Number Maze

This activity is more on fine motor skills development plus a pinch of number recognition.

Just get a hold of a mahjong paper, choose one number and write a trail of that number on the paper like a maze. Then fill the paper up with other numbers, and ask your child to trace the trail of that specific number using a tape.

I chose number 4 for Aishah as she sometimes get confused with the number. I have quite a nice fancy tape that I bought at Mr. D.I.Y., so I used that as the tape. I had to hold the paper still for Aishah to tape so that the paper won't crumple under the tape. On hindsight, I should have just taped the paper onto the floor. Aishah also cut the tape all by herself.

And we're done! Maryam also wants to help, so I let her do it using a masking tape. Easier to take off later :)

Cotton Bud Painting

Aishah will always be very excited everytime I announce that we're going to do some painting. I'm always on the lookout at the internet of any new items that can be used to paint other than the good ol' paint brushes.

So this time I decided to let the girls paint using cotton buds. As usual, I won't dictate what to draw - they're free to draw whatever they feel like. Here's the result:

A rainbow, 2 flowers, a sun and clouds :)

Baking Soda & Vinegar Balloons

Have you tried blowing a balloon without using your mouth or pump? I have! hehe....

This is another activity that you can do with baking soda and vinegar. As we all should know, baking soda mixed with vinegar generates carbon dioxide (I just learned that when I googled it up as I am writing this post hehe). This time, rather than letting loose the carbon dioxide generated as in our previous baking soda and vinegar activity, we trapped the gas in a balloon!

Here's how we did it:

1. I handed Aishah and Maryam a balloon each and asked them to write or draw whatever they wanted on their balloons. 
2. I put in some baking soda into the balloons.
3. I put in some vinegar into 2 plastic bottles.
4. The balloon holes were attached to the mouths of the bottles carefully, making sure that no baking soda drops into the bottles yet. 
5. I then asked Aishah and Maryam to shake their bottles rigorously, allowing the baking soda in their balloons to drop into the vinegar filled bottles.

And there you go! The balloons were blown up, filled with carbon dioxide. The girls were surprised and excited to see the doodles on their balloons growing bigger and bigger.

Maryam's balloon lasted for several days, and she proudly brings along her balloon everywhere she went in the house, showing it with pride to other family members. Aishah's balloon lasted only for a few hours, though, because somehow the balloon tore a bit and hence the gas slowly came out. 

Alphabet Collage

This one is a simple activity yet full of learning. Aishah knows most of the alphabets, recognises them, knows their sounds and can write them down, but I haven't seen her writing a word by herself yet. She will always ask me how to spell them and then write the alphabets one by one (sometimes in the wrong direction! hehe). So this activity is more of an introduction of spelling to her, as usual starting with the initial letter of the words.

So this was what we did:

1. I took two pieces of paper and asked Aishah to choose 2 alphabets that she likes - she chose S and C.
2. I drew a giant S in a paper and a giant C in the other one, and then just asked Aishah to colour the alphabets as she pleases.
3. I took some old magazines and asked Aishah to identify objects that starts with each letters, cut them, and paste them on the S and C. Of course, I did most of the identifying :P

Here was how it looked like in the end:

As usual, when my husband got home from work, Aishah will proudly show her work to her baba. This time I asked baba to guess what sort of activity we did, and he said, "Hmm... Collecting food related pictures?" 

Haha... well most of our pictures were food related, because the magazines that I used were travel magazines :D

Baking Soda & Vinegar Activity

That day I wanted to cook something without leaving the girls to be babysat by the TV as usual (yes, I'm still that kind of mom, sigh... may Allah give me strength to change this!), so I decided to try this simple activity.

I covered a tray with a layer of baking soda (buy the ones sold in bulk in baking shops. It's cheaper there), drop some different colours of food colourings in a few small bowls of vinegar, and we're ready to go.

I handed the girls a dropper each and here comes the tricky part - teaching the girls how to use them. Once the girls got the hang of it, I asked them to drop the coloured vinegar onto the baking soda using the dropper. Fizzzzzz goes the baking soda, as the chemical reaction takes place between the two.

 Early drops

Colours start to fill up

 

Almost entirely coloured!

It was a simple activity, but it really got both girls grossly engaged. They didn't want to stop! Finally I managed to cook peacefully without any disturbance from both girls. Unfortunately I didn't have any more baking soda to let the girls have a second round of colouring!

The activity didn't have any resulting end product. It's a shame to see that nice art being thrown away, but this was what I did before disposing it:

Fizzzzz away, all you baking soda! :D

Paper Clip Chain

This one is an absolutely zero-prep activity! I really love the hands on: as we grow website for exactly this reason - most of its activities are low-prep activities! Suits busy mothers like me :P

Well, for this one, just grab a bunch of paper clips and sit down with your child. Demonstrate how to connect between the paper clips and voila! You've got yourself a busy kid :)

Aishah was 4 years old when she did this activity, and she could do it after a few attempts.

Flower Blow Painting

I saw this interesting art project on the internet and decided to give it a try. Since my mother's birthday was approaching (9th December last year), I decided to turn it into a birthday card for my mother, fondly called Tokbu by the girls.

First step was to put a few drops of green paint on a paper. Then Aishah simply blew the drops upwards, to make the flower stems. Make sure the paint is a bit watery, or else it won't move when blown!

To make the flowers, I took a bottle with a 5 point bottom, asked Aishah to dip it in paint, and stamp on the paper, on top of the stems that she just made. Then she dipped her thumb on another colour of the paint, and stamped it on the middle. Next she simply connected all the 5 points to the middle using a brush. And there you go! A flower is made :)

Well, the stamping using a bottle part to make the flower petals might not be needed as you can just simply draw it using a brush, but it really does help a four year old to make the flower petals evenly spaced out. Not to mention the fun added to it ;)

This was our end result. Since Aishah at the time hasn't really mastered writing yet, so I just wrote the words using a pencil and she traced them using a glitter glue pen and a gold coloured marker.

Tokbu was really happy when she received it! First birthday card from her cucu ;)

Paper Clip Alphabets

Aishah can identify almost all alphabets now, but she still needs to work on the small and capital letters. She can write almost all letters, mainly in their capital letters form.

To help her in matching the capital letter and small letters, I did this alphabet heart activity. I used the paper hearts we made previously in this dangling artwork. 2 sets of the dangling hearts have since fallen down, so I just took of some of the hearts and used it in this activity.

I think Aishah is still confused with the capital and small letters of 'Y', so I took a heart and wrote 'Y is for yoyo' on it. Then I wrote letters around the edges of the heart, including small and capital Ys. Next I asked Aishah to put paper clips on the small and capital Ys that she could find.

At first she struggled a bit to put the paper clips onto the paper. But after a while, she discovered the right way of holding the paper and sliding the paper clip in. She did it easily after that! Another fine motor skill ticked there, alhamdulillah :)

I also made another version for maryam, but using shapes instead of letters, but putting paper clips onto paper is too challenging for her. Aishah happily did it for her sister. She was so excited on her newfound skill!