tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89012061738391953112024-02-19T00:31:18.186-08:00There are two gifts we should give our children. One is roots, and the other is wings."We didn't realise we were making memories. We were just having fun!"
Life at home, in extra-curricular mode! Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-86096795216982994822015-05-15T05:40:00.000-07:002015-05-15T05:40:24.793-07:00Learn by observing - How do plants grow? <div style="text-align: justify;">
After a very long hiatus, we got back to doing an experiment! It so happened that A was learning all about vegetables and planting at school, what with spring in full bloom all over. The school generally picks a book to read every week and there are activities built around it for the kids to enjoy and learn at the same time. The book this week was 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. So A came home every day of the week and taught me about stems we eat and roots we eat, how she planted parsnips at school but they wouldn't grow sooner :-( and I also got a detailed retelling of the classic fairy tale. They even made vegetable soup, which she was very enthusiastic about making and very clever about avoiding to taste!!</div>
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I asked A if she would like to see how the beanstalk grows from the bean. Since all the planting at school involved sowing seeds in the soil, I thought this would be a good idea to show her how exactly the plant begins to grow from the seed. A was, as usual, all enthusiastic and agreed right away. Before we sat to work and to give a certain, say, professionalism (ha!) to our exercise, I handed a Science Experiments Log Book to A and invited her to pen her observations and conclusions in it. I hope, somewhere in the long run, this exercise helps her to be organised and articulate in her thoughts and actions. </div>
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After some looking around online, this is how we started off -</div>
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We took a regular ziploc bag and placed 4 kidney beans (rajma) on a wet tissue and covered it again with another one. I guess this will work with any kind of beans; we just picked what we had handy at home. We sealed the bag and taped it to our window. We even drew clouds and a sun to show that water and sunlight are also required for plants to make their food and grow. </div>
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And we waited. We covered the experiment over a period of 15 days. After about 4 days a sprout appeared, followed in the next couple of days by what A called, 'baby roots'. After a week, there was an upward growth which A correctly said was the stem. She was excited now, because she knew this would be followed by leaves and increase in height. </div>
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This activity gives a lot of scope for encouraging observation as there is slow and steady incremental change in the plant growth activity. A observed that there was a green bean 'born' out of the red rajma bean and it is from this that the plant was growing. </div>
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The leaves appeared soon enough and the plant showed a steady growth. We kept writing down our observations. This could also make a good start for some writing practice if your child is interested, because A writes tiny sentences once in a while and she did not mind doing the writing here as long as it wasn't too much. Because we intended to keep this as a record book for future experiments as well, I helped A with the spellings.</div>
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By the end of the 2nd week, the leaves were showing signs of drying because of the obvious shortfall of water and the lack of soil for the roots to derive strength from for further growth. There were too many root growths and A mentioned that they looked like 'Rapunzel's hair flowing out of the window' (ya, she really cracks me up sometimes!). It was time to end the experiment and I explained to A that the plant has to be replanted in the soil in the garden which is a more natural habitat for it to grow further. And that's what we did.</div>
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And here are our observations! Ain't it all grand? :-) We concluded with a reading of 'Jack and the Beanstalk'.</div>
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Happy planting! </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com0Stanmore, Stanmore, Greater London HA7 2QG, UK51.602756000000007 -0.3085240999999996351.600290500000007 -0.31356659999999964 51.605221500000006 -0.30348159999999963tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-27303758825052079532014-04-30T16:28:00.000-07:002014-04-30T16:28:30.149-07:00Zealots at work - Tissue roll Christmas Tree!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Zealots! Now that is one word that would describe this mommy and baby duo best. Because, frankly, even if I show enthusiasm for a lot of activities and if A wasn't interested the activities might as well be forgotten. But luckily for me, (touchwood to that over and over again!) A is a hightly enthusiastic and easy going child and is game for most ideas that are put in front of her. It is totally to her that I dedicate the inspiration behind me 'pinteresting' so much. I haven't done any of these activities as a child ( who had the time to stay indoors then?) and this doesn't come to me naturally. On many a cold, gray wintry evening, A and I have created quite some colourful crafts that are now recorded in this blog for posterity!<br />
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This is an idea that I picked up from <a href="http://www.creatifulkids.com/toilet-paper-roll-christmas-tree/" target="_blank">Creatiful Kids</a>. There is hardly anything different that I did from the idea suggested, except some decorations. We used -<br />
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15 tissue rolls for the tree<br />
2 rolls for the tree trunk (this was my error - one should suffice)<br />
Christmas Baubles - single, double or multicoloured; we used red, but differently textured ones<br />
A Christmas star to adorn the tree top<br />
Embellishments, ribbons - anything to decorate your tree</div>
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An important part of indulging A in any activity is to ensure that she has enough to do. She starts singing, somersaulting and everything else if I am the only one working. She is not big on observing, like some kids are. So most of my activities are chosen with this in mind. This one ensured that big time; she coloured all the rolls green which took quite some time! ;-) Almost 2 days! The 2 rolls that form the tree trunk were painted brown.</div>
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My job was only to even out the colours on the rolls and then to stick them together to form a tree. I formed a pyramid, with 5 rolls at the bottom rung, then 4 on top, then 3 and so on till there was one on top. I stuck the 2 brown rolls at the bottom for the tree to stand on. Now this was very silly of me, no tree looks like that! But I made a miscalculation with the weight and when I put one roll, the tree wouldnt stand. Maybe I should have worked around with something else. But I just went ahead with this. </div>
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I picked up the richly coloured christmas baubles and inserted them in the rolls. There was no need to use glue or tape, because they were the exact size! You can also used smaller baubles and hang them from the rolls for a different look. </div>
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I finished it with satin ribbons at the base of each line of the pyramid. For the big star on top, I used a plain paper, coloured it gold and stuck on top of our tree! :-)</div>
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And all of these came together to make the prettiest Christmas tree!! It made us so so happy!!! :-) </div>
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I loved this artwork greatly and so did A - she had done so much work on this (emptied out the green in our supplies too!). It is a great idea with minimalistic work and fantastic results!<br />
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Isn't it beautiful? :-)</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-44682503013116521712014-04-30T16:21:00.001-07:002014-04-30T16:21:52.590-07:00Yap, Yap... Tell a tale!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Yap, yappity, yapp... now that is something that I have a PhD in ;-) And I have great pride in announcing that A takes after me in that regard! Hahaha! She has always loved to listen to stories or hear them being read out to her (which kid doesn't?) and now she makes tiny stories and tells them to me first thing in the morning. She has decided that she wants to be a story-writer when she grows up! She takes keen interest in the author's and illustrator's name when we are reading together and recalls them when we read the book again later. </div>
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That is why when <a href="http://littlereadersnook.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Little Readers' Nook</a> (LRN), a themed reading and early literacy program in India specially designed for children in the age group of 2 to 6 years came up with a 'Tell A Tale' contest, I immediately discussed with A. She was a little confused with my explanation, but she agreed to play along when I said that she will get to live her dream of being a story-writer!</div>
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The contest was for the whole month of April 2014 and we could send in as many entries as we wanted to. LRN provided PDFs of the characters, props and settings that we were allowed to use for the exercise. The pictures that were given were - </div>
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To spin a tale, we were to pick one setting, 2 characters and one prop. We were not to include any other characters or props, but we were dealing with pre-schoolers here, so there was no fixed rule. When we started off, A also added characters, but as we progressed, she understood the activity. Though she limited her story to the characters and props involved, the length of the story was a big problem - my chatterbox just couldn't put an end to the story! </div>
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I have attached a few stories that we wrote. It was an effort for me to not poke my nose into her story to improvise or try to give ideas. It seems like a task to get your little one to make stories without any help. But you will be surprised - they manage very well. After all, it is an exercise in using imagination, why wouldn't they? The stories here are completely hers and at most, I have, at places, only tweaked the sentences in the end to complete the story within the page.<br />
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<b>YELLOW DUCKLING STORY</b><br />
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Once there was a boy who loved to skate. He went skating to school. There was a Christmas party in the school. So there were lots n lots n lots of Christmas caps. So he put on one Christmas cap on his head and he enjoyed at school till it was time to go home. He was skating back home when he saw a yellow duckling. So he put the duckling in his hands and skated back home. At home, he wondered if, where could this duckling come from? And then he wondered if this could be somebody's pet. He asked a lot of people if this is your pet. They said no, this is not mine. Til he asked a little boy, is this yours? He said, yes it's mine. So he returned the duckling to the boy and went back home and he lived happily ever after!<br />
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<i>I loved the way she thought of the boy going to everyone asking if its their pet. Sweet!</i><br />
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<b>A BIRD CALLED ANLEE</b><br />
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Once there was a blue little bird. His name was Anlee. One day Anlee noticed a beautiful garden and saw beautiful flowers and beautiful butterflies. He went inside for a closer look. There was a purple butterfly that was bigger than all. He went even inside and had a closer look. And then he noticed a gift for him. And then he put the gift in his beak and flew home. And he opened the wrapper and then he saw a little toy king. He showed the toy to his owner. The owner said its very nice. And then they lived happily ever after.<br />
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<i>I was actually confused about her choice of pictures here, but she managed a good story, I thought! This is another observation - because kids dont have any pre-conceived notions, they can imagine anything and spin a story anywhere! :-)</i><br />
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<b>ELEPHANT STORY</b><br />
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An elephant saw a glider in the air. It was making a sound 'Newwwwwwwww' because there was an emergency. The pilot looked where to land. He saw a forest and went down and pressed the brakes and came inside the forest. He looked left and right till he saw a clown with 4 balloons. The clown gave one balloon to the pilot and the pilot was walking to the glider again. He pressed another brake to go up again and he went away. That was the end of the story.<br />
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<i>This was a new word that she had learnt -'emergency'. And I also liked the idea of 'brakes' in an airplane. :-)</i><br />
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<b>TEACHER STORY</b><br />
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Once a teacher was waiting in a classroom for her children. She had a pet, a blue bird. When the children came to the class, the teacher took them to a farm. The children played and had fun. So the teacher told them, we'll have a 2 min walk in the dried, yellow grass and then we shall buy ice-creams for the children and me. So they bought the ice creams and came back to the farm and all were licking and licking the ice creams. They had fun and that's the end of the story.<br />
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<i>Basically, she did not come around to the word, 'picnic' but managed a story similar to a picnic day.</i><br />
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<b>FARM STORY</b><br />
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Once there was a farm. There was an elephant. Elephants make noise like this - PAWOOOOO! Then came a lion and he saw the farm. He was a good lion so he did not go inside. That was a good thing to do. The elephant saw a kite and holded it in his trunk so that it will not go away. He was walking to the farmhouse and ate his fresh green leaves and his tummy was full and that's the end of the story. And they lived happily ever after. </div>
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<i>The lion did not go inside and that was a good thing to do! Indeed! Kids surprise you with their thoughts, really! :-)</i></div>
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<b>BOY AND GIRL STORY - ANLEE AND FACY</b><br />
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Once there was a boy called Anlee and a girl called Facy, because she liked to wear fancy dresses. They were walking on the road one day and saw a tractor. They climbed inside and started driving it. As they were driving they saw a tent. They walked inside the tent and there was a circus. The circus master asked if they had tickets and the boy and girl said Yes, we have tickets. They went and saw the circus and when the circus ended it was time to go home. So they got on their tractor and went to their cozy and warm home and lived happily ever after.<br />
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<i>The girl was called Facy, because she liked to wear fancy dresses! I was impressed :-)</i></div>
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<b>THE SCHOOL STOR</b>Y</div>
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One morning, a school bus driver was taking the children to the school.He had a naughty dog who was bouncing and cheering with the children in the bus. After some time, the bus stopped. They were seeing a clown carrying 4 balloons. The children took the balloons and got back in the bus. The clown stepped inside the bus, shut the door and then the driver was driving and driving and driving and they reached the school. They stepped outside one by one. There was a brown door in the school and they opened the door, came inside and shut the door. They asked the teacher if she had a surprise and she said 'Yes ofcourse'. It was the birthday cake for the clown and all said yumm--yummmmmmm.</div>
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<i>You can see how I struggled with the length - this was the first story we did! The attention to detail - opened the door, came in, shut the door. Though I hated to interfere, this was an instance where I had to butt in and ask her to not get into basic details. </i></div>
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There are a number of obvious advantages to such an exercise - building vocabulary, sentence formation, grammar, imagination. Though we start off as getting into a fun, parent and baby bonding time activity, you will start noticing the above changes slowly and steadily. I have not taken all the stories that A and I did together, but only some and I could see a lot of change in the way she formed her sentences. For example. it became evident to me that detail was of importance to her - her sentences are always complete, as if she does not want to leave anything to the readers' imagination. She also loves to use newly learnt words in her sentences. This is an observation that I have received from her school as well - that she loves to articulate and expresses herself well. I have written the story as narrated by her, without any grammatical corrections or help in sentence formation. Her love for reading is also apparent in the way she forms her sentences.<br />
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This is a great activity that I would recommend in the 3+ age group. Not only is it fun, it also gives you other benefits as above over a period of time. I am already excited thinking about when A is all grown up and I get to show her these stories that she made when she was 4! What fun!! :-)</div>
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We thank Little Readers' Nook for this wonderful opportunity offered to encourage imagination and sentence/word building skills. It is a wonderful idea and was great fun for us!! :-)<br />
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Little Readers' Nook also offers subscription-based book delivery service across India and story sessions too. For more details, please check out the official site at <a href="http://www.littlereadersnook.com/" target="_blank">Little Readers Nook</a>. The work done at LRN is greatly commendable ( long required in India in the world of reading picture books!) and something that we highly recommend.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-69603820330203871652014-04-28T15:11:00.000-07:002014-04-28T15:11:17.367-07:00Xmas Crafts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This has been our first Christmas in the UK and we celebrated it in style! With our new found love and energy to create beautiful things at home, this Christmas involved a lot of craft! :-) Yes, most decorations on the tree were self-created between my girl and me. We had a lot of fun making them and we made full use of the 3 weeks of winter term break that we had from school!</div>
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So here goes our list of beauties!</div>
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1. Christmas buntings - </div>
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Simple and sweet... decoration with coloured papers! All we did was write out the letters in different coloured card paper and stick them on to contrasting coloured paper and cut them out to make them double-coloured. We strung them through a satin ribbon and hung them up with blu-tac!</div>
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For this, we cut different coloured papers in long strips and made circular bands while interconnecting them. I could have left them plain as they were colourful and pretty by themselves but since I wanted my girl to actively participate, I gave the strips to her to draw/colour/shade them as she pleased. If you looked closely, you will see smileys, cycles, gardens, flowers, snowmen, moons and stars and even people on them! :-) She soon got bored though, and so I connected the rest of them just plain.</div>
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2. Cardpaper Christmas trees - </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHCvLCXHi6deJ7rH8ZsTM14lYjOrhmvxtjVsCDLgBQBo2ujcp09jG7uVQKPua27ITiOCK9Ial3BoDgIpoXZIgDydajMk7QUeEORrYljepYl-hyya-LtYwd3TCvU7mrrW4qyy6rrDQl1iEx/s1600/2013-12-26+02.56.26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHCvLCXHi6deJ7rH8ZsTM14lYjOrhmvxtjVsCDLgBQBo2ujcp09jG7uVQKPua27ITiOCK9Ial3BoDgIpoXZIgDydajMk7QUeEORrYljepYl-hyya-LtYwd3TCvU7mrrW4qyy6rrDQl1iEx/s400/2013-12-26+02.56.26.jpg" height="356" width="400" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHCvLCXHi6deJ7rH8ZsTM14lYjOrhmvxtjVsCDLgBQBo2ujcp09jG7uVQKPua27ITiOCK9Ial3BoDgIpoXZIgDydajMk7QUeEORrYljepYl-hyya-LtYwd3TCvU7mrrW4qyy6rrDQl1iEx/s1600/2013-12-26+02.56.26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWEZLpIad2HOGj6quhYj_07hBCMoTbDxZCNh8tcLS9Rfq6mJLS508a83Jms0Ty4cw7ayoBqIq04fdoLPM7fElarRDOKx-ifp27P1gVkE4YCkAbQU6SqqBRnpETluEzHZ7VixJW-aDrMdF1/s1600/IMG_20131219_232909.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWEZLpIad2HOGj6quhYj_07hBCMoTbDxZCNh8tcLS9Rfq6mJLS508a83Jms0Ty4cw7ayoBqIq04fdoLPM7fElarRDOKx-ifp27P1gVkE4YCkAbQU6SqqBRnpETluEzHZ7VixJW-aDrMdF1/s640/IMG_20131219_232909.jpg" height="640" width="360" /></a></div>
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The first type is pretty simple - cut out a tree shape on green cardpaper and let your child drawout her favourite fruit/flowers on them. When done, insert the tree shape into 2 tiny slits on opposite corners of the topside of a tissue roll.</div>
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For the second type of tree, which I picked up from <a href="http://www.outnumbered.be/craft-creativity/paper-christmas-tree/" style="text-align: left;">http://www.outnumbered.be/craft-creativity/paper-christmas-tree/</a>, my girl tried some folding which did not quite come out right so she ended up just sticking on the stars to the tree. All you need is a medium sized green cardpaper sheet, tissue roll cut in two with tiny slits on the sides and some glitter glue n stars or anything else that you might want to spruce them up with. Fold up the card paper sheet into small folds, join them at the top with strong glue and stick the fan end of the tree into the 2 slits on the tissue roll. Voila! Your christmas tree is ready! Simple and beautiful, isn't it? </div>
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3. Hand print wreath - </div>
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This was again a very simple activity... A Christmas wreath - which people put up on doors to welcome visitors and offer goodwill, their circular shape representing a symbol of eternal life. Traditonal wreaths are made up of fir twigs and tiny branches, wild holly, pine cones, satin ribbons, what not! This is also a popular craft activity with loads of ideas on the internet. I picked one up with handprints on green cardpaper arranged in a wreath shape. I twisted the idea a little bit and sat down to make handprints of all the 3 of us on different coloured paper. Again, my girl was allowed to show her artistry on the cut-outs, before I connected them to form this beautiful wreath. I created the holly and the bows with foam pieces leftover after some other craft. Don't you like it too? :-) </div>
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4. Painted pine cones - </div>
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This seems to be a very easy job, but boy oh boy! This is a tiresome job! My girl played truant - she picked up a loadful of these pinecones from the garden and came home to colour. She didn't even finish a single one! I had to do them all by myself and had to actually sit up late one night. I used acrylic and metallic finish paint on them.The beautiful and romantic outcome at the end of it was what made the effort worthwhile! :-) You can hang them on your tree like decorations by sticking on a ribbon sling on top, though I also used most of them to decorate around my Nativity set (photo below).</div>
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5. Assorted traditional Christmas decorations -</div>
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These were my first experiments with felt, foam and..... sewing! Now again, I am not the kind of person who can sit in one place and do something that involves concentration and precision. Thats why sewing, knitting, crochet (I still know very little about the difference between knitting and crochet!) are not activities that I thought I will ever get close to doing! But there I was, sewing up stars, snowmen and X-mas trees, candy sticks and baubles! Though, I'll admit that there is very little sewing involved, and that too the kind with a decently big needle and yarn involved, which is relatively easy. And I was pleased with the results too! </div>
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There wasn't much for my bundle of excess energy to do, so all I could let her do was to decorate the creations with buttons, embellishments and glitter glue. I just left her alone with the supplies and this is what they ended up looking like :-)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_1OJSQ1cg8s9UZuig_d1XqxBF9ozbhZ-SVN0VYXDJJnsOboNTw4J-RVsq0Tk0670eZ6jIN59AfMpQSvsAB_tbeQu_bfCswRbsZMuDdI7tVbNoaI4ElQ7h03nk82TM8P5dqicEcCaGL4uL/s1600/PhotoGrid_1386625233940.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_1OJSQ1cg8s9UZuig_d1XqxBF9ozbhZ-SVN0VYXDJJnsOboNTw4J-RVsq0Tk0670eZ6jIN59AfMpQSvsAB_tbeQu_bfCswRbsZMuDdI7tVbNoaI4ElQ7h03nk82TM8P5dqicEcCaGL4uL/s400/PhotoGrid_1386625233940.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>
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6. Farm animals with felt - </div>
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This was my most enterprising work! Farm animals with felt! I even learnt a new sewing style, called.. ohh.. what was it called?! Ohh yes.. Blanket stitch! (at this point, I can actually visualise my mom's I-cant-believe-it shocked face! LoL). This idea was picked up from <a href="http://www.freekidscrafts.com/felt_farm_animals-e1943.html" style="text-align: left;">http://www.freekidscrafts.com/felt_farm_animals-e1943.html</a> I hope you can make out the animals / birds in these! :-)</div>
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7. Lady bug with Air Drying clay - </div>
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I have put this up separately earlier on this blog <a href="http://ammaknowsbest.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/ladybirds-in-clay.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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And this is how our lovely tree looked! :-)<br />
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It was completed with a reading every evening of the Nativity story and a reiteration of the wish-list from Santa :-) He even visited us in our dreams!! So, we decided to put up the Nativity set as well that we purchased only last year.</div>
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There are my pine cones making up part of the outside of the stable! </div>
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Our Christmas was perfect when we met Father Christmas for the first time ever at nursery. A was so speechless, she could not answer Santa's questions! The previous night she had woken up dreaming about Santa and when he was right there beckoning her to come near and take her gift, she was totally tongue-tied! :-) She finally found her voice and asked him to bring for her a kitchen set. Speechless A, Part 2 came around again when she saw the shiny new kitchen set waiting for her on Christmas morning! :-) It is so so beautiful to be a child at Christmas!!<br />
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And let me tell you what else is beautiful. It is beautiful to be a parent who gets to see the delighted face of his/her child, first thing on Christmas day, to want to believe that magic does exist in the world.<br />
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<b><i>I do not think Santa Claus comes down the chimney - he comes in through the hearts of beautiful innocent children. </i></b><br />
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We love Christmas!!! :-)<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-41375309787733729282014-04-27T19:57:00.002-07:002014-04-27T19:57:28.684-07:00Winged Beauties - An afternoon with butterflies! <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Spring break for us is 3 weeks long, as opposed to 2 weeks generally, as A is still in nursery and not in formal school yet. There are a lot of events that are scheduled in museums (not malls), parks ( not indoor play areas) and libraries (not gaming zones). We generally make it a point to visit 3-4 such events during such mid-term breaks as it gives us a good opportunity to go out and explore practical experiences and also spend a lot of fun time together!</div>
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This time, Natural History Museum had a 'Sensational Butterflies' event to ring in the advent of spring. They had set up an outdoor, tropical butterfly house, where they had hundreds of butterflies (species brought in from different parts of the world) alongwith caterpillars and eggs for the little curious kids to experience the life-cycle of the beautiful creatures.</div>
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It was a wonderful experience for A and me, especially for A, because she got to see the creatures outside of the book. This was an extension for her of her very favourite book, 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' by Eric Carle. I have written a record and review of the book at my blog, <a href="http://mytinycaterpillar.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-very-hungry-caterpillar.html" target="_blank">My Tiny Caterpillar</a>, if you would want to take a look. She must have told me at least a dozen times that she LOVED the place. She pointed out multi-coloured and different sized butterflies with excitement and delight to me. She squealed with mischief when some of the butterflies that were flying all around us settled for some time on my shoulder or my bag. It was a great experience and I had taken loads of photos. This challenge gave me the idea to put the event up as a post for posterity. There are a lot of pictures in this post, so I hope this is more enjoyable than reading all that I write, most of the time ;-) And, yes, I want to bring to notice that I have not enhanced any of the pictures, they are all posted here just the way I clicked them! Nature's beauty in all its glory!! So here goes!</div>
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This was the green house structure that was made for the exhibition. The temperatuer inside was maintained at around 26-28 degrees, I would guess, as compared to the 11 degrees that was outside! Yes, that's spring for you - don't let the sun fool you, my India friends :-)</div>
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When we entered, the first thing we noticed were butterflies! Fluttering around everywhere!! And they were really large ones. My little A almost started shrieking whenever any butterfly came within arm's distance of her - it took her a while to get friendly with them. She loves them, but they had never been so close to her! Haha!</div>
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This picture below shows the eggs under the microscope. Enchanting, isn't it? Look at the picture of the Camberwell butterfly with dozens of eggs on the stalk!</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yzXpZl1AuPU/U12wgJa7cgI/AAAAAAAAEaI/K7WYFU5yHa8/s1600/Eggs1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yzXpZl1AuPU/U12wgJa7cgI/AAAAAAAAEaI/K7WYFU5yHa8/s1600/Eggs1.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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Now, have you ever seen any of these for real? We did, for the very first time in our lives! :-) The people at the exhibition had to show us where to look, we would never have found them ourselves. They are really tiny. And they do not look to your eye the way they look on that picture above!</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-odSL7lvapU0/U12wfnjTFaI/AAAAAAAAEaE/_o0_svChXxM/s1600/Eggs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-odSL7lvapU0/U12wfnjTFaI/AAAAAAAAEaE/_o0_svChXxM/s1600/Eggs.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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Don't they remind you of the little thermocol balls that you use to fluff up the bean bags? We were fascinated. </div>
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The caterpillar inside the egg, when it is ready to come out, uses its jaws to gnaw through the egg. </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tKg5SAjtEpA/U12w_H_1-WI/AAAAAAAAEbU/tdb4VtghOhw/s1600/W9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tKg5SAjtEpA/U12w_H_1-WI/AAAAAAAAEbU/tdb4VtghOhw/s1600/W9.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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The next was a placard placed amidst shrubbery saying, 'Can you spot something interesting here?'. We looked and looked, but couldn't find anything. I again had to go looking for the organiser, who came back with a friendly smile and showed us these lovelies!</div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-inWuQhrxy6k/U12wcDpF2KI/AAAAAAAAEZk/pA4T-a1pbOc/s1600/Caterpillars%2521.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-inWuQhrxy6k/U12wcDpF2KI/AAAAAAAAEZk/pA4T-a1pbOc/s1600/Caterpillars%2521.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><br /></span><span style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;">Oh my God! I had not seen A so excited in a while! This was the most exciting part of the exhibition for her. She gazed and gazed at the creepy crawlies and was fascinated. She looked at me and said, 'Amma, I love this exhibition!'. My sweet little adorable girl! :-) </span></div>
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I really liked the way the below information was given about who are friends and foes of caterpillars. The top circle referred to the creature spoken about (ants, squirrel, birds and caterpillars - from left to right) and the bottom one asked 'Friend or Foe?' on one side. When you have guessed your answer, you need to flip the circle to check your answer! Perfect to hold the interest of kids! :-)</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LR4eMKuME0E/U12whkNI12I/AAAAAAAAEac/gOLNN_YMmMA/s1600/Friend.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LR4eMKuME0E/U12whkNI12I/AAAAAAAAEac/gOLNN_YMmMA/s1600/Friend.jpg" height="308" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">We all know that caterpillars eat a lot of food, again thanks to Eric Carle and his lovely book. But what happens when it gets too fat for its original skin? Read on!</span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uv_FYWwxpDQ/U12whPNos0I/AAAAAAAAEaY/99CVF-Htsm0/s1600/Skin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uv_FYWwxpDQ/U12whPNos0I/AAAAAAAAEaY/99CVF-Htsm0/s1600/Skin.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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Check the caterpillar shedding its old skin in the above picture! </div>
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The caterpillar then one day, builds itself a chrysalis and hibernates inside to become a butterfly. </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZVnipMG2HXc/U12wiyx-UKI/AAAAAAAAEak/6tmDnEwgr3g/s1600/W+14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZVnipMG2HXc/U12wiyx-UKI/AAAAAAAAEak/6tmDnEwgr3g/s1600/W+14.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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In our dream world, we thought butterflies just fly out of the chrysalis one day.. flutter, flutter... just like that. Well, thats not how it really happens. The butterfly comes out little by little and the wings are pretty much stuck and squished up. They are wet which the butterfly has to dry once it's out of the chrysalis. Behold, the beauty of nature and the phenomena of metamorphosis! :-) </div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NjHnmf4ZuBE/U12wdsxv4iI/AAAAAAAAEZw/zQdCdz19g3A/s1600/Chrysalis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NjHnmf4ZuBE/U12wdsxv4iI/AAAAAAAAEZw/zQdCdz19g3A/s1600/Chrysalis.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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Just like I expected, A was disappointed. She really thought the butterfly would come flying out in all its brilliant colours. She was not very impressed with these images. I, on the other hand, was singing inside! It was sheer beauty! I was amazed at the hardened rock-like texture of the chrysalis and at the idea of a large creature coming out of something so tiny!</div>
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The organisers had brought in not only butterflies from all over, they also had brought in chrysalis'! So many of them, which made it possible for us to see this wonder of nature right in front of our eyes!</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jG2i-XZZKK4/U12weOd0BbI/AAAAAAAAEZ8/BMDob8btrBQ/s1600/Chrysalis1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-jG2i-XZZKK4/U12weOd0BbI/AAAAAAAAEZ8/BMDob8btrBQ/s1600/Chrysalis1.jpg" height="640" width="572" /></a></div>
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Isn't it totally mind blowing!?!?! There were so many butterflies coming out it various stages of the process. We could even see water dripping out of the chrysalis. I was so glad we decided to come to this exhibition!</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-60Fi8iw1ZRY/U12w3jgX4FI/AAAAAAAAEbE/xyiW4nznSYs/s1600/W19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-60Fi8iw1ZRY/U12w3jgX4FI/AAAAAAAAEbE/xyiW4nznSYs/s1600/W19.jpg" height="360" width="640" /></a></div>
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Some information and some trivia!</div>
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Ohh.. we haven't seen any butterflies in here yet, have we? :-) Here goes!</div>
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Let me tell you something fascinating. The two left side butterfly images are of the same butterfly! Yes!! It is called the Blue Morpho Butterfly, with this amazing blue shade when it opens up its wings. It has this brown underside with false 'eye-spots' to warn off predators! Coudnt't get that, could you? Me neither!</div>
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Right side images, from top to bottom, are of the Wayward Hawaiian butterfly and the famous Swallowtail Butterfly. I am not able to recollect the name of the green coloured beauty.</div>
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The Blue Morpho was very clearly the star of the show. They were present in large numbers and in the below photo, you can see a bunch of them feasting on orange and banana peels.</div>
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I have never been a nature gazer or a nature enthusiast; I have not participated in any such activities in my growing days that I can remember, even from school. This was one reason I was particularly happy I took A to this exhibition. It was a beautiful experience, knowing for real the life-cycle of these winged wonders. I am really happy to share this with you too! :-)</div>
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Hope you all really enjoyed this long post!! Do keep a check on any such exhibitions that come to your city. I guarantee a great experience!</div>
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There are lots of experiments on this that you will find online, and very enterprising ones too! There are many enthusiastic parents and guardians, I must say! Most experiments that I saw online invoved even making the volcanic mountain from scratch - materials involved clay, dough, soil and containers, paper, foil or such other materials. I tried a short-cut version, one that did not involve a lengthy process of making the mountain but ensured total fun and learning.</div>
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My little A has been learning about volcanoes and tornadoes and our education sessions stretched from dramatic action sequences at home to You Tube videos. I finally decided to take it up another notch by doing this experiment at home. I liked the version of the mountain at <a href="http://inspirationlaboratories.com/easy-tape-volcano/" target="_blank">this link here</a>. They used easy tape to make the mountain and then coloured it brown; I cut the process further more by using brown duct-tape ;-)</div>
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What you need for this experiment -</div>
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<li style="text-align: justify;">A quarter plate or any flat circular object</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A small plastic container - disposable jelly or flavoured yoghurt ones are perfect</li>
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I made the folly of not taking pictures from the beginning on how to make the volcanic mountain, but the link above will be able to guide you through it. In my version, though, I took a quarter plate and placed a small plastic jelly container over it. I then took brown duct tape and started pasting lengthwise from the inside of the container to the base of the plate. This way, little by little I covered the entire build up so that it resembled a tiny mountain with a gaping hole at the top. This is how it looked -</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IRiHspr2VJo/U12QMPPeeAI/AAAAAAAAEX4/w85PHG-WwzY/s1600/V.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IRiHspr2VJo/U12QMPPeeAI/AAAAAAAAEX4/w85PHG-WwzY/s1600/V.jpg" height="400" width="396" /></a></div>
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Pretty simple, though I apologise for not having pictures from the beginning. Once you are ready with this, all you need to do is put some baking soda inside and when your protege is ready to be amazed, pour the vinegar over the soda and W-A-T-C-H!</div>
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When vinegar comes in contact with the baking soda, it creates fizz and comes bubbling and fizzing up the top and overflows from the sides of the mountain, just like lava coming out of a volcano. I purposely used coloured vinegar at first to make it darker, but this came out like Coke ;-)</div>
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My little one screamed with glee when she saw the fizz all coming out; she was like, 'Amma, its hot lava!'. I believe she even backed off a bit to save herself from the deadly eruptions! Haha! </div>
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The second brainwave that I had was even more disastrous.. I used yellow food colouring thinking that the fizz might be the colour of molten lava, but it ended up looking like an egg yolk cooking! :-(</div>
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Moral of the story - use some shade of dark orange or red to get a colour that resembles molten lava. Definitely not yellow!</div>
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Now for some serious science - Acetic acid (vinegar) and sodium bi-carbonate (baking soda) come together and make carbonic acid. This acid breaks apart immediately into water and carbon-dioxide which creates all the fizz as seen above and ultimately trickles down as liquid.</div>
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It is a great fun experiment and informative at the same time. If you are doing this as a proper summer break activity, you can even make the mountain with green forests and brown soil with craft items; there are lots of ideas online that you can try. It would make for lovely quality time with your young ones. Its really fun while it lasts and even when it was over, A had some fun by herself with the mountain and the water. She messed up the table big time and as she was playing with it another idea struck me. The mountain covered by water all around reminded me of the Indian mythological story of 'Samudra Manthan' (churning of the ocean) where the demons and the gods churn the mighty ocean for nectar. Since A was also familiar with the story I asked her if she wanted to try churning our ocean. She nodded excitedly. Our serpent king, Vasuki, was a long, not-in-use USB cord which i coiled around our Mount Mandara! LoL!</div>
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This was our fun activity for the next 5-10 minutes! :-)<br />
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Science and mythology in one instance...now, isn't that a great idea? :-)</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-10450974678297914222014-04-24T14:59:00.000-07:002014-04-24T14:59:20.327-07:00Upcycled Tin Art!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Indian mothers and grandmothers typically share one common trait. They never like to throw things out, especially fancy looking, useless stuff. The common explanation is , 'you never know, they might come in handy someday'. I have never seen the sense in it before, nor do I do now. I mean, I understand recycling, but the idea of stacking stuff in a closet for someday and something to happen is beyond me.<br />
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Now in this avatar of mine, where I am this zealous mommy with loads of extra time, I tried it once or twice - stacking things that I have seen being used on Pinterest and stuff. But after a while, it just used to gnaw at my head - the junk! Ultimately I used to just put them all together, and dump them in the trash can. Then I worked some things the other way round. This made more sense to me. At least I am not stacking. I earmark things to do and then when the materials come around, we sit down to create something. I mean there is millions of stuff to do, so nothing is running out exactly, is it?</div>
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This craft idea out of tin cans was created in this way. I had stumbled upon an Italian site where there were loads of stuff to do with tin cans. There were mostly farm animals and clocks and pen holders, but I liked the idea of creating an alien. A and I had a new favourite book those days, 'Aliens love underpants'. You can read our review of the book here - <a href="http://mytinycaterpillar.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/aliens-love-underpants.html" target="_blank">Aliens Love Underpants</a>. And it was perfect timing since I knew she would like a follow up craft to the book. </div>
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I got A to paint the tin can with an acrylic colour of her choice and she picked green. Now if you know tin cans, you know that they can be sharp at the area you cut off the top. My can opener is one which cuts from the inside, so the top is smooth. There is nothing that you need to do on the inside, so it's perfectly safe. If the can is opened such that the top has sharp edges, I wouldn't have gone ahead with this as it is not safe. You will invariably cut your fingers. </div>
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Once the can was painted and dried the next day, we sat to make the eyes, mouth and nose. All from scrap ;-)</div>
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I made the eyes with milk-carton caps and stuck googly eyes on them. For the nose I took a clip from an old clothes hanger that I found lying around in A's drawer - this was A's suggestion. And for the teeth, we took buttons of different sizes. A wanted the eyes to hang from the top, so I attached them to pipe cleaners and fixed one end to the inside of the tin, so that they eyes wobbled on top. Some colourful yarn for the hair, again A's suggestion, and we were done!</div>
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Look at our friendly alien :-)<br />
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I am particularly happy with this as quite a few of the suggestions came from A. I followed her idea just as she instructed :-) </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-17346986865017304362014-04-23T14:19:00.001-07:002014-04-23T14:19:59.471-07:00Tree of Love for Valentine's<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I came across a number of Valentine's Day crafts on Pinterest. A's school got the kids to make a heart out of air drying clay and painted it red. They sent it home to us, after placing a tea light holder in the centre of the heart. </div>
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Though back home, I had never seen anyone involve kids in a Valentine's day celebration; the school's involvement here made me hunt for some crafts. I have a friend in the US, whose 2 sons had to each make 30 valentine day cards for their school mates and some more for their teachers as well. My friend, who chose to make the cards at home, instead of simply buying them from the store, swore that this was her first and last time at it! ;-)</div>
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So I thought, why not, let me give it a shot too - at least, I had no such commitments at school, so we made it a home project. I looked up a number of crafts and the 'Valentine Tree' interested me. Though what I saw was a miniature craft, a thin branch of twigs arranged in a small pot and hung with decorations, I ended up making just something else altogether! I wanted to use the tissue paper rolls which we had begun to save up, by default - just in case, a craft caught our fancy! So I set about making my tree from scratch.</div>
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I picked up 2 kitchen tissue rolls that are almost double the length of the standard toilet tissue rolls and fixed one on top of another vertically to make the trunk. I then cut a dozen regular tissue rolls to flatten them up. I asked A to colour all of them dark brown with water colours. Once they were dry, A and I drew bold branch shapes on them and I later cut them out. I stuck the branches on either side of the tree trunk so that it resembled a tree. I tried making bark shapes on them with crayons and chalk pastels. This is how the first cut looked -</div>
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I wanted to jazz it up a bit, but couldn't think of anything, so this is how our tree looked for almost 3-4 days. And then, as I was punching coloured paper one day for some other craft, I had an idea. I picked up 2-3 different green coloured sheets and punched them quite a bit and stuck all the green dots randomly on the tree. I liked the look, here it is - </div>
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For the hearts, I picked up another recycling idea; you would probably laugh if i tell you this! I cut out hearts from plastic milk cartons! Hahaha!! I got this idea from a mommy online who made suncatchers with these - they did not seem like a very bad idea. A and I got to work with doing patterns and decorations on the hearts. We used everything and anything from buttons to felt to foam to beads to stars to even paper! A glimpse - </div>
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All the decorations were done by A with glitter glue and regular glue. I just did the cutting work wherever required! We took about 2 days to dry all our crafts and when they were ready, I punched a hope at the top middle of the hearts and drew red satin strings through them. When everything was ready, we put up the hearts on the tree and the decoration was done!</div>
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This is our tree of love - 'Appa, Amma and Me' :-) We presented this to Appa when he came home tired on Valentines' day evening - as expected, it was perfect to brighten up his evening! :-) Followed by a special dinner too! Heart shaped pasta! Yay! :-)</div>
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Happy Valentines'..... always! :-)</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-71072162799436270662014-04-22T15:09:00.002-07:002014-04-22T15:09:53.609-07:00States of matter<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Soild, liquid and gaseous. Yep, the three states that help you see, feel, touch, smell or taste anything. It is a simple concept to teach you rkid, especially with examples around us. I tried to do this at home with water, and it was an easy practical!<br />
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Come Sunday morning, and I began by taking some ice cubes in a bowl to show A. She of course, showed more interest to touch them, slip them around, taste and even feel them. I asked her if she knew what ice was made of, and she said water, though she couldn't explain how. I showed her how we can fill water in the ice trays and put them in the freezer and the water solidifies to make ice. And since it is solid, water can take the shape of any container that you freeze it in.<br />
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I kept the bowl out near the window sill for the ice to melt and we went out to the park for our weekend afternoon fun. Even after we came back the ice hadn't all melted so I cheated a little; if I let the ice take its own sweet time to melt, my A would have forgotten we were doing an experiment ;-)</div>
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So I filled the bowl with some water and invited A to guess what happened to all the ice. This she guessed correctly and told me that the ice melted to water. I explained to her that only when it is really cold, ice can form and when it is not, the ice will begin to melt. I also co-related this to the climate in Antartica, which A knows well because of the recordings of 'Frozen Planet', a BBC series, that we love to watch. I would highly recommend this programme to little kids to get them involved in nature; its an amazing series.</div>
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We then moved on to the kitchen, and I set to boil the water. Once the water started boiling, I showed the steam to A. This, I explained to her, is water in its gaseous form. Liquids tend to turn to gas, or evaporate, when exposed to warmer or hot temperatures. This can be co-related for your child with the example of clothes drying or rain-water drying up. </div>
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I couldn't get the picture right, so I fidgeted around with it to give you a decent idea. </div>
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So we can show our little ones that the same matter can be seen in 3 common states - solid, liquid and gaseous. And most matter on our planet are present in one of these forms. Yes, I know there is plasma out there, but I guess that lesson is another 5 years away - gives me time to read up on it myself ;-)</div>
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This is a very basic, simple experiment, but the lesson on science is pretty important. You can actually follow up with this experiment on <a href="http://ammaknowsbest.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/how-do-clouds-form.html" target="_blank">cloud formation</a> to show them how the cycle repeats itself in nature to give you rains.</div>
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Hope this was interesting! :-) </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-69472857856978613782014-04-21T16:11:00.002-07:002014-04-21T16:11:58.264-07:00Rangoli painting!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Rangoli is a folk art from India in which patterns are created on the floor in living rooms or courtyards using materials such as colored rice, dry flour, colored sand or flower petals. It is usually made during Diwali, Onam, Pongal and other Indian festivals. They are meant to be sacred welcoming areas for the Hindu deities. The ancient symbols have been passed down through the ages, from each generation to the next, keeping both the art form and the tradition alive.</div>
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We, who come from south India, call this 'Kolam' and typically is made with wet rice flour by using the tips of your fingers. Though I'm not very good at it, I love the art and indulge in making them during every festival that comes along. These are a couple of traditional everyday 'kolams' that I have done in my London home recently -<br />
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The designs are deeply traditional though I tend to take off somewhere in the middle of it with my own doodles ;-) </div>
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This is a rangoli, which is typically characterised with coloured powder - ideally made during important festivals like Diwali or Navratri. I did the borders and some more while A helped me quite a bit with the colouring inside. </div>
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During Onam, the harvest festival of South India, we make a 'pookalam', which is typically a floral design made totally with flowers. It is a beautiful sight to see! When I moved to the UK, we had just moved into our rented apartment and hence my first Onam here was an unprepared for event. Though I made the traditional feast and we all burped ourselves wholeheartedly, I could not go hunting for flowers for my pookalam. And there was my little A with me, who had to be kept entertained and busy all day. So this time, I hit upon an idea of doing my pookalam with water colours! :-) </div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">It turned out to be a great idea because though it took me as much time as it would have taken me to make a regular rangoli or one with flowers, it kept my girl happily busy! I did the border colours and madam helped me with the complete colouring! :-) Here is how it looked:-)</span></div>
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I drew out the basic rangoli with wet chalk and asked A to begin her colouring. Once she was done colouring the whole rangoli inside, we took a lunch break while it dried. Turned out, that was a good idea, because the dried colour was quite pale. We both together gave a richer second coat to the rangoli and when that dried, it looked great. I did the borders with contrast colours and jazzed it up with a few English posies! :-) </div>
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Not bad, don't you think? :-) </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-60756567202418791612014-04-21T08:01:00.000-07:002014-04-21T08:18:45.520-07:00Quite the contrary - Sink or Float?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This is amongst the earliest and the simplest experiments that you can try with kids - even 2 year olds! Unlike my other experiments, this doesn't involve colours, but involves water, which is again a crowd puller ;-)</div>
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The experiment basically introduces the kids to weights, buoyancy, density. Though these words don't really have to be put across to the kids, what they do understand is objects float when they are light and sink if they are heavy. The fun part of the experiment is you can send your kid on a hunt around the house to look around for tiny objects to use in the experiment - they could be just about anything. The more, the merrier! Secondly, before you drop any object in the water, you can let your child guess what would happen and why. If you want to make it a little more of a scientific project with an older child, you can actually take a paper and pen and record your observations!</div>
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We first took a large bowl and filled it with water. I then placed 2 smaller empty bowls on either side and put cards next to each of them that said 'SINK' and 'FLOAT' respectively.</div>
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I then arranged all the items that A and I had hunted for around the house for dunking in the water for this activity.</div>
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As you can see, we picked stuff like an earring to a balloon to balls to erasers; we even took spoons of wood, plastic and steel.A tiny glass bottle, a straw, a grape - like I said, just about anything is okay. I was careful to not take any object that would absorb - I decided that could be a separate experiment; I did not want to confuse her with that learning here. </div>
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One by one, we started dropping the objects in the water. Before she dropped it in the water, A would take a guess at what would happen, whether it would sink or float. </div>
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The confusion for A came in when we put 2 little balls together - one was plastic and one was a bouncy ball - the plastic one floated and the other sank. She just couldn't explain how and my husband and I had a nice laugh at her amazement. </div>
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As adults, it is very easy for us to explain this phenomena. But for kids who associate things with big and small, it is tough for them to understand why a small grape would sink to the bottom and a huge, plastic capsicum toy would float! </div>
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There was some learning for us too - a pistachio shell, which we thought would float, actually sank! </div>
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A also noticed the refraction of light on this hanger, how it looks bigger inside the water than outside. </div>
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Once all observations were made and the idea was explained, I asked A to pick out the stuff from the water and sort them in the respective bowls. </div>
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We noticed that A was still a little confused, especially with objects that are bigger in size, but lighter. It became a game with us in the coming days, where we would look at or hold different objects and try to guess if it would sink or float in water. </div>
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And when the experiment time was over, we let A play with objects and the water by herself for a while. She was at it for a while and when the entire table area was flooded, it was time for me to play bad mommy and end the revelry! </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-34798243944244855992014-04-18T15:56:00.001-07:002014-04-18T15:56:54.427-07:00Pebble painting<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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For someone who hails from India, some things are just taken for granted. Sandy beaches are among them. Most places you decide to holiday in, there will be surely a rendezvous with the sun and the sand. Making sand-castles, wearing graffiti glares and sexy swimwear, soaking in the sun, writing names and drawing in the sand - its all there! </div>
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And cut to UK. Beaches, huh? Naah. Even if you find them, you can't get into the water, they are freezing cold all through the year. Sand? Oh no, you don't even have those most of the times! Who would have imagined you need to adjust to that! Most beaches are the pebble beach kinds and there are extremely few sandy beaches. So, it is quite a dull proposition to holiday on a beach here. No sand, no dunking in the water. :-(</div>
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Now since we have to make peace with this situation, we went about collecting pebbles on the one beach that we had been to, which thankfully was also a sandy one! We picked up a whole bag of flat pebbles and brought them home, as usual, not knowing what to do with them. And one day, we sat to colour them in metallic paint.</div>
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They looked really nice, but we din know again what to do with them. Then, one day filled with boredom, we sat to draw on them. We did not use any water colours or a paint brush though, we used indelible marker pens. I had a go first, and this is the random stuff that I came up with -<br />
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On the back side, this is what A did -</div>
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Can you recognise her hedgehog? :-)<br />
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We bought a new book in our library, called Peter's Pebbles, where the boy in the story loved to paint different animals and birds on his pebbles. You can read our review of the book <a href="http://mytinycaterpillar.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/peters-pebbles.html" target="_blank">here</a>, in my other blog dedicated to Children's picture books- <a href="http://mytinycaterpillar.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">My Tiny Caterpillar</a>. Interestingly, the book is my entry for the alphabet today on the <a href="http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/what-is-blogging-from-to-z.html" target="_blank">A to Z Blogging Challenge</a>.<br />
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We took inspiration from the book and decided to do some animals of our own and some scenic pictures too!<br />
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The elephant and the crocodile (the green thing with bloody jaws, LoL ) are A's creation! :-) The others, I'm not even going to bother telling you, it wouldn't matter because you anyway can't make them out from my laughable drawings!<br />
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I also attempted a zebra! Check out my traditional Tamil 'kolam' and A's picture of a sunny day out!<br />
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Its a fun activity and I'm sure a very popular one too. Next time, do pick up flat, shapely pebbles for your little one when you see them lying around on a beach! </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-5156659609854172712014-04-17T13:35:00.001-07:002014-04-17T13:35:46.191-07:00Occasion cards -Gift them! <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A very enjoyable and interesting way to gift cards to your family and your child's friends is to let your child make them herself! A child as young as 3 years can manage a small sized card if she loves to doodle or draw and colour. If your child is old enough to understand the occasion, say for example Dad's birthday or Christmas, then it adds a lot more excitement! </div>
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In India, the system of structured education starts so early (as early as 3+ years) that the responsibility of nurturing creative exploits or even introducing them as a hobby falls wholly on the parent or caretakers at home. For someone as hare-brained as me in matters of hobbying or creative skills, this is quite a daunting task (again, I thank all the brilliant moms all over the web who share their lovely ideas). Faced with the pressure of keeping up with the schoolwork, creativity naturally takes a backseat.<br />
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Here in the UK, it is completely the opposite. Formal education does not start before 5 years of age. I am not really a big fan of that; I find it really sad that even a little amount of time is not scheduled in the nursery for learning about certain basic concepts. I think a kind of breakthrough is achieved by the new age schools in India which happily blend the old with the new and manage a balance between the two cultures.<br />
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After coming to the UK, a very big idea that I have learnt to appreciate is the importance given to children to explore and develop a sense of individual creativity. The children in the UK have a lot of time to explore pursuits of their own, with active involvement of parents, guardians or even carers at day care. This could be anything, and everything, from exploring colours and textures, nature trails, exploring science activities, crafts and hobbies and what not. And all this is completely unstructured - again something new for me, as I am only exposed to the culture of sending off your child to numerous activity classes to learn everything that is not taught at school. Needless to say, I was captivated. This blog, and all the activities in it, stems from that fascination and the sheer joy of spending precious time with my little one exploring such pursuits. </div>
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So then, we come to this activity of making greeting cards. I would like to tell you that this is a no-brainer, really. Anyone can think of this and it is very satisfying as well. But many among us won't do it because, frankly, when we think of a gifting a card, we think of a beautiful one. One that doesn't have smudges or clumsy figures or sloppy colouring and writing. I have been there too. A year back, when my child would say she's drawing a cat, I would actually try to teach her easy ways to try to draw one, because that's probably how we have grown up. We need to see something resembling the perfect image in our head, on the paper. Personally speaking, and thankfully for my child, I've come a long way from there. Now I don't interfere in her drawing or colouring or sketching or whatever. I'll give you a small example of what this creativity is, that I am talking about.<br />
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A brought this home one day from her nursery and her carers had put up a note at the corner of the sheet saying that this is a picture of a sea, as A had made it. She put the glue and picked the embellishments herself and put them randomly on the sheet. It is not a sea to you and me, but then, it could well be the sea, can it not? A was smiling shyly as she showed it to me, because it was HER creation. This is what I am talking about. I have never seen any such sheet from playschool, summer camp, nursery or activity centre where A went to in Bombay. The sheets there always used to be structured, perfect, beautiful. I'm not trying to be critical here; of course that is good too. But my point is I started appreciating this way of respecting the tiny ones' preferences and thoughts. </div>
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Anyway, I guess I'm digressing. So come Christmas, birthdays, I used to ask A if she would like to draw a picture or a card to gift. If she said yes, which was usually the case, we went about creating those. I also help her with her projects sometimes, but most of the stuff is hers totally. I'm attaching a few beauties here ;-) </div>
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This was an X'mas card that we made for a very dear friend. Santa's beard was done by painting white on A's palm and printing it on the card. Her drawing inside shows her happily jumping on the grass with her younger friend.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BEAiqSOR7rg/U0_YAmSFTvI/AAAAAAAACuY/9bDCIZi1bJk/s1600/O9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BEAiqSOR7rg/U0_YAmSFTvI/AAAAAAAACuY/9bDCIZi1bJk/s1600/O9.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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Another X'mas card we made for a friend was using A's foot print for the Xmas tree trunk and her hands for the branches and leaves.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OotLHpTg--k/U0_X_B3ZhDI/AAAAAAAACuQ/Zn6JrFbX1SQ/s1600/O4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OotLHpTg--k/U0_X_B3ZhDI/AAAAAAAACuQ/Zn6JrFbX1SQ/s1600/O4.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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A also made a small drawing of her playing in the rain with her friend, who is shown having long hair, and her younger brother.</div>
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We made this card for Appa's birthday, again using A's palm and fingers and colouring them cleverly to show a 3 layered cake and candles on top :-)</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bzh3pzk7twY/U0_X--DjWBI/AAAAAAAACuM/0v9_mxB8Br0/s1600/O5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bzh3pzk7twY/U0_X--DjWBI/AAAAAAAACuM/0v9_mxB8Br0/s1600/O5.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></div>
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She made those smileys herself and insisted on writing 'dearest Appa' so that Appa would know that he is indeed her dearest person in the whole world! :-)</div>
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We made this birthday card for a friend by using various stamps and colouring them and using finger painting to make flowers. I made the rainbow with glitter glue and A painted the colours.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2fiZpopIJzM/U0_YAKmWpMI/AAAAAAAACuU/nDOiq4t3kjE/s1600/O8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2fiZpopIJzM/U0_YAKmWpMI/AAAAAAAACuU/nDOiq4t3kjE/s1600/O8.jpg" height="478" width="640" /></a></div>
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And this A made at school for Mother's day this time :-) </div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Of54fY3YwB4/U0_X-w-ULeI/AAAAAAAACuE/Eu7qHYx1KCI/s1600/O10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Of54fY3YwB4/U0_X-w-ULeI/AAAAAAAACuE/Eu7qHYx1KCI/s1600/O10.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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That's her picture of me! :-) Haha! Beautiful, ain't I?<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-8130696882575315652014-04-16T13:52:00.002-07:002014-04-16T13:52:53.853-07:00Nature - How do plants take in water? <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Plants need water and sunlight to make food and grow. Its called photosynthesis. Ok, you know the drill. Lets show it to the tiny ones, how plants take in water!</div>
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All kids notice that plants need water. Many among us have plants at home that we take care of by watering daily and by exposing them to sufficient sunlight. So this experiment should not be a surprise to your little one. Though they do know that water is required by plants to grow, the experiment actually shows them how.<br />
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Most experiments that I saw online were with carnations - the beautiful flowers. The effect that coloured water has on the pristine white petals is breathtaking. But I found this site where the experiment was done with celery sticks. And I loved it for the reason that you will shortly know. So, either you can pick carnations or celery - thats your choice. The only other stuff that you will require are food colouring and different glasses of water for each colour that you use.<br />
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I took 3 colours - green, red and orange. The red and orange ended up looking quite similar, but those were the only 3 colours I had back then. I wasn't really sure if water colours would work, though now I do feel they might - maybe the next time we repeat this experiment, I'll try with water colours.<br />
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Fill up tall glasses with the coloured water till about half the glass. Place a stick of celery in each of the glasses. I cut about half an inch off the bottom of the stick too. Now celery takes quite some time, I left our sticks overnight. Carnations, I have known to give results within 2-3 hours. </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EMX5AnSMcLo/U07oZc3gPyI/AAAAAAAAClM/rynpw-n-B-M/s1600/N.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EMX5AnSMcLo/U07oZc3gPyI/AAAAAAAAClM/rynpw-n-B-M/s1600/N.jpg" height="532" width="640" /></a></div>
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This was how they looked in the morning! :-) The pictures don't capture the green and the orange quite well, but they showed well. The red, obviously, displayed the maximum impact.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mfEDGvtntco/U07oY3QyoYI/AAAAAAAAClI/iRMbZCK8pvw/s1600/N1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mfEDGvtntco/U07oY3QyoYI/AAAAAAAAClI/iRMbZCK8pvw/s1600/N1.jpg" height="562" width="640" /></a></div>
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With carnations, the experiment ends here. You tell your little one how the water travelled up the stem and gave the petals the colour. Now I'll show you why I preferred the longer route with celery.</div>
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Cut the thick celery stem somewhere halfway and it will reveal tiny pores (xylem) all along its border. And yes, they would be tinted with the colours.. Literally, veins to carry blood.. err, water! You can also give the example of a straw for the same.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jcJgd9Fz7Zw/U07oeQkuYiI/AAAAAAAAClY/nUXaRa4SxBA/s1600/N3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jcJgd9Fz7Zw/U07oeQkuYiI/AAAAAAAAClY/nUXaRa4SxBA/s1600/N3.jpg" height="400" width="242" /></a></div>
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One more step further you go, and scrape off a bit of skin from the stem. You can actually see the straws (xylem)! The long tinted strands make it plain to understand how the water flows into the plant. This water travels up and is used to prepare food for the plant (photosynthesis).<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-391ul3Cay4U/U07ooUHj8PI/AAAAAAAACls/NMedPWoErEI/s1600/N4F.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-391ul3Cay4U/U07ooUHj8PI/AAAAAAAACls/NMedPWoErEI/s1600/N4F.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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Again, you make your choice on how to handle the verbal science talk. I personally did not bother with the scientific names. I was happy that it was plain to A that plants do take in water and it is essential for their growth.<br />
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In my experiment, you can notice that the leaves actually became quite dried and frayed through the 12-16 hours of the experiment. I used this to tell A that it could be because we did not expose the plant to sunlight - an essential component to make food for the plant.<br />
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So, did you find that interesting? :-)</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-49771635773786993152014-04-15T13:56:00.001-07:002014-04-15T13:56:40.148-07:00Milk and dishwash liquid - An experiment on surface tension<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This was the first ever experiment that we tried at home. We picked this for our little A as this was quite the perfect mix of art, science and fun. A was 3 years old at that time and even now, it is her favourite one. She keeps asking for a repeat of this one just for the fun of it. I generally prefer experiments which use a lot of colour - the never fail to fascinate. Like I said, this was quite the right mix.<br />
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You will typically have all the ingredients sitting in your kitchen shelves, even in the most diverse of situations. What you need are –<br />
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<li>A wide pan – I took a steel dinner plate</li>
<li>Food colouring – as many colours as you can have</li>
<li>Dishwashing liquid</li>
<li>Milk</li>
<li>A toothpick</li>
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That’s it! You are good to go.<br />
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Begin by pouring milk in the pan. You don’t need to take too much of it, just enough to cover all ends of the pan and to ensure that when you drop the dishwash liquid, the milk can float about to get the required results.<br />
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Drop food colouring into the milk at random places. We used green, yellow, red and blue.<br />
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Now this is not exactly how it looks, my green seems to have been too liquid and it spread as soon as it was dropped into the milk. The colours should otherwise be just blobs as you drop them on the milk at random places, like the blue or the red that you see here. You can drop the colours maybe with a pipette or even a spoon.<br />
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Now take a tooth pick, dip it in the dishwashing liquid and touch it on the surface of the food colour.<br />
<b>And be prepared to be amazed!</b><br />
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The effect is so sudden and dazzling you might actually catch yourself gasping in surprise. The colour shoots off all around the moment the colour meets the liquid.<br />
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Howzzat! Speechless, aren't you? :-) Check this one!<br />
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Doesn't this look or remind you of beautiful modern art paintings? Its an absolute riot of colours.. colours literally bursting in front of your eyes all around an epicentre, ie. the point where the toothpick meets the milk. :-)<br />
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Keep doing the same with all the food colouring bits and soon there will be a spectacular mish-mash of colours. It is a sight to watch, really. You even end up making new colours - orange and sky blue in the picture above and pink in the picture below.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3twXWl509sM/U02WkCUabgI/AAAAAAAACeo/dDnp1IBD7Es/s1600/M7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3twXWl509sM/U02WkCUabgI/AAAAAAAACeo/dDnp1IBD7Es/s1600/M7.jpg" height="640" width="424" /></a></div>
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I'm attaching a video just so you know the effect of the bursting of colours.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dy2s67tm5bKkPUiAXYtKpfJJWkoUhTiVWOrdWzN0VlOR0PW0wJu_0co3RwdquMXC06bLWE1Ed8am1a0dMVJlA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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You can just keep going on and on at it till there is no sight of the milk. The colours will finally end in a muddy brown and there will not be any more colour bursts.<br />
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Again, I would like to mention that there is a definite wastage of precious milk, so you can take a small dish if that bothers you enough to not want to try the experiment. But all said and done, the spectacle can be best appreciated by all in as wide a pan as you can manage. :-)<br />
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The science behind it is simple – the swirling of the liquid is a result of the detergent disturbing the surface tension of the milk. The food colour is to create the colour effect to fascinate your curious little one’s growing mind.<br />
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I waited for A to ask me any kind of questions about this, but there were none forthcoming. I tried nudging, by asking her why does she think this happened. All I got was a disinterested shrug, the 'why-don’t-you-let-me-enjoy-this?' kind of shrug. So, I left her alone to enjoy herself :-)<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-81334268819957148662014-04-14T14:44:00.000-07:002014-04-14T14:44:41.772-07:00Ladybirds in clay<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Air drying clay is something that I discovered after coming to the UK. I'm sure it is available in India easily too, but I never entered a hobby store in India! So the only clay I was familiar with was Play-Doh that my daughter used to play with. Turns out, air drying clay is pretty cool too.<br />
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Our first tryst with this clay was when we made <a href="http://ammaknowsbest.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/diwali-lamps-with-air-drying-clay.html" target="_blank">Diwali Lamps</a> with them. It was a great experience, moulding colouring and designing them with glitter glue. Our second project was realtively very simple. We made ladybirds with it and used it in our Christmas Nativity display. This was an activity lifted straight from Mister Maker. A is a huge fan of the series, thanks to her creative grand-mum (Paati). Paati and Pethi (grand daughter) duo used to watch it regularly back home and the interest has sustained ever after the move overseas.<br />
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I assure you, this is the easiest of all the projects you would ever attempt or have already attempted. All you need for this is air drying clay, a spoon, ear-buds and colour! Thats all!<br />
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You need to take a blob of clay and apply it on a spoon to obtain the shape of the ladybird. The picture above is self-explanatory, I hope.<br />
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Once you have got the body of the ladybird, you need to take 2 ear-buds and cut them in half.</div>
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Insert the cut ends of the ear-buds into the clay to form the limbs of the ladybirds. And you are done with the craft part. All you need to do now is to colour the ladybird once the clay has completely dried.</div>
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We coloured with regular water colours, but I think acrylic would prove to be a better bet for a more polished look.<br />
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Aren't these pretty pretty ladybugs? :-) And wasn't I right about the easy craft bit?<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-14321766672991596962014-04-13T15:02:00.000-07:002014-04-13T15:02:57.804-07:00Knick-knacks' box from recyclables!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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What do you do on a holiday with your restless little one.. when you have absolutely no plans or no specific agenda? Well, this is one of those ideas that hit me.. there is no rocket science or strategy or process to this - this just happened. And I want to put it down on record because it was so cool! </div>
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We came to the UK and my husband and I bought new mobile phones soon enough. The boxes that they came in were so sturdy and nice that I did not throw them out immediately. I just kept them away, without really thinking about what to do with them. But one dull, cold and grey Sunday I took them out - along with some water colours and other stuff.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3DY3SKfD5H4/U0sF68PpuLI/AAAAAAAACA8/QjVvTpPrzjY/s1600/K.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3DY3SKfD5H4/U0sF68PpuLI/AAAAAAAACA8/QjVvTpPrzjY/s1600/K.jpg" height="460" width="640" /></a></div>
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Now this one - doesn't it look really cute? I mean, its so easy... all I did was ask A to colour it all over in bright yellow. When it was all dried up, I marked out the red areas at the edges and again A drove a thick brush dipped in red in a straight line. Yes, I did run a brush over the whole thing later, but that was just to even out the shades.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ypkquH97bPA/U0sG4ACGSII/AAAAAAAACBE/gukc9LYz8iQ/s1600/K1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ypkquH97bPA/U0sG4ACGSII/AAAAAAAACBE/gukc9LYz8iQ/s1600/K1.jpg" height="342" width="640" /></a></div>
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This one was even easier - we had done some other craft some other day ( I think Appa made a clock for us with green craft paper) and I had some paper left over. All I did was to stick over the box after A painted it a clean red. Zo zimble, no?</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NCl7nfSwlVY/U0sHTle_H5I/AAAAAAAACBQ/xugvJapWQ8c/s1600/K5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NCl7nfSwlVY/U0sHTle_H5I/AAAAAAAACBQ/xugvJapWQ8c/s1600/K5.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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Now this one - this was a total timepass activity. I brought everything out. Foam, glitter glue, yarn, colours. A has this deep love for black that keeps popping out every now and then. So we coloured the whole box black. I cut up foam into little squares, to use them like mosaic tiles. A stuck them all around by herself after I asked her if she could manage. She wanted me to use the yarn pieces but I did not have any idea what to do with them - so I just dipped them in a little glue and made spirals out of them on the cover. Then I invited A to dribble and spread glitter glue of different colours in the gaps in the yarn. And that's what we got! :-)</div>
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I would really encourage this kind of activity with your little ones - for days when you really have nothing to do but the kiddo's battery just wouldn't tire out. You can always jazz it up later, but the idea is to just let her do whatever she wants. Not only would you let her be creative, you are also teaching her to recycle in the process! :-) </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-61164481955964633922014-04-11T14:10:00.001-07:002014-04-11T14:10:37.592-07:00Jollying with crayons!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Okay, first things first. Jollying is a real word. I had to get a word starting with J for the today's challenge, so I looked it up ;-)</div>
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And today it is about having fun with crayons. Though water colours are our first love, we also spend a lot of time doodling with crayons. Water colours involve taking mommy's help, so crayons are handy when baby is interested in colouring and mommy is not ;-) ( though today's project is different; it ended up with active work and contribution from mommy too). Crayons are also good use for borders in water colour art. They give a polished look to the picture when done. Oil pastels are simply awesome, the regular wax crayons are no match for the soft texture and ease of use of the pastel colours. They do end sooner, though.</div>
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Today's craft involved a new idea. Melting crayons! Now I'm not a big fan of wastage; using melted crayons can be indirect wastage because they end up much sooner than if you use them for regular shading. But we have an armory of broken, I-will-never-pick-them-again crayons that are just lying around. There is this one set of crayons that I purchased from John Lewis that are simply pathetic. So basically my search for a project in crayons started with putting these to use in mind. And what a lovely idea it turned out to be! I felt like an accomplised artist when it was all done! :-)</div>
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Another new idea we used here was canvas paper - I have read enough about canvas papers for kids' art but I've never bought them; I have never personally used them in my life either. I always thought those are for the budding painters! But seeing so much of art online made me want to try that out as well. So here goes our artwork for the day.</div>
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I bought a booklet of canvas sheets and took out the first one. I asked A what to draw on it; I mentioned to her that since we are melting crayons, the drawing will be richly coloured; she jumped with the idea of a rainbow! So we started with drawing a rainbow. We used a simple Mister Maker trick to draw out a perfect rainbow. On a piece of paper, point out a centre. Then after leaving sufficient space, draw out 8 equidistant points. We placed our dots one and a half inches apart. Draw a pencil through the dots to make holes. </div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-odC_O9x5ELA/U0fFJXi16AI/AAAAAAAABgk/3W9VBYTLL5A/s1600/Crayon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-odC_O9x5ELA/U0fFJXi16AI/AAAAAAAABgk/3W9VBYTLL5A/s1600/Crayon.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
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Once you are done, place a pencil in the first dot and place this paper on your paper. Now place another pencil in the next dot that will be the first on your rainbow and loosely move the pencil 180 deg on your sheet, so as to draw a semi-circle.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jd4pWdwK3sk/U0fF2uEYYXI/AAAAAAAABgw/xSig7eqp2V8/s1600/crayon1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jd4pWdwK3sk/U0fF2uEYYXI/AAAAAAAABgw/xSig7eqp2V8/s1600/crayon1.jpg" height="400" width="282" /></a></div>
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I hope you got the idea. Repeat the same with all the other dots and you have got yourself a rainbow. We then proceeded to draw a sun and some clouds as well. This is how our drawing looked.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WCq2AaTDAew/U0fGPTdZUuI/AAAAAAAABg4/DpIGfsKecbI/s1600/crayon2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WCq2AaTDAew/U0fGPTdZUuI/AAAAAAAABg4/DpIGfsKecbI/s1600/crayon2.jpg" height="242" width="400" /></a></div>
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Even if there are any random scrawls on your paper, like you can see on ours, you don't need to worry. The colours will take care of them. </div>
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Then we started with our project. We took a tea light candle and got about with the first colour. Now A is a little scared of fire and I did not in any manner want to allay that fear. So I just worked around it and told her she can be careful and try if she wanted to, as I would be hovering around her all the time. I also gave her a choice to just watch as mommy does the colouring. She did not like the second idea one bit and wanted to try it once. What I did was, give her the longer sticks and asked her to only make dots in the centre of the rainblow, not the whole thing. Like this -</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RYVy9PGPdmk/U0fHf9IetYI/AAAAAAAABhE/5GSoE8mIYAA/s1600/crayon4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RYVy9PGPdmk/U0fHf9IetYI/AAAAAAAABhE/5GSoE8mIYAA/s1600/crayon4.jpg" height="260" width="400" /></a></div>
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A was happy to contribute just as much and I completed the rest of the picture. And this is how our rainbow looked -</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YxyfKp9PgpU/U0fH3ZHY_8I/AAAAAAAABhM/jljdEjGw6HE/s1600/crayon5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YxyfKp9PgpU/U0fH3ZHY_8I/AAAAAAAABhM/jljdEjGw6HE/s1600/crayon5.jpg" height="340" width="640" /></a></div>
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A was completely uninterested in doing the sky and the clouds, so the rest of the project was completely mine. This is how the completed crayon work looked!</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YpdqUkiLITE/U0fIPbhBfxI/AAAAAAAABhU/ACkEGJBExuo/s1600/crayon6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YpdqUkiLITE/U0fIPbhBfxI/AAAAAAAABhU/ACkEGJBExuo/s1600/crayon6.jpg" height="432" width="640" /></a></div>
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Isn't it nice and bright? I later learnt that this artwork, when used by painters for their art, goes by the name of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointillism" target="_blank">pointillism</a>.<br />
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I wasn't very happy with all the white areas showing so I decided to try colouring on them with water coloours. I thought they might give a fuller look to the picture. A helped me with this.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IqMrkdXwFc0/U0fIyGs8R3I/AAAAAAAABhc/bo6VYvoXIcQ/s1600/crayon7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IqMrkdXwFc0/U0fIyGs8R3I/AAAAAAAABhc/bo6VYvoXIcQ/s1600/crayon7.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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And, ta-daaa! This is our final product!<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LyXv10oWm7k/U0fLDbUtSSI/AAAAAAAABiU/2P_i4L-Mm9k/s1600/final+crayon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LyXv10oWm7k/U0fLDbUtSSI/AAAAAAAABiU/2P_i4L-Mm9k/s1600/final+crayon.jpg" height="460" width="640" /></a></div>
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What do you think? Doesn't it deserve to be decorated and put on the wall? :-)<br />
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Please note : Since the stubs of crayon are pretty thick on the paper, the stubs keep coming off if you drop the picture or move it around a lot. So ideally, a permanent spot on the wall or a picture frame is necessary.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-64255884152547115222014-04-10T12:39:00.000-07:002014-04-10T12:39:05.911-07:00Ice + Salt = Science + Fun!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Salt makes ice melt. And when you add colour to that, it makes funtime! Let's see how!<br />
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This is so much fun that there are chances you will forget that it was an experiment to begin with! We have done this almost 3 to 4 times in our house and it is a big hit! (It is also a good ruse to keep your restless brat busy when you have something urgent to do).<br />
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What you need for this fun experiment is -<br />
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<li>A big bowl or dish for setting the ice - you can take multiple bowls as well if you so wish; more ice = more funtime!</li>
<li>A large tray with sides, to hold the water as the ice melts</li>
<li>Water colours / food colouring</li>
<li>Salt</li>
<li>Droppers/pipette or spoons</li>
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Fill your bowls or dishes with water and put them in the freezer to make ice. When its all done, you need to upturn the ice over the dish or large tray. A few minutes in room temperature and some water poured over will loosen the sides and the ice block will slide easily.<br />
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Give your child a bowl of table salt (a modest amount) and she can start sprinkling it over the ice. Make sure that they just sprinkle, you don't want your child to waste heaps. I gave A a salt shaker, that took care of the right amount of salt required. Almost immediately, you can see the trail of water trickling down and making ravines or crevices on the mound.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xsV7Q4fQMlI/U0btU1Y1_4I/AAAAAAAABbA/2rP2Izse9zo/s1600/Salt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xsV7Q4fQMlI/U0btU1Y1_4I/AAAAAAAABbA/2rP2Izse9zo/s1600/Salt.jpg" height="312" width="400" /></a></div>
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After a few moments of watching this happen, you can bring out the colours. If you are using droppers or pipettes, you need to give your kids a little time to learn how to use them. I let A practice by using it in a glass of water - they need some time to understand how to suck up the liquid and then let it out.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CTj_702iqpU/U0btkQtqpoI/AAAAAAAABbI/7w_M9gdvrmA/s1600/ice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-CTj_702iqpU/U0btkQtqpoI/AAAAAAAABbI/7w_M9gdvrmA/s1600/ice.jpg" height="400" width="335" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Rwpa4pt9xMY/U0btkR7kcYI/AAAAAAAABbM/ptDSQA2cKhg/s1600/ice+collage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Rwpa4pt9xMY/U0btkR7kcYI/AAAAAAAABbM/ptDSQA2cKhg/s1600/ice+collage.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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The reason for the use of these colours is to bring out the crevices made by the melting salt - its beautiful to see the colours gushing into little valleys inside the mound where the finger cannot touch.<br />
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When you see the colours escaping into the crevices inside the mound, invite your little one to touch the sides and inspect her finger - she will not have the colour on her finger!<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_NKlriVgCoo/U0bvF1EBN4I/AAAAAAAABbg/TRYRQlMfGDQ/s1600/touch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_NKlriVgCoo/U0bvF1EBN4I/AAAAAAAABbg/TRYRQlMfGDQ/s1600/touch.jpg" height="640" width="379" /></a></div>
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You can explain to your child that the room temperature will melt the ice anyway, but the salt helps to melt the ice at much cooler temperatures. So basically, where the salt has met the ice, the ice melts sooner there.<br />
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If you can manage to take your multi-coloured ice block outside, do so. We did our little experiment outside, in daylight and it was oh-so-beautiful! The ice block looked like a beautiful suncatcher!<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z_VgLzzT-64/U0bu5bZ81UI/AAAAAAAABbc/KJCqinkg6Fo/s1600/final.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-z_VgLzzT-64/U0bu5bZ81UI/AAAAAAAABbc/KJCqinkg6Fo/s1600/final.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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We even got some new colours - when we dropped some blue in yellow, we got this :-) Isn't it absolutely bewitching?<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-88wyh9yIbOU/U0bvj5er39I/AAAAAAAABbo/NDjwaIRp02A/s1600/green.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-88wyh9yIbOU/U0bvj5er39I/AAAAAAAABbo/NDjwaIRp02A/s1600/green.jpg" height="400" width="243" /></a></div>
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We ooh-ed and aah-ed over it for a while till it was time to go in. A played with it for some more time - she picked up the mixed water in the pipette and kept pouring it back on the block.<br />
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Some by-the-way fancy photography! Haha!<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XgEAS4Tp-8k/U0bv3PVe61I/AAAAAAAABb0/0zkgDccB3rM/s1600/fancy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XgEAS4Tp-8k/U0bv3PVe61I/AAAAAAAABb0/0zkgDccB3rM/s1600/fancy.jpg" height="360" width="640" /></a></div>
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Finally, we put all the coloured, non-toxic water on a daffodil plant outside our door.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xPCvMh8f2G0/U0bwdADX0oI/AAAAAAAABb8/r7qiqpi7yEk/s1600/20140410_184004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xPCvMh8f2G0/U0bwdADX0oI/AAAAAAAABb8/r7qiqpi7yEk/s1600/20140410_184004.jpg" height="640" width="360" /></a></div>
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What do you think will happen to the lovely, yellow daffodil? Does that sound like the subject matter for another experiment? ;-) Let's wait and watch!<br />
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I hope you find this interesting enough to try this at home with your little ones! :-)<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-80927768830457948402014-04-09T14:56:00.000-07:002014-04-09T14:56:42.760-07:00How do clouds form?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Has your child ever asked you this? Or maybe, a different question - why does it rain? Well, here's an interesting way to give an answer!</div>
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This experiment is very simple and requires no elaborate arrangements. What you will need, is -</div>
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A decent sized tall bottle or jar</div>
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Ice cubes</div>
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Hot water</div>
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Lighting matchstick</div>
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That's it! And you are ready to go!</div>
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Boil some water and pour it into the bottle till it is filled to at least 1/3rd of the bottle. Cover the bottle with its lid, but put it upside down. On the lid place some ice cubes.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F8hwEs5bbyA/U0XAsBJYWOI/AAAAAAAABF4/BA0ZvReq0Hk/s1600/Cloud1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F8hwEs5bbyA/U0XAsBJYWOI/AAAAAAAABF4/BA0ZvReq0Hk/s1600/Cloud1.jpg" height="400" width="333" /></a></div>
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Wait for just about a few seconds before you throw a lighted matchstick inside the jar and shut it immediately again with the upturned lid. You will see white smoke swirl up inside the jar.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lj8x0sOVDK0/U0W_rUeoH2I/AAAAAAAABFc/DwyuJjrQIiY/s1600/Cloud.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lj8x0sOVDK0/U0W_rUeoH2I/AAAAAAAABFc/DwyuJjrQIiY/s1600/Cloud.jpg" height="640" width="360" /></a></div>
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Let your child know that this is the cloud formation. Let her know that air, when hot, becomes light and goes up in the air (my daughter, at this point, remembered about the hot air balloon that goes up in the air - so this could be a point of discussion if your child initiates it). This air goes up, cools down and comes down as rain. Simple. </div>
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When you open the lid in a while, the cloud of smoke will escape. Let your child touch it. How did it feel? Was it still hot? Your child can also notice the condensed droplets of water that have formed on the upturned lid.<br />
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What we did was - when we trapped the hot water inside the jar, we created warm moisture. As the warm air rose, water vapour was formed (evaporation). Ice cubes on top helped cool the water, or condense, sooner. On condensation, the cool air turned back into water droplets that you see in the inside of the lid and dripping from the sides of the jar.</div>
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The above info was just in case those questions pop up - they are not necessarily a part of the experiment. As I have mentioned before - the idea is just to fascinate, and that, those little ones will be! :-)</div>
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You can do this experiment without the matchstick as well; alternatively, you can use any aerosol liquid (maybe, hairspray) instead of it. The effect will be the same; the smoke created as a result of the matchstick dying out helps add to the visual treat!</div>
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Please note : The water in the jar is very hot and you have to exercise caution around your children.<br />
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Do you think this experiment is useful and interesting enough to do at home? :-) Do let me know!</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-30842587573070420982014-04-08T11:02:00.000-07:002014-04-08T11:02:15.126-07:00Gift wrapping paper made from water colour art!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A spends a lot of time colouring - she loves process art more than the drawing and colouring variety - she loves to dribble with her pencil and then go over them with a sketch pen or water-colours. When you don't get what it is that she has made, she'll say it's a design - so its supposed to be random!</div>
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There were days when she would take entire reams of newspaper or the art scroll paper on her easel and keep experimenting with her water colours (this usually happens in spurts - there will be days on end when she wouldn't want to pick up colouring). Finally, I decided to do something about the mounting reams! We used them as gift wrapping paper! :-) </div>
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Initially, we used it when we were gifting each other at home. Appa's birthday, Valentine's day, Mother's day - and the gift would be wrapped in our doll's colourful artwork! And then we started gifting them to others as well. I think it is a great idea. Not only does this encourage art in whatever manner your child might enjoy, it also gives you something to do with all those papers! </div>
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I'll share a few ideas here to start with - </div>
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<b><i>WATER COLOUR PRINTS WITH OBJECTS -</i></b></div>
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We took a sheet of paper and used everything from bottle caps to onions and potatoes and even our hand and finger prints :-) The activity is totally random so there is nothing that is not allowed! Since we were making this to wrap a birthday gift for a friend, we even wrote her name with our fingers! :-) Doesn't it look lovely?</div>
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<b><i>DRAWING ON ALUMINIUM FOIL - </i></b></div>
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This is one fun activity we found online and liked a lot. A says this is her most favourite activity with colours yet! :-) We did this by sploshing colours with a paintbrush on aluminium foil (the food wrapping variety) and making images on them with cotton ear-buds - essentially clearing the drawing area of colour. We then pressed down the artwork onto our paper and when you peel the foil out, voila! your super art is ready! Take a look! :-)</div>
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Some more prints - </div>
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<b><i>COLOURING WITH CREDIT CARD - </i></b></div>
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This is an activity that any child would enjoy completely! Its as simple as can be. Here goes -</div>
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Take a sheet of paper and randomly, put up blobs of water colour paint here and there. I did not used watered down paint, but took them directly from the bottle. Give your little one a credit card (unused, inactive ones preferred, though no real damage comes out of this) and let her have a great time creating her masterpiece! :-)</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WKKnqp2a6nc/U0QtxUI2PEI/AAAAAAAAA54/U6lbk9vqUV8/s1600/Credit+Card+Art.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WKKnqp2a6nc/U0QtxUI2PEI/AAAAAAAAA54/U6lbk9vqUV8/s1600/Credit+Card+Art.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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Doesn't the final output remind you so much of Eric Carle's artwork? I so loved this activity! It is so vibrant and colourful, and you just cant go wrong with this! We even created new colours - green, brown, orange with the blending that happened in this activity! :-) </div>
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<b><i>CREDIT CARD COLOURING OVER WAX DRAWINGS -</i></b></div>
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This is a small variant of the earlier credit card painting. We first drew on our art paper with candle-wax (even a white crayon will do). I've tried to take a photo from a decent angle, but white-on-white doesn't really show well. </div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">Once your drawing is done, you have to do the same activity as above with your credit card. When you start spreading your colours, the drawings start appearing!</span></div>
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I'm not sure if you can make them out, but there is a tree, a house and a rainbow with a girl standing under it! :-) </div>
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Did you enjoy these as much as we did? I shall share a lot more of such ideas here, most of which are taken from the internet! It's sometimes overwhelming to know there is so much creativity and beauty out there to be explored! Cheers to all the mommies out there who nurture their children with love for unstructured fun and creativity! </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-85333762744561615172014-04-07T10:11:00.000-07:002014-04-07T10:11:16.922-07:00Fall colours on your window!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Autumn or Fall, as it is called in the US, is the best season of all. In India, we don’t really get to see autumn or spring, as the climate there is hot almost all through the year. But then, India is a vast country and we also have places with extreme climates – 50 degrees of summer and dropping below freezing points in winter. Our clearly defined seasons are summer, monsoon and winter. There is a post-monsoon period between October and November which literally kills with the humidity levels! Shifting to the UK brought us face to face with a different kind of beauty in nature. The best among them was autumn.</div>
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Autumn marks the clear transition from summer to winter and it is beautiful because it is delightfully noticeable. Days get shorter and there is a chill in the air in the evenings. Park picnics start to decline and the jackets and sweaters begin to make their appearances. I guess this also is a little melancholy, what with summer gone and the possibility of a dull, cold and grey winter looming ahead of us. But it also brings beauty of a different kind - the shedding of leaves from deciduous trees as the winds gets cooler. Different hues of yellow, orange, brown are everywhere. It really is a cheerful sight to see and behold.</div>
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After moving here, I realised that autumn also gives rise to a lot of craft, home décor, recycling and upcycling ideas. We were pretty new in UK during our first autumn so I couldn’t really do much with my tiny tot. </div>
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A got into the habit of picking up different colours and types of leaves and preserving them in books. After some time, they leaves would dry up completely and become stiff. We coloured a few and stuck them to papers, made prints on paper with water colours and a few other random art. And then we decided to spruce up our window with it.</div>
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This is such an easy thing to do, it hardly requires any preparation. I picked up different shaped, stiff and dried leaves and stuck them randomly on the window glass with blue tac. I then made a circular periphery for my daughter to colour in, around those leaves. I took up a plastic place mat and dabbed some green, yellow, orange and red on it and gave A a piece of sponge. I also diluted the colours a wee bit with water before she got started. </div>
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She was at it for about 45 minutes or so and thoroughly enjoyed. I could see it in the way she meticulously covered the ends of the periphery first and then went about dabbing inside. When the same sponge was used for all colours, it ended up in a mish mash of colours which made them totally cheerful and bright! </div>
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When she was done colouring the whole circle, I simply took off the leaves. It turned out so beautiful! Take a look!</div>
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It’s almost summer now, but we have yet not washed it away! :-)</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-89877752567562005812014-04-05T14:02:00.000-07:002014-04-05T14:02:21.686-07:00Experiments in Science - Why should we do them? <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Why is the sky blue?</div>
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Why is a hot air balloon hot?</div>
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Why do some balloons keep falling and some go high up in the air?</div>
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Why does it rain?</div>
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Why does ice melt?</div>
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If you are or have been a parent to a toddler or pre-schooler, these questions must be familiar to you. Sometimes, you delight in answering these questions and sometimes, face it, we squirm at them. When children go out into the world they observe a lot of things around them. Some kids are really sharp and notice the smallest of things and their curiosity gets the better of them. Some children learn to observe when they are shown things around them, boosting their curiosity. Whatever way it may be, as parents we need to find and provide answers to satisfy their questions and also to encourage them to be observant and curious. At some age, at some level – kids just learn to ask the inevitable questions.</div>
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Most of these questions have an obvious and expected connection to science. So it does happen that we get confused as to the explanation to be offered. It is difficult to hold their tiny attention spans and a detailed explanation is not possible. I mean, many a times I have seen those eyes gradually getting a glazed, far-away look- that’s like a cue to stop immediately! Ha ha!</div>
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But here, I’m talking about a basic introduction to science. I feel we, at home, play a decently important role in determining how much science our children learn – in the sense that our enthusiasm and encouragement can help spark their interest. I read this somewhere – scientific knowledge is cumulative, so children need to start learning early at home; it is just an assumption that children will learn all the science they need to learn at school. Maybe, somewhere, I agree with that thought.</div>
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Again, I don’t mean to start teaching our kids scientific formulae or complex science phenomena. In fact, I’m not referring to teaching at all. IT IS NOT ABOUT TEACHING THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE EXPERIMENT. The idea is simply to fascinate them. Hell, there have been situations where my husband and I have been equally amazed at the results as our little one! Little opportunities in our daily life give us opportunities to learn science. This is something that can be done easily, without effort or expense. Like – baking a cake, how much time does it take for a bud to become to a full-bloomed flower, watch a caterpillar grow into a butterfly, how the water spilled on the carpet dries off completely with time, how the water level rises in the tub when your child sits in it. Don’t these sound simple? Your child may not be asking these questions but that is where we can ask them and also provide answers – in basic, simple ways aided by observation. In fact, this could be a game where you can ask them their version of the answer or ask them to guess what they think would happen next. I completely believe it goes a long way in instilling the interest in science in them.</div>
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Learning to observe objects carefully is an important step in this regard. And this is where my interest comes in. Simple experiments with everyday equipments/ingredients (especially from the kitchen larder) can help to boost observation in little children. They are amazed, curious, excited and happy to see things happening in front of them. There are times when I have observed that A would do exactly what I have instructed her not to do just because she wants to ‘see’ and ‘know’ herself. Its impossible for her to contain her curiosity at those times! I’m sure this is true for all pre-schoolers. This trait can be encouraged in various simple experiments that we can do in our homes itself. A young mind is curious by design and, in a way, we can help lay the foundations of a questioning, curious, rational future mind. </div>
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I try to do experiments which have colours in them as it is a sure shot crowd-puller. Fascinating the young mind is equally important as encouraging questions. And I also think repeating the experiments over time is also helpful as the mind works differently at different stages.</div>
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I have recorded here the experiments that we did at home with our little A. We try to stick to an experiment every weekend so that it becomes a regular activity. The idea is not to get them to understand what is happening or expect them to ask questions. That will happen only as they grow and as they see more and more experiments. It’s perfectly okay if they do not show any interest in understanding the reason behind it. If they are happy to experiment and show interest in repeating any of them, or have recall value, that’s great.</div>
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Happy experimenting! </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-19986723026167354012014-04-04T14:30:00.001-07:002014-04-04T14:30:28.982-07:00Diwali Lamps with air drying clay<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Diwali is our most important festival, celebrated in autumn as the ‘festival of lights’. It signifies the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance and good over evil. The festival typically is spread over a 5 day period, but the main festival day of Diwali falls on New Moon day.</div>
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There is spiritual, religious and mythological significance attached to Diwali. The most popular story is honouring the return of Lord Rama with his brother Lakshmana and his wife Sita from 14 years of exile. It is said that when they returned to their kingdom, people lit thousands of lamps all over the kingdom to celebrate his return after vanquishing the demon king, Ravana, and restoring order to the world.</div>
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There are rituals, festivities, delicacies, shopping for new clothes, gifting, visits by well-wishers and relatives. The best highlight of the festival, though, is fireworks and lamps. Every Hindu household in India will be illuminated, inside and outside, with brightly lit oil or wax lamps, electric rice-bulb lights and lanterns of different sizes, shapes and colours. This will be for weeks before and after the festival. There will be, literally, millions of lights everywhere around. It’s a gorgeous sight to behold! </div>
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This year we were far away from home, in London. A was almost 4 years old and she hardly had any remembrance of the festival she celebrated a year back. We dressed up in traditional finery, (over which we wore jackets, gloves and bobble hats!), and took her to see the fireworks in a nearby Hindu temple. We made a rangoli (geometric or floral designs on the floor with rice powder) at home and decorated it with different colours. We ate Diwali sweets and had a traditional lunch at home.</div>
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We couldn't really look forward to light lamps outside the house here as it gets too windy and chilly in the evenings. So instead of purchasing the deep clay lamps, I decided to make hollow short-staying lamps at home. I had purchased air-drying clay at Hobby Craft, not really knowing what to do with it, just because it looked interesting to me. I got to work.</div>
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I started with simple designs – being a novice with a 3 year old apprentice, I did not want to dream big. So we started with basic shapes - square, circle, rhombus, triangle. Then we made a star and a couple of slightly deeper lamps. They were pretty easy to make as the clay really moulds well in your hands. You might need some water to assist you if you want to use a blob again – it kind of starts hardening even at room temperature. When I handed some clay to A to get her also involved in the fun, I got a little adventurous. I tried a floral shape lamp. Hmmm, not bad. We had just visited a museum last week where the Amazon Rainforests were on special display, and A wanted me to make an anaconda. And so I did! All in all , it wasn’t a bad idea at all. We proudly displayed our creations to Appa when he came home from work. The next day, we sat about colouring them with acrylic. Acrylic gives a thick shade and also a shiny texture. With some glitter glue and some paint on paint designs, we glowed with pride at our finished product. They looked absolutely sublime!</div>
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We lit them on Diwali day and decorated our home with them! :-)<br />
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This was the rough cut - after they were dry -<br />
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And this was the coloured, final output! :-)</div>
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Did you check out our green, slimy anaconda? ;-)<br />
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We also decorated our Rangoli with them! </div>
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Though we missed family and friends thoroughly, we had a simple and sweet Diwali at ‘home’! </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8901206173839195311.post-24973113570351138692014-04-03T02:11:00.001-07:002014-04-03T02:11:56.134-07:00Caterpillar from egg cartons!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This is something I lifted straight off the net. This was so cool. Cardboard egg cartons can be used to make such lovely things! And A loves it because there is so much colouring to do. I have seen ideas to make a lot of things but we have tried only 2 till date.</div>
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The first that we tried to make with egg cartons was a caterpillar. A is a total book worm already and we both love ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle (I think this would be a good time to tell you that I also have a blog called '<a href="http://www.mytinycaterpillar.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">My Tiny Caterpillar</a>' where we discuss and review picture books that we read). This art idea followed numerous readings of the very popular book. </div>
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I guess you can simply have green egg cartons, stick them together and put googly eyes on them and they would still look pretty. This would be easy but will render your pre-schooler with not much to do. Since I wanted to get A involved actively in it, I first took the regular brown cartons and carefully cut through all sides of the individual cartons. Once they were all cut right, I stuck them together one behind the other to form a caterpillar. A then set about colouring the caterpillar green. It was quite a task as it took a bit of time. I then took a little bit of each colour – pink, blue,black, yellow, and asked A to make spots all over the caterpillar randomly with her paint brush. She loved this exercise too, I guess because it gave her a feeling of authority over how and where to put the spots! Haha! Sometimes kids are so easy to please! (I said SOMETIMES!) When we were done, we set it aside to dry.</div>
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The next day, promptly after school and snacks, we sat down to give the caterpillar its antennae and face. I made two tiny holes on the top of the first carton and put two short lengths of pipe cleaners into them and gave their top ends a nice twist. We then stuck googly eyes ( A simply loves them!) and we were ready!</div>
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This is how it looked!</div>
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I later added the legs to the caterpillar because in a separate book we were reading about centipedes and millipedes and A wanted to know what category caterpillars fell in. Turns out, neither. On closer examination on Google, we realised that caterpillars have a different style of legs. They have 3 sets of legs, front, center and end of their bodies. Hmmm, caterpillars can be complicated! :-)</div>
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This is quite a simple activity which can be done with your pre-schooler. If your child is under 4, or if they do not like having too much to do, you can eliminate the colouring of the caterpillar as that is what takes most time. </div>
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Hope you enjoyed this activity! </div>
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Do subscribe to this blog for more of such activities! :-)</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00958967078339516202noreply@blogger.com6