I've been busy sorting out our home-learning activities... but I'm just hopping by to share some personalized notebooks. These were made for a lovely couple that we got to know over here in Germany. They are extremely well to do, and I was cracking my head about what to give them for Christmas (what do you get someone who has everything they want?). I guess in such cases, handmade stuff is always the way to go!

So both got a notebook, which got decorated with scrap stuff and washi tape. It was fun scrapping in pink again:

Flowers, leaves & pearl flourish from Zva Creative, paper from Crate Paper, lettering from Basic Grey. 

 And for the guy version, I kept it simple:

How is your weekend going to be? For us its going to be days of sub-zero temperatures... brrrr... Have a blessed weekend!

Wordless Wednesday: Bun in the oven

I went off to cook lunch for the boys, and came back to find something baking in their kitchen oven. (This boy loves getting into all manner of tight spaces!)

PS: I am taking a break from "Thankful Tuesdays" this week, and am not sure if I'm going to continue with the linky. Do drop me a note if you still would like to link up! :)

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