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More than a year ago Anya made a paper crown after learning about the biblical character ‘Queen Esther’.

And a few days ago, after Anya re-read about how brave and dependent upon God Queen Esther was, we made crowns again. But this time round, Vai and Keira - their 3yo cousin who’s here on holiday - joined in the fun!

What we used :
- Green-coloured paper carton (to go around the head as the crown)
- Glue, scissors, crayons, masking tape
- Any recycled paper cartons as ‘jewels’ (we chose a light bulb box from our to-be-recycled bag)

Optional:
- Coloured paper and ‘pattern cutter’ (we used a pink-coloured paper and our ‘tree pattern’ cutter)

What we did:
- I cut out long strips (about 3.5cm wide) from the green carton and made one side of it ’spiky’
- I cut out square-shapes (the light bulb box) and the kids coloured their ‘jewels’ with crayons
- Kids glued the ‘tree patterns’ and ‘coloured jewels’ onto their own ‘crown’
- I wrapped the green strip of paper around each of the kid’s head to roughly gauge the head’s diameter, and taped the two ends together to make a crown

That’s it!

AND, to make things more fun, we did some role-playing afterwards.

Anya was Queen Esther, Keira held multiple roles and Vai was the King (and I guess that made him a ‘Vai-King’? hehe)

Vai wore Anya’s bath robes (!) while Anya and Keira had plain clothes on their back, with the front bit pinned near the chest (I used clothes pegs!)

I created simple dialogues and the kids tried to follow what I said word by word. They laughed themselves silly while the adults watched and giggled. We all had fun!

And most importantly, I think the kids remembered the story better too after that session!

After making Nemo and Jellyfish lanterns last week and watching the Rainbow Fish musical over the weekend, we are still in the mood for ‘fishes’ and ’sea creatures’!

And so we made a whole lot of sea animals today! This way, other than colouring the animals, they both get to create their own imaginative underwater adventure!

We used :

- Cartons (I used whatever I could find in my ‘recyclables’ bag : computer speakers’ box, pudding boxes, anything)
- Blue-coloured crepe paper for the ‘background’ (I only have green right now, and so we used that anyway!)
- Crayons, scissors
- Masking tape (if they kids want to ’stick’ the animals onto the background)

Since I can’t draw out of my ‘own imagination’ (because they’ll sure look like some wonky creatures!), I referred to Anya’s animal book. I drew, cut the shapes out and the kids coloured some of them with crayons too.

We made : rainbow fish (yup, like the one at the musical!), shark, turtle, seal, stingray, crab, seaweed, sea snake, starfish, etc.  The kids basically chose from the book which animals they wanted me to draw.

And this was what we made. A rather ‘crowded’ ocean (that sort of looked like a ‘garden’ because of the green background?)

Another idea :
Put masking tape at the back of the animals (fold it in a way that it’s sticky on both sides) and let the kids stick the sea creatures onto the wall and create their own story! (while we parents sit back and listen to them)

For Vai’s case, I sometimes ask what the fishes in his hands are doing etc (and he’d then tell me) as I hope to encourage ‘verbal’ story-telling (because if not asked, he’d most likely create the story in his head, moving the animals around, making ’sound effects’ and occasionally saying a few words).

And this is Vai holding onto his shark and Dory (from ‘Finding Nemo’), walking back and forth around our house, saying : “Shark is looking for Nemo … (upon seeing a ’sleeping’ Nemo) wake up, wake up Nemo … ”

It’s nice to see how a toddler - not just a preschooler - can enjoy some imaginative play too!

Anyway, here’s a video clip of Vai colouring and making his own fish story!

Do have fun creating your very own underwater adventure with your little ones!

The Mid-Autumn festival is here for the whole month, and you get to see lanterns everywhere these days!

And so, we made our very own (non-glowing) lanterns too today!

Vai got a Nemo, and Anya made a jellyfish lantern!

What we used:

- Four paper plates (you’d need two for each lantern)
- Two styrofoam cups (actually, they can be any cups, even those from McDonald’s or Starbucks)
- A pair of disposable wooden chopsticks
- Strings
- Crepe paper for the jellyfish wiggly bits
- Scissors, glue, masking tape, crayons

Nemo Lantern
(for this one, I did most of the work since Vai is yet to know how to ‘properly’ colour and draw)

- Drew the shape on the paper plates and cut them out (I referred to our Finding Nemo DVD cover!)
(remember: the shape on the 2nd plate needs to be a ‘mirror image’ of the first one)
- Cut out two “fins”, using leftover paper

- Coloured the body and fins (I coloured most of them first and let Vai scribbled on them afterwards)
- Poked the bottom of the cup, inserted the string, tied one end to a leftover paper (so it’s ’stuck’ when the kids hold the lantern up), and the other end to a chopstick

- Used masking tapes to stick the two sides of the fish together and onto the cup

And that’s it!!

…

Jellyfish Lantern
(This one is simpler to make)

- Drew a roundish shape on two paper plates (these will be the ‘top’ of the jellyfish)
- Coloured one side of the plates

- Cut strips of crepe paper
- Stick them all around the top of the cup
- Poked the bottom of the cup (repeat the final two steps as above)

And you’ve got yourself a jellyfish lantern!!

The kids got pretty excited with them. And I’m happy with them too!

Anya and Vai swung their lanterns around (not that gently, I must say) and now we have chopsticks sticking out from our bedroom drawers with a little clown fish and jellyfish hanging down from them!

Anyway, happy lantern-making!

Lately I’ve been encouraging Anya to create stories with me. I’d start with a sentence or two, and I’d let her imagine how the story will go from there (by telling me another one or two sentences). We both then take turns in creating one scenario after another until we sort of create an ‘ending’ to it.

With this I hope to let her imagination soar, learn to story-tell and basically just have a little fun.

To make this a little more interesting, we made the setting a bit more ‘real’ the other day. And we made a little forest!

Especially since we already have two ‘palm trees’!

[Anya recently learned about 'growth' at Sunday School - how just like a little seed that grows and becomes a fruitful tree, we too should grow spiritually - and she made 'palm trees' as part of their activities. They cut out a few leaf-shaped foam sheet and stuck them on ice cream sticks. And to make them 'stand', they placed the sticks on a rectangular styrofoam]

What we used :

- Used cereal box (as the base)

- Green-coloured paper cartons (for the grass)

- Scissors, glue

- Little toy animals (we used our dog clips, a donkey and a gorilla)

- A storybook with a ‘forest-looking page’ to be used as ‘background’

What we did :

- I opened up the cereal box, and cut out the uneven sides

- I cut the green-coloured cartons into 3 rectangular shapes. Anya then cut one side of each one of it to make it look like ’spiky grass’

- We glued the three ‘grass’ cut-outs on the cereal box (with ‘paths’ in between), placed the ‘palm trees’ and the toy animals

- We placed the ‘forest page’ as the background (and placed something heavy on the back of the book as a ’support’, as it’d otherwise collapse)

And that’s all about it really.

We then moved the animals around as we share our story and create our very own forest adventure!

PS: This of course is just a little idea to jumpstart your very own storytelling time with your little ones. Have fun!

In our family, I’d like to encourage the kids to use everyday stuff at home for our crafting and other activity sessions. It’s our way of ‘recycling’ too, I guess (ie. re-using the materials to produce something else, before finally throwing them out for good).

And the other day Anya and I made bracelets using a plastic bottle!

What you need :

- A plastic bottle (the 500ml type is good for kids’ small arms. We used a ‘Coke Zero’ bottle)

- Scissors, glue

- Crepe paper

- Coloured paper

What you do :

- Cut (slice) the middle of the plastic bottle so that you get a full ‘ring’

- Cut one strip of the coloured crepe paper (approx. 2cm wide)

- Paste some glue on the outer side of the ‘ring’, then let the child paste the strip of crepe paper onto it, going in and out of the ring, covering its plastic surface (ie. the inside and the outside)

- To make things easier for the child, shorten the length of crepe paper strip so that it’s not too troublesome for the child during the ‘wrapping’ phase

- Once all surface is covered, decorate it with anything you like (I used one of our ‘pattern maker’ thingies to cut out our coloured paper into shapes of christmas trees)

And that’s about it really!

And you have yourself a little home-made recycled bracelet!!

…

PS : If you and your kid(s) get to try out any of the activity ideas from the site, and if you happen to take photos of the session, it’d be really nice if you can email one or two of those photos to me. If you don’t mind, that is. Am thinking of posting some of those photos on the site sometime! Thanks everyone.

We had quite a bit of coloured straws and coloured paper at home, and so we made these paper flowers (that are supposed to look something like this if they’re real)

What you need :

>> Coloured paper

>> Coloured straws (for the stems)

>> Crayons, glue, scissors and scotch tape

What you do :

>> Place kid’s palm on paper and using a crayon, make an outline

>> Cut the outline (older kids may help out)

>> Paste a bit of glue on one side of the ‘handprint’ and make a ‘cone’ (on the lower part of the handprint cut-out)

>> Stick a straw in the middle of it

>> To ensure the paper flower stays put, use a scotch tape to stick the paper flower to the straw

It’s that easy!

I do feel this activity is more for older kids though as it is slightly more complex.

Vai - who is turning 2 years old next month - couldn’t really contribute much, other than lending his palm.

And so he did a simple hand-eye coordination exercise (while Anya and I worked on the flowers) : he placed coloured matchsticks into the straw.

And since we keep the ’stretchy’ part of the straw slightly bent at the bottom, the matchsticks remained inside the straw. Only when it’s full that he straightened up the straw, and let the rest of the matchsticks fall out!

[Matchsticks do get 'jammed' in the tunnel]

Anyway, we liked the flowers we made!

And Anya held on to the bunch and pretended to be : a salesgirl at a flowershop, then a flower girl walking down the aisle!

Soon after we made those jellyfish hats, the kids insisted on playing with their coloured matchsticks.

And so we decided to make some prickly creatures. I was open to the idea of making some sort of a sea urchin or a porcupine.  And both kids chose to make porcupines.

What you need :

- Chloroform cups
- Masking tape
- Coloured matchsticks

What you do :

- Tape the two cups together
- Let the kids carefully poke the matchsticks through the cup

This seemingly simple task apparently required so much concentration and effort from these little ones because they had to carefully poke through the cup and avoid tearing / making too a big hole. If they’re not careful enough, the sticks would slide INTO the cup and ‘disappear’.

Other than learning how to focus and concentrate, the kids exercised their fine motor skills too here!

Oh btw, they didn’t finish making their ‘porcupines’. Instead, they had fun ‘tearing’ and ‘plucking’ the sticks out when the ‘bodies’ were half covered with sticks!

Oh well. As they say, sometimes the ‘results’ don’t really matter as much as the ‘process’ of learning itself ?

The other day both kids refused to nap, and since we had quite a bit of time to spend together, we made this jellyfish hat! Very simple and relatively fast to make.

What you need:

- Paper plates (plastic bowls are great too!)
- Cream-coloured crepe Paper for the long wiggly bits
- Glue, scissors

What you do :

- Cut out the crepe paper into some 25mm-wide strips
- ‘Unroll’ each strips and cut shorter strips from each one
- Kids : apply some glue onto the back of paper plate and stick the strips
- Just so that the hat will ’stay put’ on the head, glue a shorter strip on to the plate - from one side of the ear to the other

When they’re done with their hats, Anya put hers on and ran around the house (and with her speed, of course it kept falling off too!)

And Vai, well somehow he refused to have those wiggly bits around his head.

And he preferred to just, lie on the floor.

Kids.

The other day the kids and I did this arts and crafts thing together.

We made a Balloon Lady!

What we used:
> A balloon (for the ‘head’)
> Crepe paper, cut to strips - approx. 1.5cm wide (for the ‘hair’)
> Glue
> Coloured cartons (for the eyes and mouth)

After I inflated the balloon and cut the cream-coloured crepe paper, the kids started smearing some glue on the top of the balloon.

I opened up the strips of crepe paper and the kids put the long strips across the top.

Oh btw, I cut out some shorter and wider strips too for the fridge and back of the head.

I then cut out these shapes : two oval eyes and a crescent smiley mouth. Anya then did the gluing and pasting onto the balloon.

And VOILA!

Here’s a big Hello from the Balloon Lady!!

These past few days both kids have somehow refused to take their afternoon naps, leaving me with pretty much no rest for one whole day!

On a good note though, our ‘arts and crafts’ time together made a comeback!

You see, since Anya started school, it’s been very tough for me to find any time to do arts and crafts stuff with the kids at home like we used to. I so miss those times!

Today Anya made a glittery heart-shaped thingy for Daddy (since it’s Valentine’s Day! Heh.) and a chicken-shaped hat (hmm!), while Vai exercised his fine motor skills and scribbled with crayons, played with ink and chops, squashed and molded some clay and stuck colourful matchsticks onto playdoh.

Looks like the kids did enjoy themselves too!