Watering Plants

Aishah loves watering plants. It's the easiest way to occupy her when we're playing outdoors. Since we have a large garden at home, she can spend a significant amount of time watering the plants there.

I bought the watering can at Giant for less than RM10 (can't remember the exact price). The size is just nice, perfect for a preschooler to carry around. A great activity as it not only entertains her, she's also helping me doing a house chore along the way! What a win-win situation :)

Of course, don't forget to put in learning elements in the activity. Other than teaching her how to water plants correctly i.e. pour the water on the ground, not on the leaves (they have the tendency to do that), it's a great opportunity to educate her about the concept of living things and Allah as the Creator. I discussed with Aishah about how every living things need water to live, just like us, and how Allah has made a built-in watering system in the earth through rain and the water cycle.

I have a book entitled 'Terima Kasih Allah' published by Ana Muslim, which I highly recommend for you to share with your kids. It's one of the favourite bedtime story for the girls. The book describes about the wind, sun, rain and land, created by Allah for the benefit of mankind. Aishah has already been introduced to the concept of water cycle through the book before, so this activity is the real life practical implementation of the concept for her to see.

7 Ways to Play With Balloons

This is one activity that I wanted to document straight away as I was worried that I would forget it since I didn't have pictures of all the 'sub-activities' - ummi was busy playing together with the girls!

We played this on one fine afternoon after tv time. I wanted to do a physical activity that will get the girls moving. Inspired by a popping balloon activity which I saw online, I decided to stretch the activity even more. How long can a balloon popping activity last anyway? I didn't want to waste too much balloon by popping lots of them to make the activity longer. So here's 7 ways to play balloons with kids:

1. The good ol' balloon volleyball game, passing the balloon to each other while trying to keep the balloon on air as long as possible. My girls, and I believe any child for that matter, will love to play this, as I think it gives them a sense of achievement - catching a normal ball, especially for toddlers, can be quite a daunting task!
2. Draw on the balloons. I handed both Aishah and Maryam a marker pen each to draw whatever they like. Here's our work of art:

   

   Aishah wrote her name (MUSLIHAH), and drew a picture of her baba at the side :)

   

   This was ummi's balloon. I decided to draw a picture of myself ;)

   

   And on the other side of ummi's balloon, of course I had to draw baba. Pardon the moustache, Aishah drew that one :P

   

   Maryam, hmmm.... drew 'angin' again I suppose? That's what she usually says when I ask her what is she drawing :P
   

3. Keep your balloon off the ground as long as possible. Similar to the balloon volleyball game, only that now you do it all by yourself. 
4. Have a balloon race, by blowing the balloon forward using your mouth. This was even harder than I thought, Aishah was better than me in this! It's actually all about the angle that you blow the balloon from, you need to blow it from the side. Blowing it from the top will get the balloon nowhere! That was what I did, haha, Aishah got it right from the first time. Well, I am much taller than Aishah, hence the tendency to blow from the top (excuses... hah!)
5. Another way to play the balloon race, is by blowing the balloon forward using a paper plate. Aishah won again this time! She's a natural in these things I suppose ;)
6. Dance  the 'hula dance' with the balloon. This one totally came from Aishah. I was trying to think of another way to play with the balloons when she suddenly came up with the idea and demonstrated it to me straight away. I think she learned that dance at school. I was forced to dance with her! A great workout, nevertheless :P. 
7. Hop with the balloon in between your legs. This one was tiring. Aishah won again, huhu T.T

After we finally finished all the activities, we took our bath and then Maryam asked to be nursed - and fell asleep soon enough! Aishah was no exception - she asked to go downstairs, and when I finished my maghrib prayers and went downstairs, Aishah was already asleep! Both fell asleep at record time of before 8pm!

Maybe ummi overdid the activity this time :P