Water Balloons Fun!

Water balloons plus food colouring plus water = the kids had a blast! I used the three primary colours so that the kids could see the colour changes when the different colours mixed. Our pool was blue, so I placed white nappy cloths (which we are just using as wipe cloths nowadays) on the bottom of the pool as it would show up the colours better.

The balloons were quite hardy, so the kids could squeeze them quite a bit and bounce them on the floor.

Meimei was the brave one who burst a balloon first!

Kor Kor got one with yellow water, and the boys were hilarous about the ‘urine’!

It’s red! Didi joining in the fun

When Meimei started to fuss, I got her out of the pool while the boys continued with their play

Then when the boys decided to stop playing and I was changing them, Meimei headed for the pool again!

Splash!

Yes I just love to put up photos of her!

This was really super fun! I must think of more ways to play with water balloons!

Fishing At Home

I was very tired in the morning and didn’t intend to set up any play activity for the boys. But they asked to play fishing and it seemed like easy enough to set up. OK then! And I am glad I said yes cos they had so much fun!

What a big fish!

err.. don’t ask?

Yay!

A Morning of Playdoh

Pretend ice cream.. also happy!

Can you identify the foods and animal?

Can you identify the foods and animal?

The black stuff was… pretend poo! Made by Great Artist Didi

Busters and foam letters

The boys have ready access to Playdoh and they are allowed to play with it anytime in the day (except just before mealtimes and bedtime), but for some unknown reason, they hardly initiate any Playdoh play. (They often play with their paints etc in the other drawers of their four-tiered storage case though.) So I planned to do free play with Playdoh on one morning – just placed their Playdoh on their table with two trays (to contain the mess).

Now, I am not a arty or crafty person at all, so I wasn’t expecting to be able to teach them to make anything nice – I knew I wouldn’t be able to. So it was with zero clue/idea/expectation that I sat down at the table with the boys.. But surprisingly and luckily, it took off quite well! Kor Kor immediately said he wanted to make a carrot, so that started off a food theme. After some time, I decided to make an animal, because I felt quite confident by then and wanted to give it a try. I was so happy when the boys could recognise which animal I made 😛 Anyway, I still do not know whether this activity will increase the boys’ frequency of self-initiated Playdoh play, but I hope that like me, they will feel more confident about their ability to create with Playdoh and experiment more. At the very least, we had fun! : )

Not planned, but the boys asked for water play shortly after Playdoh. Happy I was able to oblige!

Sensory Play

‘Fluid’ sand that behaves like wet sand.. it sorta kept the shape up for a while when we moulded it, but I could see it flowing down slowly. Nice different sensory feel!

Experimenting

As usual, Kor Kor asked to add trucks to his sand play.

As usual, Didi followed whatever Kor Kor did.

Next up, the boys asked for water play. This inflatable pool is so useful! I find my bathrooms too small for proper water play, so this pool is just right and contains any spilt water.

Each boy was given a container of water. Today I also gave them beakers, funnels, sponges, cups and plastic water bottles.

I must admit, I believe in play for my children not just for the sake of play itself, but because I think it helps to boost their intelligence in some way too. From what I’ve read, sensory play helps to build neural pathways. But then, the two boys have done sensory play SO MANY times by now, I guess they have probably hit the ceiling to the number of ‘bonus’ neural pathways :p

So why still more sensory play? Because it is relaxing. They might be very engrossed in the activity and having great fun and learning AND it’s soothing! Soothing for the brain, soothing for the eyes, soothing from the typical crazy hyperactiveness of young kids. (Maybe ‘hyperactivity’ is the grammatically correct word? But dun care, I feel ‘hyperactiveness’ seems more apt here :p)

And oh, I also believe being relaxed is good for the brain too! : )

While thinking about how to write this post, I realise one of my most important ‘KPI’ for my children is to be relaxed – to have an unhurried, free to play, free to read, free to do nothing childhood. Hmm, but it’s not so easy la – even though they don’t need to go to school or attend any enrichment classes, there’s still have limited free FREE time. I shall do a post on our daily routine soon!

(KPI is Key Performance Indicator)