Little Wills is now 14 months (where does time go?) and toddles about the house like the full-fledged toddler he is. With his cherubic golden curls, sunny personality (he screams with delight when he gets excited) and amusing “toughness” (if you take the object of his fascination away he gets angry!), he’s a joy to have around and wherever he goes people can’t help but smile.
It’s his 2nd Easter now, the last one he was a newborn and hardly noticed, but this year his eyes (and hands) are darting around the house, mostly at the Easter decorations that we just put up yesterday. As we are a family big on holidays (it makes life more enjoyable), we have 4 Fun Easter Activities lined up for some quality time with the children.
1. Bake an Easter Bunny Cake – This recipe from Betty Crocker is the cutest and will get the kids excited and hopping around like bunnies for sure. It uses a cake mix and ready-made-frosting so it suits Moms who don’t have the time. If I’m feeling energetic by Saturday, I’ll do it from scratch – time consuming, but a much healthier option!
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All kids love Disney whom we have all been witness to has grown from one theme park to a huge corporation that all kids see as the place where dreams are made of. Another fact about Disney, we as parents know that stuff we see, hear and read about that comes form them are wholesome and educational for all ages(even you parents).
We might have outgrown our love for Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck but they are part of kid’s fantasies and pop culture that they are forever part of history as some of the most recognizable cartoon characters of all time. Thinking of a gift for your child? Why not consider getting some of the best Disney tshirts around to suit their choice of favorite characters from the cartoon classics as Snow White to Wall-E the robot who has caused many a tear with his unexplainable emotion hard to imagine from a robot who falls in love.
Recently, my sister sent me a link to download a new browser for kids, called KIDO’Z Browser.
My nearly-4 Ollie is budding computer geek, and would stay home and play on the computer or Wii all day if he could. After the long Christmas break it was a bit of a daily struggle to stick to the ” Friday rule” (which means he can only play on the weekends), but he’s a good little boy and now doesn’t make a fuss. Without much help from me, online he learned how to go through the bookmark folder I set up for him, with all his favourite sites like Sesame Street, Nick jr. etc. He even learned how to write his name on his own, and learn shapes, colors and so on, especially on Sesame. He never strays to “off limits” sites, nor does his sister, who also just sticks to their “Nat & Ollie” folder on my computer.
But I downloaded this KIDO’Z anyway, mainly because I trust my sister, who is good about giving appropriate, no viruses, non-spyware etc. things online (it won the 100% clean award!). And, it had really cute graphics!
Needless to say, both my kids LOVED it, as it is so easy to use. There is even a YouTube channel for kids videos, and they add new things regularly, which they claim are all child-friendly and safe (am still a little skeptical, so I check when I don’t know the site). Aside from a little bit of crashing the first day or so after I installed it on my Mac, we haven’t had any complaints.
It’s Daddy here. Apologies for that last post- not by Lara- just something I found in the drafts by an old author, as I’m supposed to be covering for Lara while she is away at the beach for a few days with some friends. Obviously, I haven’t done a very good job….:-)
Natasha, our six year old, and Oliver, our three year old, LOVE playing Wii. When Mummy is home and in charge, there is a very strict rule that Wii is only to be played on weekends and even then there are time limits. Well when Mum is away, we all come out and play! Parenting Daddy-style. The kids love it of course, as we stay up until the wee hours and they know it’s a one-off as Mummy would be furious!
I admit that it’s completely lame on my part. It reflects on my laziness to be more creative and proactive as a parent. It’s terrible, really, and I do get why. The kids should be outside running in the fresh air using their own imagination to play. And I should be laying down foundations for life that are not based on instant gratification. In my defense, I find it quite hard to be a single-parent to two young chidren (even if just for a few days) when they are so used to Mum being the central figure of discipline. This especially as it’s the holidays and they don’t normally have so much time on their hands. Plus there is little Wills to keep an eye on (who also seems to have an early affection for Wii himself!)
The latest Wii obsession of the kids and I is the Mii Golf game. It’s completely addictive and just an incredible amount of fun!
So here are five points that I have prepared in my defense, in anticipation of Lara’s wrath when she comes back tomorrow. It’s the best I could come up with!
1. Physical co-ordination
There is no doubt that the kids have gotten to improve some of their physical skills. Eye-had coordination for one- whether that be with their aim, timing or anticipation. Nat is naturally sporty and so has a very good eye for the ball already. But she also tends to be a bit clumsy, so Wii games do help learn her own strength and use more “touch” and deftness. Ollie doesn’t seem to have a natural eye for the ball, and Wii has improved his timing.
2. Learning to win & lose
This is a big one. Nat is incredibly competitive and has been ever since she could walk and talk. Especially against her little brother, who luckily doesn’t share the same character trait and is very sweet even if he doesn’t win. So if I take a shot for him and misses, he’ll say: “Don’t worry, Dad, it’s okay…” and have that cute look about him when I could just hug him to death! But going back to Nat, we are talking serious tantrums, sulking, crying and bad moods if she isn’t “the winner”. One might think that Wii would actually make this worse, but in fact Nat has started (very slowly…) to learn that she doesn’t need to win all the time and be more graceful when she loses. I can tell that it still hurts her like mad and she loathes losing, but the fact that she is now pretending not to mind as much is certainly a start in the right direction. And the other side of the coin is also learning how to win gracefully and in this respect Nat is much better than Ollie (probably as she has so much practice at it, as we let her win so much…), who does tend to gloat when he wins and say things like “I’m good, you’re bad, I’m the winner, you’re the loser, na, na..”. Again, from playing Wii, Ollie has started to learn that it’s not nice to gloat over your opponent when you win.
3. An introduction to business
With Mii Golf (& quite a few of the other Wii games) there is a lot of “stuff” that one wants to acquire. In this case things from the “shop” like the Dinosaur mask, the Amazon golf club, the Cat Jester or the Spook-a-Rama hat! And as one has to buy these with “coins” that you win by completing holes and courses, or one has to win them from another player when playing for “items”, a whole new realm of “trade” becomes introduced as a concept. Both kids learn the value of the coins that they have won and that they can’t afford to buy everything with them, so need to selectively choose. Plus they learn to attach additional value to the items they do own according to how hard they worked to acquire them, so it isn’t like a “pocket money for toys” lesson, as they have to also decide which items they care least about when betting them in a game (wait…am I encouraging gambling? Yikes!).
4. Patience & tenacity
A lot of the holes one has to complete in Mii Golf are pretty hard to do, even for me. The only way to master them is via trial and error, sometimes doing them over and over until you want to pull your hair out! Both Nat & Ollie obviously like to get immediate results when they play any game. And this is definitely one of Nat’s weak points when doing her homework, for instance. Unless the answer is obvious straight away, she tends to panic and give up, not wanting to solve the problem with more thought and effort (especially with Maths!). Weirdly enough, Wii has helped them both learn that “trying and trying again until you succeed” can reap rewards.
5. Teamwork
Quite often in Wii games, as is true in Mii Golf, one has to work as a team to win. In this instance, to beat Barker and win coins from him. With this set-up, nobody is a “winner” or “loser” and the kids have learned to use encouragement to help each other do well in order to defeat their opponent. So Ollie will say “good shot, Nat” even if she had in fact put the ball in the bunker! And Nat will instruct Ollie what he needs to do and so takes on the role of “teacher”. Practically every other game the two of them play (even if it’s just throwing around a ball) involves some kind of competition and thus a winner/loser, so I really like it when they play and and learn to work for each other.
As I said, pretty thin, no? I have surfed a bit trying to find some resources that might back up my “clutching at straws” excuses…
Kotaku has a neat post about the motor skills aspect.
Edutopia writes about the potential benefits of cooperation.
Gamasutra talks about the health benefits.
Evening Standard has a piece on how the Wii improves intelligence.
And some some other interesting reads:
How a University lecturer was paid £5,000 to study benefits of Wii.
Time asks if Wii really is good for your health.
And finally some childish streams of consciousness about Wii.
I fear none of this will suffice when Mummy returns and I’ll be in the dog house! And thus Lara will answer her own question on this blog and we’ll be subjected to an even stricter set of rules…:-(
Photo via Chicamania
Mini Donald
is huge in our household. Since the 1st of October, we’ve had our Halloween decorations out and increasing (who can resist a “Halloween Tree” I found at a sale last week? Picture a pumpkin on a spider web, black, with spiders, black cats and ghouls hanging from it- adorable!). There are orange lanterns with jack-o-lantern and witch faces dotting our house, giant spiderwebs with spiders, bats and bloody hands on our windows, a rather large “witch” wind banner blowing in the garage, an assortment of spooky garden stakes in the front lawn (with glow-in-the-dark eyes), and a “face” for our tree at the front of the house which makes it look like the apple-pelting ones in the
Wizard of Oz.
We threw a Halloween Party last Friday after school. Nothing fancy, just games and snacks for around 15 kids, and potent Bloody Mary’s for the grownups courtesy of my hubby, who’s perfected the art of the Bloody Mary. My three went as Wizardess, Cowboy and Superman, and there was Darth, Sandy from Grease, a Pirate, a Mermaid, 3 Rambos, a Fairy, a Spider and a kid who boringly went as himself with his skateboard.
On Friday my kids have their second set of costumes (except baby Wills), Wednesday Addams and Peter Pan (a gift from my Aunt), and we’ll have a little pizza party at home after the Trick or Treating. Exciting! If you aren’t a Halloween-obsessed Mom like me, and still haven’t decided on a Halloween costume for your little ones, here are some of my favourites.
1. Donald Trump (pictured above) – You have to love the hair! This costume makes the Donald look absolutely adorable.
2. Fire Breathing Dragon – A crafty Mom can put this together easily, and create a fantastic magical costume sure to be a showstopper.
3. Baby Yoda- Ok, its not the most original, but when I see a little one in this costume it makes me melt.
4. DJ Lance- He’s the funky guy from Yo Gabba Gabba and if my 3-year-old son didn’t have a costume already, this would be it.
5. Sushi Roll – My 6 year old loves sushi, so again, if I didn’t already have 2 costumes for her, and if I got myself organized a lot earlier, I would have made this her costume for Halloween. Oh so clever.
Written by Lara on October 28th, 2008. 4 Comments »
Filed under Activities, Babies, Crafts, Fun and Games, Holidays, Inspiration, Moms, Preschoolers, Shopping, Toddlers.
I have a curly-haired, 7-month-old baby boy named William. Wills is one of those “angel” babies, who has been all smiles since day one, only cries when absolutely necessary and reaches all his milestones on time, with no trouble whatsoever. And when he started crawling a couple of weeks ago, it completely took me by surprise because this didn’t happen with my other children until they were 8 or 9 months.
With his new found mobility, Wills seemed to be getting bored with his routine, and I don’t blame him – who would want to go from the foam squares on the floor to the exersaucer to the sofa – so I thought it may be time to try a class at our local Gymboree, which luckily lets you try every class, in every level for free.
My 3-year-old boy already goes once a week for the art class which he enjoys thoroughly. It has to be said though, that with my #2, we tried Gymboree several times, from the time he was about 7 months on, with little success, only signing up when he was around 18 months as he refused to crawl and actually seemed quite annoyed by the whole thing until he was older.
So, as we made our way to the trial class I wondered, was Wills ready?
We recently paid a visit to our friends and we all had a blast. You know how my husband and I love video games but we do not really want the kids to be too attached to them. I still place a strong emphasis on reading. Our friends had a Wii, though, and we all played some games – children and adults alike.
So how was the experience? I have to say that it was better than I expected. You see, with the other video game consoles, most of the time, the person playing is totally engrossed in the game and does not have much interaction with the people around him. With the various games offered for the Wii, however, there are more opportunities for groups of people to actually interact with each other while playing the Wii.
Do you know the board game Cranium? Well they have a Wii version called Kabooki and children and adults can spend a whole night playing the game. It presents more of a challenge because the game utilizes actual movement of the controller for certain tasks. The Wii Sports package also presents opportunities for players to develop team work.
That being said, I actually think that Wii is good for children. Aside from the fact that human interaction is not lost when playing Wii games – in fact it can be enhanced with certain games – I think that there are more Wii games that are geared towards kids.
So would you agree with me that getting a Wii is a good idea?
Summer camp is good for the kids – it seems that that is the general consensus. But exactly how does summer camp achieve that? I read this great article on reasons summer camps create great kids. Little Red sums it up nicely.
Camps Don’t “Teach to the Test”: “What we are seeing is that schools today are increasingly “teaching to the test” and in the process stripping out invaluable parts of their curriculums such as theater, dance, art and music programs, and physical education.
The idea is that children who go to summer camps do not participate because they are going to be tested at the end of the whole thing BUT simply because they need an outlet for all that creative energy that may be pent up within them. They go to summer camp to have fun, period.
Learn to Love and Respect the Natural World: “There is a real danger that our children’s generation won’t pick up the environmental mantle since they are spending a record-low number of hours in nature.
Learning to appreciate the natural world is something that we cannot take for granted. This is especially true for children who grow up in the city. Unless their parents make it a point to spend time outdoors with the kids, the children may very well grow up not having a healthy appreciation for nature. Spending a couple of weeks outdoors in summer camp can help offset months and months of city living.
(to be continued)
Every year, when summer comes around, summer camp programs are held all over the United States. It used to be that summer camps were all similar – bonding with nature and other kids, learning to socialize, learning outdoor skills, and the like. Today, however, there are many different kinds of camps that children can participate in during the summer.
I have a question in mind, though. Are summer camps really necessary? Why do we send our children to summer camps? Can’t they have a perfectly good and fun summer at home? After all, the latter choice would save us parents a considerable amount of money. Indeed, why do we regard summer camps as a must during this time of the year?
I tried looking for answers to these questions but it seems that everyone thinks that summer camps are part of life – and that’s the end of the discussion. I thought that maybe it is a cultural thing – like, it has always been part of American culture. However, it seems that the rest of the world are into summer camps as well, despite the fact that summer occurs at different times of the year. In fact, there are quite a lot of summer camps held in different countries year in and year out.
So what is it with summer camps? I think that I shall read more on this for the next post. Don’t get me wrong – I have nothing against summer camps, I am merely thinking aloud here. Maybe some of you have answers to my questions?
Photo courtesy of bluviolin
In our family, once June comes around, we start thinking about birthday parties for the kids. From the month of June to August, we have several birthdays to celebrate. Sometimes, I think that the adults are even more excited than the kids are, especially if the celebrant is still very young.
The preparations and all the fuss that surrounds birthday time was brought to mind again while I was reading this blog post by Kori Rodley Irons. She wrote:
Organizing and coordinating the perfect party has become an obsession with the average family-at least it can seem that way. We want our child to have a great day, sure, but we may also get caught up in trying to give the standard party for our socio-economic level, meet neighborhood and peer group expectations, and make sure that our child doesn’t feel slighted. What can get lost in the whole quest for the perfect party is just exactly who the party is supposed to be for anyway!
Indeed, I cannot count how many birthday parties – children’s birthday parties, mind you – that I have been to wherein more than half of the visitors were adults! Sometimes, in our excitement, we forget who the real star of the party is. We forget who the party is really for.
I got an idea – maybe this time around, we will ask the kids first. What do you want to do for your birthday? Maybe they won’t even want a party!
