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July 22nd, 2008
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The little guy loves to pretend play. He started his pretend playing much earlier than his brother so we’ve found it a bit more challenging to find activities at this younger level. Recently, he’s shown a big interest in magnetic playsets like the ones found here and here.
Magnetic play toys are great manipulatives and help to improve hand eye coordination and hone those motor skills for those little fingers. Not to mention boost creativity and feed into storytelling and language. Naturally, he loves the LeapFrog Fridge Phonics® Magnetic Set
,but the fridge isn’t the only place for magnetic games.
He has a Thomas’ Magnetic Playbook 
and a Muddle Farm: A Magnetic Play Book
both of which you can move pieces around to help with the story or make your own up.
In the boys room we’ve just painted two long strips of magnetic paint on their walls so they can create their own stories and start assembling words.
Many people are put off getting magnetic play sets as they seem to be geared towards dolls, pink and clothes- predominately seen as girls toys. Whilst I don’t hold to that view, I’m sensitive to the need for boys to see things that are seen as boy toys partly for their dads, some of whom think boys should play with just boy toys ( A view I have to be sympathetic too :).
However, most boys don’t care that it’s girl toy or pink they just like the toy. But know also that there are a variety of magnetic playsets that will suit everyone from construction playsets and all inbetween to dolls houses.
For the truly mobile experience we love this playset which is totally unisex 
Why we love it?
- There are lots of objects and people that allow you to create whatever scene you want.
- It’s an activity that’s totally open ended.
- encourages talking and using language in context.
- You can initiate stories from favourite stories or buy a specific playset.
- More than one child can play at at time or adults and child can play together encouraging cooperation ( Big skill for toddlers).
- You can move the playset to the table, kitchen, with you on a car journey.
- Nothing is permanent so the story/fun/activity changes every time you use it.
- Encourages creativity and concentration.
- Develops storytelling skills for the older child.
- creates questions about unknown objects.
Why the little guy loves it?
- loves to place all the objects in the different rooms.
- gets to be bossy moving the adult magnetic pieces around.
- talks and tells stories using the pieces.
- Names the objects and the people.
- Can bring grandma or any available adult to join in playing with him.
Magnetic playsets are an easy way of extending pretend play. The characters from the house can walk over to the catch the train. Thereby linking up groups of toys to have make a new play scene from all your available toys. This crossover of linking toys together helps build creativity and show the kids how to play differently with the same toys.
**What magnetic playsets do you use?**
Popularity: 27% [?]
Technorati Tags: pretend play, magnetic playsets, storytelling, language, magnetic games, magnetic paint, toys, construction playsets
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June 17th, 2008
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Even though it’s been a couple of days sitting on the side; I finally got around to reading the Sunday papers. After sorting into a pile of ‘to read’ and a pile of recycling, the pile to recycle seems huge- every weekend.
Today before the pile hit the recycling bin we started a project.
The big guy found and cut out all his favourite foods. Stuck them onto paper. This lead to an interesting discussion about food and drink.
He started to find his favourite clothes and that’ll be the next project to add to the large sheet of paper.
Often parts of the body are missing to get a good shot of the clothes so he’ll add legs and feet.
We then plan on moving onto the objects- gardening, patio, houses for sale etc
Eventually we’ll have a collage that we can weave a story together. I’m hoping he’ll tell the story with it.
Before you throw away recycle your weekend paper. Give your kids a chance to use the pages for other things.
Cutting and sticking isn’t just a random activity for toddlers but instead it can be defined and extended by preschoolers and older with a little imagination. Mixing media of magazine, newspaper, construction paper is a fun thing to try especially if you can sit with your kids and draw parts in with them.
He particular liked the freedom to choose what went onto the page and where it went.
Skills that naturally occur:
- Honing their fine motor skills
- giving them choices and letting them share their opinions
- creativity of what materials to use, how to place them on the page
- imagination to link the items into a story
- discrimination- accepting and rejecting objects from the many pages
- Sorting and controlling the environment ( Pile of cut outs? or cut, stick? or plan?)
Whenever planning a collage or large project, I’ve found it best to take bite sized chunks of time and allow the work to develop. They’ll be times when we have to jump in and times when they have a really good idea they need supporting on.
The perfect time for a project like this with summer almost here and all that time..
For more summer time activities try here.
** Join us over at All about parenting blog carnival: Do it yourself day camp.**
Popularity: 27% [?]
Technorati Tags: recycling, recycle, collage, story, fine motor skills, summer, activities
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June 10th, 2008
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Welcome to the 14th edition of Carnival of Parenting Podcasts
It’s a place to share and find some new parenting podcasts from the podcaster and recommendations from those who listen to podcasts.
..Not sure about Podcasts? Try this ecourse.
Top 9
Send in your favourite podcasts of the fortnight.
- Thesatellitesisters: # Hear about Sheila’s Summer of Love
# Liz reviews the News
# Lab Rats test Stain Removers
Send in your recommendations to be included in the top 10 favourite podcasts of the week fortnight.
Technorati tags: carnival of parenting podcasts, blog carnival.
Popularity: 61% [?]
Technorati Tags: Carnival of Parenting Podcasts, podcasts
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May 27th, 2008
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Welcome to the 13th edition of Carnival of Parenting Podcasts
It’s a place to share and find some new parenting podcasts from the podcaster and recommendations from those who listen to podcasts.
..Not sure about Podcasts? Try this ecourse.
Top 10
Send in your favourite podcasts of the fortnight.
- Just one more book -Interview with David Schwartz Our guest on this edition of Just One More Book!! is David Schwartz, author of fifty books including How Much is a Million — which inspired our two daughters to count to five hundred during a walk prior to this interview — and Cybils non-fiction finalist Where in the Wild.
- MommyCast Show #303: Great New Websites! The Boys & Girls Clubs of America and PTA have launched a first-of-its-kind national digital video service program that allows families to access and purchase age-appropriate digital content in a safe and secure online environment.
- Mumcentric Show #13-: Rachael Kilroy is from the award winning www.gohop.ie who are the longest established Irish online-travel company. Listen in as Rachael chats to us about some of the hot destinations and ideas for 2008 as well as giving her tips on travelling with kids and what not to do !
- Natural Moms Podcast #82: Crunchy Chicken, first guest this week is the Crunchy Chicken herself, Deanna Duke. Deanna started a project called Goods 4 Girls that provides cloth menstrual pads to African schoolgirls and Guest host Elizabeth Ashe as she interviews Shazi Visram of HappyBabyFood.com, a company dedicated to providing the highest quality fresh organic food for your baby.
Send in your recommendations to be included in the top 10 favourite podcasts of the week fortnight.
Technorati tags: carnival of parenting podcasts, blog carnival.
Popularity: 64% [?]
Technorati Tags: Carnival of Parenting Podcasts, podcasts
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