Dino Excursion

I realise that many of my posts now start with "last weekend", "last week" or "two weeks ago". What can I say, I've been procrastinating, and I've been swarmed with more important things to do than blogging. So this is another late entry for an excursion to the Science Centre that took place last month. Some details are still clear on my mind and some are fuzzy, so let's see how much I can remember.

I heard that two mummies were going to the exhibition at Science Centre, Titans of the Past - Dinosaurs and Ice Age Mammals, so I decided to tag along. Prior to that, we had read a book about going to the museum to see dinosaur bones and played with the dinosaurs that we have. I had a feeling she would be excited about seeing some "real" dinosaurs. 

So on the morning of the visit, I told the little girl where we were going. She had an immediate question for me, "The dinosaurs will not roar?" I told her they would not roar as they were not real dinosaurs; we were going to see the dinosaur bones. I remember clearly how she had clung on to me when she saw the "dinosaur" in a green poncho at Ammar's dino party and I was convinced she had gotten over her fear.

And what do you know, the first thing we heard when we entered the darkened hall of the exhibition were the roars of dinosaurs. After that, she clung on to me 80% of the time we were inside. She did not even want to sit in her stroller or be put down. So the pictures you see here were taken while I was carrying a 13+kg toddler in one hand while snapping away with the other. It's not the first time for me so I guess all it takes is some practice. 

If I'm not wrong (remember we were there last month), the first display was a row of triceratops skulls. I wished I had time to read the panels but between carrying the little girl, pushing the stroller, taking pictures and pacing myself for the (what I thought was) long walk, there was little reading I could do. 

The display intended to show the changes in the skull from infancy, to toddlerhood (called "juvenile" in dinosaur lingo), to adulthood. After all, the aim of the exhibition is to show that some dinosaur species were mistakenly classified as other species in the past when actually they were the juveniles, and not different species.

I remember there were quite a number of triceratops on display at the beginning of the exhibition. I thought the above was a rather cute one of an infant with an adult triceratops. But since it was an animatronic, and moving about and probably making sounds (I can't remember for sure), the little girl didn't want to release her clutches on me.

The only thing I remember about the above dinosaurs was the little girl saying, "Mummy, the dinosaurs wear helmet!" And that was it. I read the name and I forgot what it was. I'm sure the dinosaur enthusiasts will be able to name it in a heartbeat but I'm not going to try. Whenever I think I can identify a dinosaur, it turns out to be something else. So many species look so alike!

The other thing I remember was it had an interactive panel where you could press buttons to listen to the different sounds made by the infant, juvenile and adult of this species. This was part of the 20% of the time when the little girl was not stuck to me. I remember she pressed the buttons and went home talking about it.

Next was T-Rex! There was a whole skeleton on display but I'm not sure if it was the real thing or just a replica. Oh yes, most of the bones on display are not the real thing. The real ones are probably too delicate and valuable to be transported across thousands of kilometres from everywhere it is they come from. 

Oh yes, this was another spot where she wanted to be put down. The two boys we had gone with were posing to have their picture taken and so she posed together with them. I must add that one of the boys, Umar (an older Umar, not the one she usually hangs out with), tried to pacify the little girl by saying that the dinosaurs were not real; real dinosaurs are long gone. What a sweetheart!

Just after the whole T-Rex skeleton was a glass display of two T-Rex skulls. If I'm not mistaken, these were real fossils and not replicas. Before we passed it, I saw a little girl who was crying away as she wanted to be carried and didn't want to walk past the glass display. I thought I would have some luck since my little girl was posing away for the camera before that. Well, no such luck. 

The next animatronic (shown above) creeped me out too. Just look at the sharp teeth of the adult T-Rex with a bone in its mouth and those menacing eyes! If you press a button, the adult will start "chewing" on the bone, and press another button and the infant will start eating. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what exactly the infant was eating. Is that the leg of another dinosaur? The boys stared at it for a while without saying anything, while the little girl clung on to me. I would have clung on to myself! 

The next animatronic wasn't interactive; it was just continuously roaring and "eating". I have to say that I was rather mesmerised by it and so were the children. We ended up sitting on the floor to watch it as if it were a performance. 

Shortly after, a staff of the exhibition came by and asked if one of the boys wanted to touch the T-Rex. Neither of them wanted. I would have said yes if he had asked me! A girl who was nearby heard him ask the boys and said that she wanted to touch it. So he carried her and crossed the ropes, and she got to touch its jaw and take pictures with T-Rex. How cool!

Shortly after was a big hall with a documentary screening (we skipped it), a craft corner (skipped that one too), a Stegosaurus ride (little girl wouldn't go near it) and a sand pit to uncover "fossils". We bypassed the rest and headed straight for the sand pit. That was the remaining 20% of the time that she wasn't clutching me at the exhibition.

The last part of the exhibition was for the ice age mammals like the sabre-toothed tiger, mastodon and woolly mammoth. It was just a small hall with the animals lining up three sides of it. We tried to take a picture of the kids together but it was unsuccessful. They've had enough and wanted out.

Before we entered, we were contemplating if we should buy tickets just for the exhibition or add another $5 to go into the Science Centre as well. Well I'm glad we paid the extra $5 or we would not know what to do after exiting the exhibition. The lady at the counter said that it would take an hour or slightly more to cover the exhibition and she was so right. We left the exhibition exactly an hour later. 

After a short walk round Science Centre, we went straight to Waterworks so that the kids could splash around. It was the first time that the little girl was there and while the other kids had gone off to explore the water playground, she made sure she pulled my hand so that I would follow her around. Of course in the process, my shoes ended up soaked through. Why didn't I remove them first? Don't ask me why.

In the end, she spent most of the time at the water feature with a vortex. She watched the other kids throw balls into it and she did the same. In fact, when she got home, it was all she talked about. Don't ask me what happened to the dinosaurs. Like Umar said, they are long gone.

Indoor Art

Instead of asking the little girl to paint colouring pages all the time, I've decided to let her have a go at free-form painting. You know, just give her some paint and painting paraphernalia and let her do her thing without interruption. After a month, these are what we have.

This was done after our most recent visit to Jurong Bird Park which I wrote about here. I gave her a sponge to paint with but the sponge soaked up too much paint. She ended up smearing and layering the paint with her hands which looked like so much fun. 

Then I gave her a fork which she used to scratch. The scratches uncovered the bright colours underneath the mess of brown which I thought was beautiful. Due to the fact that she was still affected by the man riding the horse during the show, she asked me to draw them, which I did, somewhere to the right of the painting. I scratched a man on a horse with a fork! The things I have to teach myself as a mother. And somewhere at the bottom, you can see two figures. That was me and her watching the show, as requested by her.

After that blob of brown previously, I thought more colours would be nice. So for the next painting session, I squeezed the paint on different corners of the paper as she painted, as opposed to giving her the paint on a palette. The good thing is, we had a chance to talk about secondary colours as she mixed the colours together. The bad thing is, the whole work looked too organised, with five segregated colour compartments. That was the first and the last then.

After that, I gave her a spoon and a fork to scratch with. After a bit of scratching and scooping, she remembered the man riding the horse again. This time, she wanted a hawk on the man's arm, just like during the show at Bird Park. So I obliged, and you can see the trio on the top left of the painting. She asked for an owl, which my hubby scratched for her somewhere to the right. I didn't really think it looked like an owl, but the girl was contented. Whatever makes her happy.

For the next one, I gave her an Avent bottle brush which I found in a corner of our store room. Since the girl doesn't drink from a bottle since she was, I don't know, maybe six months old, the bottle brush has been in hibernation since then. Now it's found a new lease of life!

With only blue and green paint, she painted away with the brush, or more like brushed away with the brush. Since the paper was on the floor, she looked like she was brushing the floor with it. Then on her own accord, she started to smack the paper with the brush, producing pretty splatters which you can see on the sides. Of course she was ecstatic to get paint splatters on herself too. I thought that was just gorgeous but then she asked for a fork and a spoon. The little girl is nothing if not a creature of habit.

So for the next one, I was pretty adamant about not giving her the fork and spoon. With blue and red paint, and using the big bottle brush, she produced the above work of art. It blew me away. I just love the wavy textures on the painting. There's nothing much else to say about it. It speaks for itself.

The next one was initiated by the little girl who took the water colour palette and asked if she could paint. Of course she could and so I put up the paper for her. She wanted to use the tiny brush that came with the water colour palette but after a while, she smeared her fingers and painted with them. The red smears were added at the end, as if on an afterthought. It really livened up the painting I must say.

The latest artwork was done with two almost-deflated balloons that we got at a birthday party a month ago. I think that's the good things about not throwing away things too quickly. You never know what they could be used for! 

She stamped away with the balloons and I love the radial textures of the green prints. I don't know why the same couldn't be achieved for the orange prints. It could be due to the fact that different balloons were used, and the green and orange paints were of different brands, hence different consistency. The green prints remind me of lotus leaves so the artwork looked like a top-view of a pond filled with orange kois and lotus leaves.

That's all we have for now. I think we have two more pieces which I have kept away but those are for another time. Happy painting!

River Plains

It has been raining a lot in the afternoon lately and plans to go out tend to go awry. But after the downpour last Sunday, I was adamant to take the little girl to the river at Bishan-AMK Park and so to the river we went.

I think the last time we went to Bishan-AMK Park was a year ago when the little girl had a playdate there with her friend, Sofie. But that was at the other half of the park known as Pond Gardens, where there's a waterplay area. This time, we headed to the part of the park known as River Plains.

I was surprised at how bustling the park was. Not that we've been to many parks, especially on weekends. Nonetheless, it was a pleasant surprise to see many joggers, pet owners walking their dogs, and parents with their children. It was a really nice sight on a Sunday evening.

To get to the river, we had to walk down a grassy slope, which the little girl gamely did. She didn't want to hold my hand and I was surprised at her balance as the slope was rather steep. As we reached further down, the ground started to squelch under our feet due to the heavy rain earlier. It sounded like a perfect time to reenact We are Going on a Bear Hunt!

So after we swish-swashed through the grass, and squelch-squerched through the mud, we finally reached the river bank. There were a few children in the water with little nets, trying to catch fishes in the river. I thought the little girl would be a little apprehensive but when I asked her if she wanted to go in, she immediately said yes. So I hiked up her leggings and in she went with her papa.

I so love this picture of them holding hands in the river

They walked to and fro in the water, looking at small fishes in the water and dragonflies buzzing around above the water. She asked if she could remove her slippers and I couldn't allow her to. I didn't want her to hurt her feet on the sharp rocks. Later on, she came to me asking if she could change into her swimsuit so that she could swim in the river. I had to say no again as the water was so murky. 

After she was done splashing and sploshing in the river, we went back up the slope and was greeted by the sight of four cute bunnies hopping about freely. The little girl was so happy and excited to see them and wanted to touch them but they were too fast for her. I later found out that the rabbits were Netherland Dwarves. 

One of owners heard that the little girl had kept asking me if she could carry the rabbits and so she asked if the little girl wanted to. At first I didn't think she would be ready so I declined the offer and thanked her. But then when I thought again, I told myself that I shouldn't underestimate the little girl. I shouldn't force her when she doesn't want to do something and I shouldn't stop her if she has requested to do it, provided it's not potentially dangerous.

So I went to the owner and asked if the little girl could carry a rabbit and she chose a gentle one that was white with black spots. She said that the rabbit's name was Lashy and she liked to be carried, unlike the rest. She asked the little girl to remain calm when she placed the rabbit on her chest as she said the rabbit could hear the little girl's heartbeat and might react if she panicked.

I supported the rabbit's bottom for her and the little girl was surprisingly calm. She stroked the rabbit's back and the rabbit went close to her face to sniff her. I told her that the rabbit wanted to kiss her and she smiled. We then returned Lashy to her owner and thanked her for her generosity.

After that, the little girl just couldn't stop talking about Lashy and it went on for the next few days. She even wanted us to call her Baby Lashy for a day or two and went everywhere with her rabbit plush. Just like how every turtle that she sees now is a Snappy (there's a story for that), now every rabbit is a Lashy. So if anybody were to ask why she's calling a rabbit Lashy, well this is the story that I would tell. As for Snappy, that's another story for another time.

Dino Egg

Two weeks after we attended the Dino Party to celebrate Ammar's birthday, the little girl wanted to see the dinosaur in the egg so we decided to hatch the dino egg that we received in the goodie bag. We immersed the egg in a bowl of water and 12 hours later, out came an orange dinosaur!

A dinosaur was hatched!

Getting to know the dinosaur

At first, the little girl was a little apprehensive of the tiny dinosaur. She asked me to touch it and hold it first. When she was sure that the thing was not real, she held it in her hand and got so excited about it. In fact, she was so happy to hold a baby dino that she put on her party hat and sang the birthday song for it. Then she took her bear and showed the baby dino to it.

"Bear, take a look at the baby dinosaur!"

The baby dino after 12 hours

After playing with it for a few hours, the baby dino went into its pool of water again. The little girl would take it out during her bath-time to shower it but after that, it went into its watery home again as the baby dino was still growing.  I had to look it up as I wasn't sure what kind of dinosaur it was. I found out that it was a spinasaurus. Then after another 48 hours, the dino was no longer a baby but a juvenile!

Look how much it has grown!

I didn't take more pictures of the dinosaur after that but it has definitely grown fatter. I found out that I could get the dino eggs from the gift shop at Science Centre. It would be nice if I could get another one or two of the eggs. Looking forward to our next visit to the Science Centre for the dinosaur exhibition!

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