activities — mamawearpapashirt

Cool crafts in a Lollibox

June 8, 2012 1 Comment

A parcel arrived at our doorstep a few weeks ago, with a huge smiley face on top.

That basically sums up the mission and purpose of Lollibox - to put a smile on every child’s face, and of course, everyone knows happy kids equal happy parents. (Hmm, or is it the other way around…)

Vera was like ‘What’s that, mummy?’ while clambering all over me to check it out.

“Sweetie, it’s a whole lot of fun in a box,” I said, while opening up the different craft activities neatly packed into separate ziploc packs.

They offer a different theme each month, and this particular one was on animals.

I like it that there were clear instructions in every activity pack. We started with the ‘Create-a-Zoo’ one first, as it looked the most fun. Vera was very focused pressing the clay onto the board to make her animal enclosures.

As it was close to dinner-time, we had to take a break from the activity, and carry on the next day, which was fine and fuss-free for us (although we could tell she was quite keen to keep going).

Here’s one satisfied and happy zoo-keeper!

What’s good:

the materials (clay, ice-cream sticks) were easy to handle, and Vera enjoyed the activity
she could do it at her own pace
kids can use the leftover clay for their own free play
also good as a small group activity with other kids of similar ages
this activity can be recycled. Just store the clay away properly and use a new cardboard the next round (because the oils from the clay tends to leave a wet mark on the board after a while). Even better, let your child come up with his/her own idea of what to create next!

What can be improved:

I found this quite suitable for 3-4 year olds, but for older children, it might be good to do more research and discover interesting fun facts together about the various animals that are found in a zoo.

Add-ons:

I thought we could improvise on the activity by adding a drama component, e.g., by making up a story about the animals. Actually, Vera started to do this when she commented that the zebra didn’t need to be fenced in as it’s a “good zebra” and he won’t run away. It might be more interesting to weave in real facts about the animals, or just allow the child’s imagination to run wild. (pun intended)

After that activity, we tried a simple one — colouring a safari-themed photo-frame. I pretty much let Vera have free rein with it. And she coloured it the way she liked.

There was another activity pack that was meant to teach the concept of camouflage, using multi-coloured sticks. I wasn’t able to explore this activity in much detail with Vera, as each time we took the pack out, the baby brother was all eager to pounce on it, and I didn’t want to face the consequence of him swallowing the sticks, or poking me with them, so…yeah.

Overall, I like the way different activity ideas were packaged neatly into one box. I guess they had in mind to help out busy parents who may not have the time to pull together different craft activities for the kids. As Candice, founder of Lollibox, also shared:

“LolliBox was born because we realise many parents are busy and face a challenge searching for enriching and engaging things to do with their kids. They know it is important, but many don’t know where to begin or lack the time to gather all the materials.”

Personally, I think it’s a good way to jump-start your creative engines at home. And because there’s a new theme every month, there’s always something new to look forward to. (I believe the latest theme is ‘Grow, plant, grow’ theme, which looks quite interesting.) However, while most of the activities were engaging, I found some a little too structured for my liking, so I guess it’s up to us to add on new ideas to what we’ve been given, according to our child’s stage of growth and interest.

Oh yes, because it was close to Mother’s Day, we also got a bonus activity pack. Here’s what Vera did with it to cheer me up when I was having a bad day.

Lollibox is kindly offering a promotional coupon code for our blog readers. Simply enter coupon code ‘MWPS‘ to enjoy 10% off any LolliBox purchase. Valid till 18th June 2012.

They will also be giving away a complimentary Daddy’s Tie Craft kit with any LolliBox purchase from now till 12th June. So be sure to check that out too.

Filed Under: Homelearning, Reviews and advertorials Tagged With: activities, craft, fun, kids, learning, Lollibox

Seashells, clay and an art workshop giveaway

May 31, 2012 17 Comments

Vera went for her first art workshop the other day at WowArt Learning Studio. She was going to learn how to make seashells using DAS clay, which is a quick-drying clay.

She first did a warm-up exercise — drawing seashells on paper.

Hers is the one on the right. She can roughly draw the shape, but her lines did not reach the outline of the shell.

After the warm-up, she was asked to draw seashells on a foam board using crayons. Here’s our art teacher asking: “What colour would you like, Vera?”

Poke, Pinch, and Press

After drawing the shells, she was given a satay stick and asked to poke holes along the outline of the seashell, and along the lines on the shell. She patiently did this, with the encouragement from her teacher. I liked that he managed to sustain her interest through this part of the session by turning it into a game. As in they took turns poking holes, a different number each time, sometimes 3, sometimes 5.

After the holes were poked, her teacher helped to ‘join the dots’ and etch the outline of the seashell and its lines.

Then she was given the DAS clay and asked to ‘pinch it like a pancake’. The clay seemed a little tough so she took a while to knead it flat, and the teacher chipped in to help. When the clay base was ready, he cut up the ‘holey’ foam board into the individual seashell pieces, and Vera then placed these pieces onto the clay base, and together they pressed them really hard into the clay to form the imprint of the shells. (Actually he did the most work here as Vera didn’t want to stand up and use her body weight. =P)

After that, she used real seashells and pressed them into the clay to form nice lined patterns. Then she used the satay stick to poke holes into the clay, to resemble sand.

Next, she used the hair dryer to dry the clay, to prepare it for the painting stage.

She was asked to choose 3 colours, and she went with blue, purple, and yellow. Then she used a small sponge to dab the paints onto the clay mould.

After that, she used the hairdryer again to dry the paint. Then she brushed glue onto a board wrapped with aluminium, and finally mounted her seashell mould onto this board. The teacher then helped to paste this onto black paper and also pasted the foam pieces on it as well.

Here’s our little artist looking mighty pleased!

My thoughts:

This was an interesting lesson, and it was nice to go through the process of transferring a self-created pattern using a foam board, onto a clay mould. I liked the way the teacher guided her step-by-step, and was able to engage her and sustain her interest through the 75-min class. (He even encouraged her to extend her lines to the outline of each shell she drew.) I also liked that she was exposed to different materials — ranging from clay to crayon to satay stick, and paintbrush to apply the glue.

Most of all, she had fun! The fact that she was able to express her independence and creativity (through choice of colours, design and placement of the shells, etc) was a bonus!

And…here’s a bonus for you guys!

I’ve got TWO holiday workshop passes (worth $70) from WowArt to give away, to ONE lucky reader.

One pass grants entry to one 75-min workshop. Alternatively, you can use both passes at one time for a longer 2.5-hr session. (Suitable for 4-12 year old kids)

All you need to do is:
1. Like WowART Learning‘s Facebook page
2. Like mamawearpapashirt‘s Facebook page (if you haven’t already)
3. Leave a comment here after doing so, saying why you would really like to win this.
4. To double your chances, share this post by clicking the ‘share’ button at the bottom of this post. Then leave ANOTHER comment saying “shared”. It’s important that this is a separate comment so that you will be automatically allocated another number when I put the numbers through a random generator to pick the winner.

That’s it!

Contest closes on 3 Jun 2012, 11.59pm. Open to Singaporeans / PR only. The winner will be randomly selected, and notified via our Facebook page and email.

If you’d like to see the variety of workshops lined up for the June holidays, you can view their workshop schedule on their WowArt’s Facebook page.

Good luck everyone!

—————-

UPDATE: And we have a winner…Congrats Mark Ting! I truly hope your boys enjoy the classes!

Thanks everyone for participating in this giveaway!

This post is sponsored by WowArt Learning Studios.

Filed Under: Art and craft, Reviews and advertorials Tagged With: activities, art, clay, holiday workshops, WowArt

The duck tour that went wahhh

May 14, 2012 3 Comments

So last week I managed to satisfy my curiosity about the Singapore duck tours, and got my whole family on board one of these cool amphibious vehicles. (I managed to convince the hubby because I said it would be my mother’s day gift, and also for my mum.)

We travelled a short way along from the departure point at Suntec Convention Centre, and soon reached the splash point, where our duck vehicle would roll into the Singapore River. Here’s the first duck that went in. Pretty nice dive I would say. We didn’t get wet at all.

So here we are, enjoying the sights along the river.

This is where Gardens by the Bay will be housed. I checked out their website and the pics look pretty amazing. Can’t wait till it opens.

And of course, the trusty Merlion. I wonder how many gallons of water get spewed out each day…

Everything was fine and dandy until round about halfway through, when Javier started to get cranky. Even when I fed him his favourite Gerber’s graduate puffs, he wouldn’t stop wailing. Here’s a shot of him with his mouth full of puffs, and me trying to keep my cool. Oh well, at least now we know he doesn’t like boat rides.

I must thank the tour guide, who tried to use his duckie-whistle to “quack” Javier out of his misery. But alas, Javier’s wails easily drowned out the guide’s quacks. Ah well, thumbs up for trying!

Ever since the kids came along, I’ve found new joy doing touristy stuff around town. I think I haven’t explored our own little backyard attractions since I was a little girl, and so much has changed since then. I don’t even feel embarrassed after realizing that the rest of the duck passengers were all from abroad! I guess this is one of the privileges of having kids - you tend to develop thicker skin and you don’t really bother about what other people say.

What’s your favourite touristy thing to do in Singapore?