Mess Free Painting for babies

I love this poem by our favorite illustrator Nick Sharratt.
Painting is an amazing activity for babies! It is a great way for them to explore
  • Color, shapes, texture, patterns;
  • Sensorial play;
  • Hand-eye coordination;
  • Motor skills;
  • Spatial skills;
  • Creativity;
  • Focus and
  • Fun.
Obviously I couldn’t wait for baby V to show some readiness towards enjoying painting activities.
At about 7-8 months, she finally showed interest in the same and we jumped into mess free painting.
The easiest way is to paint before a bath in the bath tub using bath tub paints ( or simple home made colors), but somehow we weren’t comfortable with this one.
Read on for some cool mess-free painting tips for infants.

1. The zip-lock hack

This has got to be the easiest one. And best of all, all materials are available at home.

  • Dab drops of thick paint on A4 sheet or cardstock.
  • Place the sheet inside a ziplock ( jugaad if you dont have one – use plastic sheet and sellotape it to thefloor or table) and seal it.
Click to read the rest

SKOLA TOYS- An honest review

In my previous post, I spoke about how and why learning is a journey. Lets talk concrete example now, shall we?
Let us take language.
  • So in the first stage, the baby is only hearing and assimilating, and can respond with basic sounds – grunts, cries and coos. Slowly, the baby can differentiate sounds. That is when we introduce the phonetic alphabet.
  • Then the baby learns to join these sounds to create complex sounds and associate it to a meaning(words).
  • Then, the child learns to string words together to form meaningful sentences.
  • And finally, the child learns to also put the language learnt in written form.
When I received the package from Skola I was beyond excited because I wanted to see first hand what the hoopla was all about. And boy, was I impressed!

Packaging

The toy itself comes safely packed in multiple layers of bubble wrap and luxuriously packaged in a beautiful doodle box, with a crayon set.… Click to read the rest

Motherhood and the Jekyll-Hyde paradigm

There is this saying in Tamil, that a delivery is equivalent to rebirth for a woman. Someone told me it is because, a woman goes through excruciating circumstances and puts her life at risk during birthing. I now realize, that it is because, motherhood changes you into a different person.

Birthing changes you

When Pooja told me that she was attempting the herculean task of bringing together 41 moms from around the world to share how motherhood had changed them, of course I jumped at the opportunity, because I can write about this with my eyes closed, right? How wrong I was. This post is a result of many nights of soul searching and digging deep.

So apart from the very obvious ways in which motherhood has changed me – jeans size, changed priorities, lack of time, exhaustion and the works, I’ve realized that I have become a bundle of paradoxes. Read on.… Click to read the rest