Month: April 2019

Yes! You can do it yourself!- Raising independent toddlers

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I consider myself a very Do-it-yourself mom. Every time my girl asks me if she can do something on her own, I tell her, “Yep, do it yourself!”
Our belief is that being independent is the ultimate goal. And as much as we are tempted to, we have to avoid helping her with something she can do on her own.
And because all her chores are child-led, there is dignity of labour and fewer refusals and arguments to do chores.

Age appropriate chores: 0-1

How can an infant be independent? It can’t because she is dependent on us for even her basic needs. But once she turned 6 months , we went the baby- led weaning way. To date, she eats on her own, with us. We get to enjoy our meal happily. But more importantly, she is very keenly attuned to her tummy, and is able to decide exactly how much quantities she needs. … Click to read the rest

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eXtinct and Endangered animals: lessons in history and conservation

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At one point of time, when V’s  dinosaur obsession was at a peak, the question of why we can’t see them anymore came up very often. We explained to her how they are extinct now. But also that they were real, because we can see their fossils.

“How does an animal become extinct?”

This was a question she kept coming back to. And we kept asking her of possible reasons. She knows about death ( thanks to mosquitoes we kill every night) and figured out it was possible that all dinos just dropped down dead.

Luckily, the Usborne book of dinosaurs has a page on how T-Rexs fought amongst themselves and many died. V accepted this argument for Trex but she still wanted to know how vegetarians like Brachiosaurus could die out. We explored the possibility of something catastrophic like Ice age and she considered it for a few weeks. Recently, we saw the movie Ice Age and she has warmed up(pun unintended) to the idea.… Click to read the rest

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Weather- child-led lessons in climate and geography

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After plenty of thermal sensory play, V knew the difference between hot and cold. Soon, V started noticing the differences in temperatures, and that the weather changes everyday. We are blessed to stay in a place where we get to witness plenty of sunshine, rain, cold and storms.

“Where does the rain come from, ma?”

V can sit and watch the rain for hours on end. When the weather forecast for the day used to read rains, she would be bummed, but would sit and watch them at the window happily. One fine day, she asked us where the rains came from. We answered, “the clouds”. After a week of observing different colored and different shaped clouds, she deduced that when we have grey clouds in the morning, we invariably have rain that day.

“But how do the clouds get rain ma?”, she asked. We learnt a little about evaporation and did a simple cotton squeeze activity to reinforce the concept.… Click to read the rest

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