Magnetic Tiles

The little girl has been blessed with a series of playdates recently with a relatively large number of children (about ten each). That's a far cry from her usual playdates in the past with only one to three children. I have to say that large group playdates with children of different genders and mixed ages are totally awesome. Here's one example.

Last weekend, my family came over, along with my eight nephews and nieces whose ages range from 5 to 15. The little girl who's turning 3 this year is the youngest of the lot. So the girls, six of them including the little girl, immediately started playing with the play food, tea sets, cooking pots and other cooking and baking paraphernalia at the kitchen set.

Then they discovered the Lego sets in the shelf and started building, which got me really excited. I have a few sets which I had grouped together in boxes so apart from the many standard bricks, there are also a lot of animals, people and vehicles. The little girl is not into building with the Lego yet so it was amazing to watch the girls build this and that. They have so much creativity which I am sorely lacking!

Absorbed in her Lego building

Then I looked at the three big boys and they were twiddling their thumbs and probably talking about school or soccer. So I took out the box of magnetic tiles and told them, "I think you'll enjoy these." I watched as they opened the box cautiously, probably wondering if there was something cutesy inside like a baking set. Then they saw the tiles, took them out and started exploring. Before long, they realised that the tiles were magnetic and very soon after, they were building too.

Team building

Although it was the first time that they were playing with the magnetic tiles, they were at it like a pro. They managed to build rather complex structures with almost all the tiles. They helped each other, communicated and there was no squabbling. In fact it was rather silent and I wondered if they communicated using telepathy. Well the girls did the above too while building together, except for the no squabbling part.

Having a go at the magnetic tiles

Then two days later, I decided to let the little girl play with the magnetic tiles at her light table. I gave her the small squares and some dinosaurs and watched her play. At first, I thought she would try to make a cube as one of her cousins had made a few of that for her as homes for her dinosaurs. But then she had other plans.

Dinosaurs and magnetic tiles

She started out arranging the square tiles into neat rows then placed the dinosaurs on them. For a while, the dinosaurs looked like they were on a very colourful disco floor. But I didn't say that to her as I didn't want to give her any ideas. I waited a bit more.

 Dinosaurs on disco floor

Then she raised the top row of tiles with my help, followed by the bottom row, and she made a tunnel for the dinosaurs. I couldn't help but rejoice as it was the first ever 3-dimensional structure she has made with the tiles. Immediately I knew that she had observed her cousins while they were playing and she was trying to imitate something they had done. 

A tunnel for her dinosaurs

I could see that she was ecstatic of the structure she had built and proud of it too. She called out to her papa and exclaimed, "Papa, the dinosaurs are in a tunnel! They cannot get out!" But then she realised that the ends were opened and they could get out so she asked for the triangular tiles to close the ends. After playing peek-a-boo with the dinosaurs for a while, I had to ask her to continue the next day as it was past bedtime.

Playing peek-a-boo with the dinosaurs

I have noticed for a while that the little girl, as with all children I suppose, learn a lot faster by watching other children play, especially the older ones. As the little girl doesn't go to school for now, I guess it is my responsibility then to arrange playdates for her. If nature can be her playground, then her friends can be her teachers. And her mummy? I would be happy to be the facilitator.

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.

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!