Sticker Groups

About a month ago, the little girl started peeling and pasting stickers on her own. I thought that that was itself a developmental milestone that she had achieved. The pink, blue and purple stickers were pasted on randomly and I didn't think anything about it. I was just glad that she could do it independently and was totally absorbed at it.

Peeling and pasting stickers

Her first sticker craft

And then about two weeks later, I wanted to occupy her with some sticker activity again since she loved it the first two occasions with the stars. I took out a marine sticker sheet with sharks, angelfish, turtles, starfish and whales on it for her to paste around the dolphin she had painted.

At first, I noticed a few whales that were clustered together and a few starfish on the other side of the paper. I asked her why she did not want to spread them around the paper. But she continued at it and was totally absorbed so I let her be while I continued with some cutting for her craft. Then after a while, when I realised what she was doing, I was so so glad that I had not stopped her. She was grouping the animals into groups around the dolphin with very clear clusters for each group. Subhanallah! 

Clusters of marine animals around the dolphin

Then a week later I tried it again. My husband had painstakingly cut the tarantula which the little girl had stamped with her animal stamps. I thought since I have bugs stickers, I could let her paste the stickers again. I wondered if it was just a fluke or if she would group the stickers again. But right from the get go, and I observed her this time round, it was clear what her goal was. The butterflies, dragonflies, spiders and other bugs were clearly grouped around the spider in clear clusters.

Clusters of bugs around the tarantula

Before all these, I had in the past tried to do some grouping of objects with her according to colours or types which she was never too keen. And I didn't want to push it when she didn't show interest and so I left it at that. But this discovery with her sticker groups tells me something very profound - that a child will do something when he/she is ready. It's not that I don't already know that or have not read that before but I need to be reminded and the little girl provides me with constant reminders.

Thank you Allah for the reminders. I pray that He keeps me steadfast in my upbringing of the little girl based on my beliefs and principles and that I don't buy into the hype or "norm" of pushing the little girl beyond what is developmentally appropriate for her.

Art in Progress

Recently, I discovered that the little girl loves to colour and paint and of course that was such a lovely surprise. We had started with fingerpainting when she was younger but then came a point when she had grown icky of paint. She would touch it for a while, then she would keep asking me to wash off the paint. I had heard of children who loved to paint when they were younger then outgrew it and I was sad if she was one of them.

Finger, foot and sponge painting

Then one day, we went to Za's place for a playdate. One of the things that the kids did was to paint with brushes. It was then that I had an epiphany that if I were to buy brushes for her, then the little girl could still paint without having to touch the paint. Why didn't I think of that earlier?? Duh!

Art corner at Za's house

And so I bought those jumbo brushes from Melissa & Doug (You can get them with free shipping) and the rest, as they say, was history. The first time she painted with brushes, she went on and on and asked for more paint. After a while, she wanted to hold the paint and so she held the paint in a plastic container with one hand and painted with the other. She looked like a little artist! Sorry, this mummy gets excited quite easily. And of course, my choice of canvas was the bathroom wall so that I could wash off the mess easily.

Painting with brushes for the first time

But after a few weeks, I felt that all that art should not go to waste and I felt like keeping her masterpieces. It felt harder and harder to wash off her artwork on the bathroom walls and so I decided to print colouring pages for her. She could paint them, or colour them with crayons, and then I could keep them.

 Coloured with crayons (Done by her except for the sealion's ball)

Coloured with chalk (I smeared the chalk for the butterfly after she had coloured it to even out the colour)

"Bloodied" bugs as her choice of paint for the day was mostly red, with a little bit of green

Those are the raw pieces that were coloured and painted by her. I thought we could do some craft on those pieces before displaying them and so out came my white glue, craft punches, coloured papers, and whatever else that were in my craft box. And here's the outcome after I had cut and pasted them onto coloured papers, and decorated the pieces with the little girl.

Paint with craft punch flowers

Paint with self-adhesive foam sailing boats

Crayon with craft punch stars and pipe cleaner for the snail (Our version of The Snail and The Whale)

Paint with craft punch maple leaves

Paint with stickers

Chalk with self-adhesive foam flowers 

Chalk with self-adhesive foam butterflies and paper cut-outs 

Those are the finished products so far from our Marine and Bugs themes. I have a few more pieces that are waiting to be decorated but I shall keep them for lazy stay-in days with the little girl. 

Marine Reading Corner

We had recently completed a month with our marine reading corner, our third themed corner so far. All praise be to Allah for giving me the inspiration and guidance thus far for coming up with the ideas for our reading corners and the related activities. All knowledge comes from Allah and I am truly grateful that I get to learn so many new things with my daughter and share my love for animals with her too.

For the marine reading corner, I had included fiction and non-fiction books, Islamic books, peg puzzles, wooden lacing beads, and marine and coral Toobs (What would I do without Toobs?) This time, I decided to prettify the reading corner with a light aquamarine table cloth, which is actually one of my shawls that was given to me by my BFF, Hil.

A look at our initial set-up

Waking up to the marine reading corner

Immediately attracted to the marine peg puzzle

Trying to lace the wooden beads

Animating the pop-up penguin with a Toob

I had wanted so much to go to the S.E.A Aquarium with the little girl as part of the theme but our plan didn't fall through. But Allah is the best of planners and I believe he gave us something just as beneficial without us having to leave the comfort of our home. We hardly watch TV at home but lately, we've been hooked on animal documentaries. It started when I turned on the TV one night and a marine documentary had just started. I spent most part of the hour just awestruck and amazed at the beauty of Allah's creations. I think I was more excited than the little girl!

For that first documentary on BBC Knowledge, we saw penguins jetting out of the water like torpedoes and landing squarely on their feet, walruses basking in the sun like what they do best, and a group of dolphins swimming and jumping in unison. But what blew my mind was an orca, also known as killer whale, jumping high out of the water, catching and gulping a sealion in mid-air, before splashing back into the water. And it was in slow motion! If that was not awesome, I don't know what is. Somewhere near me, I could hear my hubby going "Wow!" and then I was excitedly asking the little girl, "Did you see that? The killer whale just swallowed a sealion!" I'm sure I wouldn't see that at the S.E.A. Aquarium.

Going for the kill

In another documentary, also on BBC Knowledge, we learnt all about whales. It was really timely as we had read about sperm whale, blue whale, narwhal and humpback whale, and to see them in action was nothing short of marvelous. I had also been following Stories of The Prophets by Mufti Ismail Menk on YouTube and that very night, it happened to be the story of Nabi Yunus (as) who was swallowed by a whale. 

So the very next day, I decided to read the story of Nabi Yunus (as) to the little girl. In the book, Quran Stories for Kids, that I got at Wardah Books, it was said that it was likely a sperm whale. That makes sense as sperm whales dive deep into the ocean to look for giant squids. If they can eat a giant squid, swallowing a man would not have been a problem. After reading the story, we reenacted the story at her water table with a plastic boat, some beads that could be thrown off the boat, and a sperm whale Toob. I then let the little girl paint some whales.

She calls it "mummy whale and baby whale"

Sometime during the month, I realised that we have a bottle of wooden marine animals that I had bought at Growing Fun. They could be used for stacking into a tower, as play materials in dry medium like sand or styrofoam beads, or any way you want to. That's the beauty of open-ended manipulatives. Them being wooden is an added bonus.

If you can name them all without looking at the guide, you are a genius

I had printed some marine colouring sheets and we had great fun colouring them. I used the pronoun "we" as I was busy colouring too. I've always found colouring to be therapeutic and that was before I found out how great colouring is for handwriting. Colouring is just awesome. As you can see from the picture, our mini art caddy is made up of repurposed plastic cups and cup holder from McDonald's.

Marine colouring pages

Colouring a penguin

Here's another look at the reading corner before I took it down. The George Luck puzzle was replaced with a fish colour matching peg puzzle as the former was beyond her ability for now. I had also included new books that I had purchased during the month.

We had a glorious month reading books, doing activities and watching shows related to the theme. Watching Tiddler and Other Terrific Tales was one of them. We have changed to a new theme for the month so watch this space to read up about it!