The importance of vocabulary through word power cannot be emphasized enough. Crosswords in addition to cognitive development, helps develop language, numeric and problem solving skills.This is an attempt to introduce picture and theme based, partially solved, 3-4 letter crosswords to Kindergarteners (Age 5). So, kids can identify and spell them easily. Idea is to introduce them to the concept of crosswords, clues down and across, associate the clues numbering with the one on the crossword.
Snoring Shanmugam by Tulika Book Publishers is a super hit with my daughters, leading to hysterical laughs when we snore like Shanmugam. Tulika publishers are well known in the Indian context bilingual book.
The story is about a gentle lion who does one of the three things, eating, sleeping and snoring. The jungle animals are annoyed and find a way to stop it. The very same snoring comes in handy at a later stage.
First of all, let me make an announcement that I have my very own domain now. http://mytoystory.com . Please update your readers and feeds.
Picture Courtesy – http://tulikabooks.com
A friend got my daughter a bunch of Tulika books. The bilingual [Hindi / English ] ones. One of the book my daughter loves in the series is What Shall I Make?
Honestly, I picked this book up just for the title. This is the first Nancy carlson book I have come across. She liked it the very first time we read it. It is a very simple book, very simple message in each page. Its about a girl pig liking everything about herself. Just the way she is. How she finds ways to be happy when she is not at her best. It starts with – I am my best friend.
It has been a while we returned this book back to the library, still my daughter remembers few of the dialogues and reads it out every now and then. And I so love it 🙂
If I make a mistake, I will try and try again..
If I fall down, I will pick myself up.
My 3 year old daughter’s school introduced the concept of Valentines to the kids and asked the parents to send cards OR gifts for her classmates. Personally I am not very comfortable with the idea of Valentines, especially the hyped up commercial version. But my daughter was all excited as she was told the kids were going to exchange gifts.
Plan was to pick up some cards the day before school. I picked her up from school, fed her snacks and milk in the car and head to the store. My 8 month old was with her father at home, so we were to hurry up. We hit the store, bought other essentials and then went to target to pick up the cards. Just then papa calls from home that the little one has been crying non stop for the last hour or so, and will not be consoled. We scraped the cards plan and headed back home, I promised my 3 year old we can get the cards on our way to school the next morning.
We came home, pacified the little one, ate dinner. We had an hour before bed time, I got the enthu and energy to make home made cards instead of buying them. I asked her if she wanted to do coloring project and she got super excited.
So here it is: [More pictures coming soon]
Supplies:
Foam sheets cut into 4 x 6inches rectangles. Sheet to paint Paint Scissors Glue Pen to write the message
Method:
Paint a plain white sheet. I left it to her and she went wild.Cut the foam sheets into 4 x 6 rectanglesPrint out a heart shape that would fit into the rectangle and use this as a base to cut the painted sheetCut the heart shapes, as many as neededGlue the painted hearts on the foam sheets. Try different angles. Some crossed, some straight.Write the personalized messageWe had one of those pens that make designs when pressed on paper. We had one that had hearts and we used this to decorate the card.
We avoid watching bollywood movies/songs, hollywood rated movies/music videos when my 3 year old is around. Though we don’t watch videos as often, we play the songs very often. She dances to the tunes with her papa and enjoys it very much.
These few songs she likes and hums once in a while.
——-
The very first hindi movie song she got hooked onto was Khalbali from rang de basanti. She was 1.5 years at that time I think. She has never watched the video, just heard the song and danced with her father. The beats and A.R’s music it is 🙂
——- Pal pal har pal
A friend had visited home with their 3.5 year old daughter. We were playing with the kids and singing rhymes and this kid insisted on playing this song. Seems thats her favorite 🙂 What next? We ended up playing the youtube video and the kids started jumping for this. My daughter also seemed to liked it. She still asks for it once in a while.
——- Bum bum bole
Her latest bollywood song obsession is Bum bum bole from Taare Zameen par. Something with the way Aamir khan is dressed up. She calls him funny clown uncle. She loves the way he suddenly appears and makes the chaka laka verse..
Brings back nostalgic memories. Showed it to my daughter few times, she asked what it was all about, but it did not seem to make an impression on her. Will definitely try again in few months.
There she was, watching Jungle Book’s title song for the zillion’th time. Almost always she watches videos with parent supervison. This one time I stepped out of her visual range for few minutes and she managed to click on this video from the related videos listing, thanks to youtube. I heard the song and it caught my attention too. Something in it, the tune, the girl so chulbuli, full of energy. Just too good, loved it. Only when we reached the end of the song, did we realize it was a clinic plus shampoo advertisement. Could not believe it. Well.. who cares, my daughter loves it and I love it.
And it has made my job a little more easy in asking her to wash her hands when she comes into the house from outside. Saves me from her usual question – But, what did I touch? Why are you asking me to wash my hands?
Both my daughters are crazy of this video. My 3 year old understands hindi, but cannot speak hindi. Hardly few words here and there. But she memorized the first part of the song. She plays it so often that my little one squeals when it plays.
Honestly, I picked this book up just for the title. This is the first Nancy carlson book I have come across. She liked it the very first time we read it. It is a very simple book, very simple message in each page. Its about a girl pig liking everything about herself. Just the way she is. How she finds ways to be happy when she is not at her best. It starts with – I am my best friend.
My toy story 