A new play area for a new home!

As I mentioned in this post previously, we moved to a new home and had to redo the play area for my LO again. Here is a pic,

And a mini library. This got her so excited!!

DIY Pillow box

Last-minute necessity is the mother of DIY. I made this pillow box for a gift card as I yet-another-time forgot to get a gift card cover. There are lots of links on the internet to make one, here is a quick link to the one I followed - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0sI5i7Ev5o. 

Review: Where is the cake?

Where is the Cake?

T.T.Khing

I have never reviewed a baby book on this blog. But this book takes the cake.:) Where is the Cake? is a picture book with NO words and that's exactly what makes it interesting. This book follows the stolen cake of Mr.&Mrs.Dog and their chase behind the mouse thieves to get back their cake. As the chase continues, there are many other characters each with their own little story throughout the book. Like the baby bunny, mischievous monkeys and more.

While it is important to read books with rhyming words to your babies(for their language skills)  picture books with no words cannot be overlooked too(for vocabulary). They give you a blank canvas and you develop the story in your own words with possibilities for introducing new words every time you read the book. And this book only makes the possibilities endless with all those little stories. I would say that this book can be enjoyed from as young as 1 year till 3-4 years old.

Below is a snapshot of a random page from the book,

1KBK

1000 Books to read before Kindergarten -  I came across this wonderful initiative today while browsing randomly. Check their website, https://1000booksbeforekindergarten.org. If you think its too high a target, they direct you to think of it this way. Reading 1 book per night makes it 365 a year and by 3 years one would have crossed 1095. In US, most children start Kindergarten by 5 so that gives them a lot of time. They have also compiled a wonderful collection of books that can be found here. Libraries in US are spreading this initiative among their members.

A Child's Play ;)

A picture post! This was the play area I setup for my LO in the corner of my living room. I really liked this space though I wished I had an entire room :) I regret for not taking a good quality pic that shows the complete stuff.

The part under the table was done completely out of diaper boxes and other cardboard boxes.The box above the table held stuff like books from the library, puzzles with many pieces, small magnetic letters etc that I did not want her to pick on her own(not anymore!). Above this toy box, I had pasted alphabet flash cards which is not shown in the picture. I particularly liked the small containers tied to the gate on the side as it was at the right height for the kiddo and neatly held small toys. We tucked in folded play tents behind the gate and that was perfect too.

The reason for posting this is that we are moving to another home soon and this is going to be dismantled and discarded! Am looking forward to see how the setup at the new home is going to turn out!

Virtual book club

As if the challenges I take aren't enough, I decided to follow the Virtual book club for kids :) It  focuses on books and book inspired activities. Am planning to do this to introduce new and popular books to my LO  and am going to try and incorporate activities based on the book as well. I generally pick books for her at the library based on my understanding of what she might enjoy. Somehow, acclaimed books never catch our my fancy. Hoping this virtual book club will change it. Below is a glimpse of the featured Authors list.

Felt dress up

As I have already mentioned in another post, an off topic post is better than an idle blog! So here is a felt dress up as a gift for a little girl. I had so much fun making it :)

Play station ;)

No, not that kind of a play station, LOL! I have been making a play kitchen with cardboard boxes and finally, I brought it to a logical end recently. Here it is :)

I made a small play station(!) next to the kitchen with a magnetic board, felt board, felt dress up and a small track for the train.

P.S: Sorry about the poor quality of snaps as I hurriedly clicked them on my phone before my daughter could wake up!

llama llama

At times, am scared I will change this blog into a mommy blog. But something is better than nothing, hee hee. And I have the bragging rights in this space ;-) 

It's all about the book llama llama - wakey wake by Anne Dewdney. Its a board book about a day in llama's life from waking up to getting dressed to starting a new day. I have been reading this book to my LO(13 months now) for a while and one day, I asked her to read it for me. And she surprised me by making a couple of actions from the book. Totally thrilled, I started reading out the book with simple actions that she can relate to and within few days, she can read out the entire book through actions.

Thinking about it, this simply reiterates the facts that I learnt from the internet and the book Baby Read-aloud basics. One, repetition is the key. Two, when reading a book to your baby, make it interactive. Make simple actions they can imitate and pause when reading, as if waiting for your baby to respond.

Take a peek into my LO's bookshelf on Goodreads here.

Introducing Manu (BM #7)

 Introducing MANU, my soon-to-be 8 month old Baby Girl. ****DRUMROLL****

Image Courtesy: http://www.wallcoo.net/

Ofcourse, Manu is not  her real name, its not even her nick name. I stuck to this name(a combination of my and my hubby's name -don't think too much about it, i have a nick name and hence the combination) when I was pregnant with her and created a goodreads account for her. Yes, why not? Am opening up the lovely world of books and imagination to her. It's upto her to decide if she loves it or not. Just that I did it a tad bit early!

Anyways, coming to the subject of this post, I was waiting for her to grow up a little bit so that I can make her differentiate between a book and a toy. I am not sure if she is ready yet but I visited our Library today and was so excited looking at the children's books and I brought her around 8 books :-)

Also, whenever I get excited with a Baby/Children book that I come across, I add it to Manu's goodreads account hoping she will pick up this habit and I can provide with age specific books.

So here it is, the official goodreads account of Manu's linked to my blog, on the side bar and in this post :-) I will update her review errr reactions about the books over a period of time.