Dino Party

We had been invited to Ammar's dinosaur-themed birthday party so a week before the event, I decided to take out the bunch of dinosaurs that we have for some play. We took them to the beach for some sand play and the little girl had fun burying them in the bucket before digging them out again. In fact we enjoyed it so much that we did it twice that same week.

Dino invasion at the beach

And I thought it would be fun to get a dino tee for her to wear to the party too. I paired it with a pair of red leggings and she was good to go. It was great that I found a rather cheap one but I was upset that I couldn't find a single dino tee from the girls' section. Don't girls get to wear dino tees? Are they supposed to wear Minnie and Dora only? Bleargh!

Her very first dino tee and hopefully not the last

On the day of the party, it rained heavily just before the party started but that didn't dampen our spirits. Ammar's mummy had engaged the PlayDate team to plan the activities for the day and they were ready to get the party going just after we arrived. 

Firstly, Peggy the paleontologist appeared to introduce herself and tell the children what they would do. But the moment the "dinosaur" appeared, the little girl came to my lap as she was scared! The dinosaur wasn't scary-looking; he was dressed in a green poncho with spots and spikes on his back and paper talons on his fingers. But she was scared nonetheless and I didn't want to force her to sit with the other children to watch the show. So she skipped the first half of the activities because she wanted to go inside the house and watch the show from afar.  

The first activity they did was to use plasticine to trace the letter d for dinosaur. The little girl came out for a while to do that but her eyes were always on the green dinosaur to make sure he wasn't nearby. During story-telling time with Peggy, with some acting by the green dinosaur and his mummy, the little girl was in the house again with her papa, but I sat outside and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The next craft activity was decorating the letter d with some triangular coloured papers and googly eyes so that it looked like a dinosaur. The little girl was happily eating inside with her papa and Umar's abah during the activity so she didn't do it, but I love the idea and shall do it for some other animals during our theme activities at home. This here was done by Sofie and her mummy.

Sofie's dinosaur

This was followed by the cutting of the cake which was oh so beautiful but I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it. Of course it was a dino-themed cake and it was two-tiered (I think) with a lovely cascading blue waterfall, green foliage and little dinos around it. Gorgeous!

After the food and cake break, the activities resumed. Out came sand trays with hidden dino fossils and letter d underneath the very fine, white sand. The little girl was ready to join the activities then and so she sat down with her BFFs. The little paleontologists immediately got to work with their brushes, brushing away fine sand to look for the fossils and letters. 

Little paleontologists at work

Then it was time for some song and dance and the little girl was still a little wary of the green dinosaur so she stood at the back but she sang and danced along. It was such a great way to end the party on a such a lively and happy note, singing well-loved children songs but with a dino twist to them. 

Doing the dino boogie

After that, the children got to exchange the fossils that they had found earlier with goodie bags and that was the end of the party. I had such a lovely time at the party and I'm sure the children had a blast too. 

The PlayDate team had planned the activities so well and carried them out so smoothly. Never mind that the little girl was scared of the green dinosaur at first. I think the three actors (two ladies and a man) were brilliant in playing out their roles and engaging the children. The team has been around for less than a year, organising regular playdate sessions outdoors for children. Although that was their first time organising a children's party, I don't think anybody could tell as it went on really well.

So kudos to the team and of course, I have to thank Ammar's mummy for engaging the team and inviting us to the lovely party. I have to stop gushing soon but I just can't help myself. It was such a refreshing change from the usual cliched parties with a singing Barney or loudly-played children's songs in the background. I love it!

I'm so inspired that I'm planning to do a month of dinosaur-themed activities and reading after the current one that we are doing and the next one I have planned. There's also an exhibition going on at the Science Centre now, Titans of the Past - Dinosaurs and Ice Age Mammals, which will tie in nicely with our theme if we do it, God-willing. And if I need ideas and more inspiration, I'll just hop over to the dino fortnight that a mummy friend just did. I hope you are inspired too!

Birds Reading Corner

We have just completed another theme, which lasted longer than the intended month. In fact it ran for almost two months, partly because I wanted to squeeze in more trips and activities for the theme, and partly because we were away for a week for a beach holiday. But then again, who's counting? 

Reading corner

We had the usual reading corner with fiction and non-fiction books related to the theme. The only difference this time was the diorama I had made for the theme as I was inspired to do one after seeing the diorama that Za made for her theme on polar animals. The diorama was made with exotic birds toob, some penguins from polar nature tube, and things around my house. And this was my very first diorama.

The birds diorama

I love the mix of books that we had at our reading corner. I tried to look for a variety of fictional books related to birds which were interesting and suitable for a 2-year-old but mostly they were on owls and penguins. Other birds don't seem to get as much attention by writers of children's books and I suppose by the readers too. Most of the books I had bought online from Amazon or Book Depository.

Our reading corner

Books on penguins

Books on owls

Books on other birds

Non-fiction books

Three-layer puzzle on penguin life cycle

The fun thing about having those birds toob is that she has a replica of the birds that she reads in books or watches on the television. I realise that it makes her recognise the animals, be it birds, fish, mammals or insects, more quickly. Of course, toobs are great for messy play at the water table too!

  Meeting the birds for the first time

As we read the books, the little girl matched the birds toob that we have to the pictures in the books. We also had fun making bird sounds like squawking, tweeting and hooting as we read the books, and making bird actions such as flapping, soaring, tobogganing, swooping and perching. The book Good-Night Owl is recommended for bird sounds as it's about an owl that couldn't sleep as the other birds were making too much noise. 

Matching toobs to the pictures

We had bought the three-layer George Luck puzzle a few months back but the little girl wasn't ready for it yet. When she saw it again at the reading corner, she wanted to work on it although she didn't know how. It's a really pretty puzzle as the first layer is of eggs hatching to baby penguins, the second layer is of juvenile penguins with down feathers, and the topmost layer is of a pair of adult emperor penguins. Lovely! And the puzzle was a good accompaniment to the book Penguin Chick which is about a pair of emperor penguins that care of its chick from young till maturity. With some guidance, I was surprised to hear the little girl repeating my instruction to herself as she placed the puzzle pieces together. Alhamdulillah!

Putting together the penguin puzzle

Quranic literacy

One of the birds mentioned is the Quran is the hoopoe (hud hud) in Surah An-Naml. The Prophets Solomon and David (Sulayman a.s. and Dawud a.s.) were both gifted with the ability of communicating with the birds as written in the Quran. And so we read these stories in the book Quran Stories for Kids.

"And Sulaiman (Solomon) inherited (the knowledge of) Dawud (David). He said: O mankind! We have been taught the language of the birds, and on us have been bestowed all things. This, verily, is an evident grace (from Allah)." (Quran, 27: 16) 

Stories about Prophet Sulayman and Prophet Dawud a.s.

Excursions

During the course of the theme, we made our first visits together to Jurong Bird Park and River Safari. Needless to say, Bird Park was bird haven but it was surprisingly empty. On both occasions when we were there on weekdays, there were instances when we didn't see anyone else around apart from the birds. And both times, much to the our delight, we got to feed the African penguins! 

 African penguins

 Watching the feeding show before we got to feed the penguins

Greater flamingos 

 Bald eagle

 Hawk

 A very handsome and wise-looking owl

 Vultures in action

Pelicans

Colourful and noisy macaws

Victorian crowned pigeon

Feeding the loris

At River Safari, we managed to get up close to some animals during an animal show, and the vulture, pelican and hornbill were among them. Sha was chosen to go up on stage during the show and got a chance to have the hornbill land on her arm. It must have been quite an experience! At the end of the show, we took pictures with the great, big pelicans too, which was a nice memento for the trip.

 Hornbill

Pelican

Sensory play

Our sensory play for the theme was basically, water play. Water or ice at the water table is the easiest to clean so it's always my preferred choice. The bird toobs were thrown in for various kinds of water play, and of course there were instances when the play didn't go as I had intended, like the one with coloured water as I had written here.

Icy bath for the penguins

Penguin feeding

We also had a playdate over at Za's place. At that time, she was having a polar theme for her son. One of the activities for the day was, what else, water play! She had frozen some penguins in coloured ice balloons, so they looked like penguin eggs. How creative! The children played with the soapy water and other polar animals while waiting for the eggs to "hatch". I'm sure it was great fun for them. You can read more about her water play with polar animals here.

Soapy water play with penguin eggs

Art and craft

This is the part that I always enjoy the most, with the outings coming a close second. The little girl did lots of painting of birds which I then cut out and pasted. And she's crazy over googly eyes now, all the birds had googly eyes. The birds I chose were based on those that we've read in the books or seen during our excursions. I tried to do something different at times, cutting out scenes so that we could paste them together, instead of me having all the fun while she's asleep.

Scenes for the flamingo, macaw and penguin

Since (at times) she enjoyed pasting, I decided to cut out some "feathers" for her to paste on a picture of a macaw and placed a macaw toob beside it too. She did it gamely, first pasting all the blue feathers. When there was none, she went on to the red feathers followed by green. Then I filled in the blank spaces with some markers and there we have it, a colourful macaw, just like in the book The Secret Message.

Our colourful macaw

After reading the book A Nest Full of Eggs, I was inspired to make a nest craft with the little girl. She collected some dry leaves and twigs with her aunt and helped me to trace out the blue robin's eggs. Then she pasted the twigs, dry leaves and strings for the nest, followed by the blue eggs and a little robin. And we had our own robin's nest!

Our robin's nest

And who doesn't love Owl Babies? I cut out three pictures of owls and let the little girl paste cotton wool as feathers, plus the beak and googly eyes. The background was painted by her during the same playdate mentioned above at Za's place, with brushes and toothbrushes. That's why it has some nice textures on it. I thought it would make a lovely background for our owl babies. 

Our own Sarah, Percy and Bill

Paint with paper cut-outs

Paint with scrapbooking materials

Paint with neat rows of penguin stickers

Paint mixed with glitter (not obvious from the pictures)

Watercolour with paper cut-outs

Chalk with scrapbooking materials

And that wraps up our theme on birds. I hope the little girl has benefitted from all the books and activities, and so have you from reading this. After all, all knowledge comes from Him, and without His Guidance, none of these would have been possible. 

"They said: Glory is to You, we have no knowledge except what you have taught us. Verily, it is You, the All-Knower, the All-Wise." (Quran, 2: 32)

You may wish to read:
Rivers & Lakes Reading Corner
Ramadhan & Eid Reading Corner
Marine Reading Corner