3 December 2007
Activities for our little ones
Category : Crafts & Activity Ideas for Kids Permalink
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When it comes to activities for the kids, generally every family has their own preference over certain activity types. You know, the stuff that we tend to do more with the kids than the others.
But since there are SO many things that we can (and should) expose our kids to, I often remind myself to try and vary the kinds of activities that they do each day.
Things like:
>> Outdoor activities
eg. going for a walk to nearby shops, playground sessions, observing animals and whatever stuff you encounter when you’re out and about
>> Activities that require concentration
eg. doing puzzles, reading, sorting stuff
>> Arts and craft
eg. drawing, scribbling, painting, cutting, making stuff
>> Indoor play
eg. tumbling around the bed, moving and dancing while listening to music
>> Activities that need ‘building’ and ‘constructing’
eg. Lego bricks, wooden blocks
>> Helping around house
eg. sweeping, vacuuming, taking out the laundry, mixing the chicken marinade
The list is endless.
PS: Today the kids had their ‘watercolour’ session (Vai used the brush, Anya used a toothbrush). And towards the end, Vai sort of decided that painting his feet was pretty fun too!
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Posted by Joan
20 May 2009 @ 12:08 am
Hi, stumbled upon your blog. I’ve just started being a SAHM, feeling abit helpless at not knowing what to do with my kids. For now I only got my younger 16mth old boy with me while my gal goes to childcare. I am already at a lost what to do with him and not sure what I will do with my gal once I drop her down to half daycare. Much as I want to spend time with them, I find stepping out of working life is so differently to stay at home. So scary. Care to share?
[Reply]
Posted by Leonny
28 May 2009 @ 12:53 am
Hi there Joan!
Thanks for sharing and dropping a message here.
I can only imagine how challenging you’d feel to suddenly start becoming a stay-at-home mommy. The new routines and adjustments can be rather overwhelming.
Being a fulltime mom has its privileges, and I personally feel one of the keys of ‘enjoying’ the fulltime mommy role MORE (other than knowing ‘why’ you become an SAHM in the first place) is to simply, relax and enjoy your moments with your children.
Kids basically enjoy spending time with us, and they’ll ‘feel it’ if we too enjoy spending time with them. So to me, we don’t quite need to always fill their days with ‘busy activities’. Being ‘with’ them alone is a good thing that they’ll treasure.
In your email you wrote ‘Not sure if I’m too paranoid that they do nothing whole day long’. May I know what you meant when you say ‘nothing whole day long’ ? Because taking a walk to a nearby supermarket - one of the simplest things you can also do with your child - can be ’something’ when we talk with the child about the things you see along the streets, letting them observe little tiny animals up close, etc.
In our home, we talk to our kids and play with them a lot. And we let them play and learn from simple everyday things (ie. learning does not need to come from just sitting down and doing worksheets).
I don’t believe in always ‘accompanying our kid’ THROUGHOUT the day too.
Letting them play ‘by themselves’ is important (eg. if you have boxes of toys, you can rotate them, taking one out and letting the child play by himself while we do other things). Kids need to be able to be alone, I feel … to be able to keep himself busy with stuff and not wait for us to ‘tell them’ what to do all the time.
As for our ‘activities’ in one particular day, I think there are generally three ‘timeslots’ that we can fill in with things to do (other than eating, snacking and sleeping)
Those are :
After breakfast, before lunch
After afternoon nap, before dinner
After dinner, before bedtime
A few suggestions :
- You can always create a routine where every morning after breakfast you bring your toddler outside (eg. to the playground, for a walk to the nearby market, etc). A trip outside the home can be refreshing to both you and the child, I feel. And when we talk to them and introduce words and new things to them, they’re in fact ‘learning’ from what we share with them too.
- The session in the afternoon can be filled with things like arts and crafts time, if you wish. I have quite a few ideas that you can explore in my ‘Arts and Crafts’ blog post category.
Watercolour play sessions are fun, btw
- As for the time before bedtime, you can always let the child play by themselves first and when they’re ready for bed, you can create a bedtime routine, eg. book reading together etc. And I tell you, you child will grow to love that special time before bed so much that he looks fwd to it everyday (simply because he gets to cuddle up and get cosy with us)
Anyway. Hope what I share helps ya.
(btw, I have quite a few posts on parenting stuff which you can check out under ‘parenting’ category too)
Do write in and share how things go with your days. Wishing you all the very best…
Thanks Joan!
[Reply]