The best educational videos

When I had my first child, I swore to myself  I would never let her fall under the spell of the likes of Barney, Wiggles, Bananas in Pajamas and Teletubbies whom I find strange and just plain weird. I would choose which educational videos and programs I would expose my child to and not just plop her in front of the TV, open to being a convert to any cartoon show trying to reel in babies and toddlers. I would look for educational videos that really impart learning and aren't just trying to sell you a cartoon character and the subsequent licensed products that evolve from fanatic adulation of such characters.

So far, our favorite videos have been not just educational, but fun and entertaining. Here's our list of favorites:

1. Kids Hirit Vols. 1 and 2 (with Suzi Entrata-Abrera)

I got these videos as a gift from my sister. My daughter started watching them at age 1. She would watch these videos first thing in the morning from her playpen and seemed to love the fun songs and the interaction between the kids in the video. She watched it so much that the videos got scratched and we had to throw them away. We promised ourselves we would get replacements but were only able to do that recently. Now that she's watching it again, at a more appropriate age, it's really helping her identify letters. We were doing flashcards the other day and usually she would just identify the image shown on the flashcard but this time around she tried to spell out the letters on the flashcard! I couldn't believe it. Thank you, Suzi. The repetitive requests to watch your videos are starting to pay off.

2. Baby Einstein DVD collection

I was actually looking for books on ebay when I chanced upon this Baby Einstein DVD collection. There are 26 videos in the collection, each tackling a different learning topic, like language, numbers, music, animals and so on. I hadn't seen them in Singapore or the Philippines so I ordered them from the US. They were quite reasonably priced as well, at about USD60 or Php2,500 for all. Both daughters have seen all the videos as there are some that are more appropriate for babies and some for toddlers. The videos use lots of imagery and orchestral music as well as puppet characters. They're quite enjoyable to watch and sometimes I even sit down to watch them with my kids.

3. Little Einstein DVDs

Little Einsteins come from the same company which developed Baby Einstein so they're also quite educational but geared towards a slightly older group of children. The Little Einsteins are a group of really smart kids who go on missions and travel the world. For each episode they usually highlight a famous work of art or music and a famous place as well. I love it because I've never seen anything like it. This is the only children's program I've seen which really promotes art, music and geography to kids in an engaging manner and doesn't assume these things are beyond the understanding of children.

So far these are the ones that are in constant rotation during the kids' viewing time. We're trying to look for other educational video programs so if you have any suggestions or recommendations, please do share.

What's your and your kids' favorite educational videos?

At home Easter Sunday activities

I've been surfing the Internet in the past few weeks for things to do with the family for Easter Sunday. Here in Singapore, Easter Sunday is quite a big celebration, with most hotels offering up buffets and having special activities for kids like Easter egg decorating, face painting, balloon sculpting and magic shows. However, the cost for such celebrations tends to be steep with the price ranging from SGD50 to 150 per head (buffet usually free or slightly cheaper for kids). The cheapest option I found was Easter Sunday High Tea at Pantry at the Stables which offers SGD40 for 2 adults and SGD22 for each child. This would cover High Tea as well as participation in the Easter Egg hunt, face painting and take-home goodie bags. However, as my hubby pointed out, my 2 year old daughter might not fully enjoy the Easter egg hunt. And so, I was tasked with thinking up at home Easter Sunday activities for our daughter instead.

So of course, I decided on face painting, easter egg decorating and a mini-easter egg hunt.

I'll post about the easter egg decorating and the mini-easter egg hunt after Easter Sunday, so for now, I'll just talk about our face painting efforts.

Now I'm no face painter but given that I've been helping my daughter with her art activities I'm thinking how hard can it be? So I went out to look for face paint supplies at children's toy stores. 

I was choosing between Snazaroo, Giotto and Micador face paints and eventually bought the Micador face paint set seen above. It was a basic set, quite affordable (SGD15.90) and easy to apply (no need to use sponges). 

At first, my daughter wouldn't let me draw on her face, but as my husband pointed out, she just needed to be curious about it and needed to see it being done on someone first.

Here's what I drew on hubby's face.

And though my daughter eventually relented and allowed me to paint on her face. She would stay still only long enough for this.

I'm excited about this. Will probably have to look for more face painting designs on the internet. But looking forward to face painting fun.

As for our easter egg decorating efforts and our mini-easter egg hunt, I already have the recipe for making easter eggs, now just have to decide whether to buy small chocolate eggs or big chocolate bunnies or just buy one big plastic egg (ala Swedish PASKAGG which is a big paper egg filled with chocolates and candies). Stay tuned.

Making play clay

The last time we went to our pediatrician, she recommended that we let our daughter play with clay so she could develop her fine motor skills. I was a bit hesitant to do this at first as she was still at that stage where she loved putting things in her mouth. Even now, she would draw and paint and we (me or the nanny) would have to sit with her to make sure she didn't start putting the marker tips to her mouth or start biting chalk. I felt it was a bit of a risk to buy any of the popular modelling clay brands for young kids. I mean, even Play Doh is recommended for kids 3 and up. But as it was something that would help her develop, I thought I'll just try to make sure to get something food grade level so even if she ingests it, I wouldn't worry.

Coincidentally, I was browsing through the latest issue of Parenting Early Years magazine on my zinio and read about ecokids usa which develops creative play toys using non toxic and food grade ingredients. Note the description...'exploratory molding dough handmade with natural and organic fruit, plant and vegetable extracts from annatto seed, beets, blueberries, carrots, paprika, purple sweet potato, red cabbage and spinach, flour, salt, cream of tartar, organic rosemary oil, vitamin E oil, soybean oil, coconut oil, potassium sorbate and citric acid.' Wow, it actually sounds good enough to eat. Aside from eco dough, they also have eco paints and eco crayons. I was all excited to buy when I saw the price USD23.99. Aaarrrghh. So expensive. You could buy the same amount of Play Doh (just the compound, no tools) for about USD5.

   

No choice but to do it the old-fashioned way then which is to make it homemade. I browsed the internet and found several recipes for homemade play clay. Here's the one we used today:

Play Clay

1 cup flour
3/8 cup salt
3/8 cup hot water
Food coloring (optional)

Mix flour and salt in a bowl. Pour water. Stir. Knead for 5 mins. Mix in food coloring if available. Play.
Once done, store in airtight container. Will last for a week.

Homemade play clay and Crayola = Fun

And yes, the moment we handed her the ball of play clay she immediately took a bite out of it, and it did take a bit of work to get her to play with it, 'No this is not food, this is for play', but eventually she got the hang of it and we'll probably be making more batches of this in the future, but with color next time.

Jamie Lee Curtis is actually a great children's author

I don't normally seek out celebrity authors as I'm not really sure how good their books are, but I came across Jamie Lee Curtis's books as I was trawling ebay for new books to buy and subsequently read to my daughter. I usually buy book lots as its good value for money (sometimes you get 5-10 books in one go) and it becomes a starter set if you want to follow any reading series, like Eric Carle, Dr. Seuss, Karen Katz etc. When I saw Jamie's book lot, I went on Amazon to read the reviews and the books were averaging 4-5 stars. Here's an example from MotherLodeBeth of Sierras, California on 'Im Gonna Like Me'.
'...its not a sappy feel good self esteem book but more along the lines of we are all human and fall down, and feel we don't fit in at times, but it is in keeping trying that is what make life work. And its a book that will appeal to boys and girls, males and females. And lest you think it is only for wee ones, its also a good book for teens, college kids, those going thru lifes many passages. Or for someone who is going thru a rough period in their lives.
As a rule I avoid celebrity books like the plague, but Ms Curtis is a true talent.'

So I got the book lot which consisted of four books, namely: I'm Gonna Like Me, Where Do Balloons Go?, It's Hard To Be Five and Is There Really A Human Race?. It was a good deal too at about USD15 plus FREE SHIPPING as each book retails for USD17.99 or maybe USD10 or so if you buy a marked down book at amazon.com.

In any case, when I got the books I put them away for later as I was thinking my 2 year old daughter wouldn't be able to appreciate the concepts in the books yet. A week ago though, she found one of the books while picking out books from her book case and asked me to read. We didn't finish it the first time as she lost interest midway but second time's the charm and thereafter she would drag the book around begging everyone in the household to read it to her, sometimes two or three times in a row. She likes the rhyming bits of course and the words are simple and easy to understand and the illustrations are quite detailed and colorful. Meanwhile, I like that it's not just a book for kids but also something that adults can appreciate as well, which is nice if you're reading a book four times a day.

In fact, my daughter's reading habit has become a bit out of control these days and I've asked my husband, 'Is there such a thing as reading too much at this age?' I'm not an early riser but I find myself being woken up by the sound of my daughter's pleas of 'Mymi, read! Mymi read!' And that's already after my husband has done his turn and has hidden himself under the bedcovers after being asked to read a particular book for the nth time. These days we have to rotate the task among me, my husband and my daughter's nanny and even then I read 4-5 books to my daughter in the morning, in the afternoon, after dinner and before bedtime. Sometimes I just want to say, 'Please baby can't we just watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or Little Einsteins quietly?' I thought kids liked TV and gadgets more these days anyway? But of course I couldn't say that if I wanted to sustain my child's love of reading so I toil away and read read read.

I blame you Jamie Lee Curtis. You and your strangely addictive book.

To other mothers out there, don't say I didn't warn you.

I See Spots

My friend Sam gave my daughter a See Spot book set by Eric Hill which included a book and a stuffed toy. It's a lift-the-flap book which is a good format for young children just starting to read/interact with books. We eventually bought other lift-the-flap books, mostly by Karen Katz, but eventually I started searching for other lift-the-flap books and realized Eric Hill had a whole series of Spot books where Spot the main dog character in the series, constantly explores his surroundings and has different adventures (e.g. Spot Goes to the Beach, Spot Goes to the Farm etc).

I started looking for Spot books on ebay US, which is where I got our Sandra Boynton, Karen Katz and Eric Carle book lots. However, though the book lots were relatively cheap, think 11 Spot books for 15USD + 5USD shipping within the US, the books in the book lot itself were hit or miss. Some books I liked, some books I didn't. If I went with individual books I liked, each book would cost about 5USD which is about the same price for a new book ordered from amazon.com. But then most of the books were only in good condition whereas I was hoping for very good or excellent/like new condition (i.e. note good, very good and like new are standard terms used to describe books sold on ebay).

So I checked the price of Spot books on opentrolley.com.sg which is an online bookstore in Singapore I used previously to buy additional Sandra Boynton books. They did have the Spot books and quite a good selection too, but then the books ranged from 11SGD to 13SGD. They give a 10% discount for minimum purchase of 50SGD but still that was a bit expensive.

As a last resort I went to the bricks and mortar bookstores to see if maybe they had the Spot books on discount. I found a specific section for the Spot books in prologue at Ion Orchard but sadly at 15SGD, the books were slightly more expensive than the ones at opentrolley. Dejected, I started browsing around for other titles and wandered over to the Chinese section and lo and behold, there stacked neatly on a table where several paperback copies of the Spot books.

Spot Goes to the Farm, Spot's First Walk, Spot Goes to the Circus,
Spot Goes to a Birthday Party, Spot Goes to the Beach and Spot Goes to the Park

If only they were in English. But in any case, I was curious to see how the books looked like inside so I opened one...

And they had both Chinese and English writing! Best of all, each book only costs 6.10SGD. Why so cheap? Because they're reprints of the original in partnership with a publishing house in China. In any case, sold! I chose 6 titles in all (the ones shown in the pic above).

It does pay to sometimes just explore and see what's out there.

How to teach your daughter manners

We're currently in the midst of my daughter's 'Terrible Twos' phase. When she was younger, she went to Gymboree Play and Learn classes and we used to feel bad when she would get pushed or picked on. But now, she gives as good as she gets, sometimes a bit more. She would throw things, have tantrums, even take a swipe at her baby sister's head. Her dad is very good at disciplining her (i.e. raised voice, glaring eyes and the ultimatum, enforcing 'face the wall' punishments) but beyond punishing her for every mistake she did, we want her to learn how to behave well.

Just in time, I discovered this book series that teaches good manners and is written by popular children's author Karen Katz. We already own two of Karen Katz's lift-the-flap books,  'Where is Baby's Belly Button?' and 'Where is Baby's Christmas Present?', and my daughter loved those so I was sure she would love this series as well.

  

We got five books from the series, namely 'No Biting', 'I Can Share', 'Best Ever Big Sister', 'No Hitting' and 'Excuse Me'. I don't know if there are more books in the series but these five cover the basics of good manners. We started reading these to our daughter a few weeks ago and now we read the set twice a day, once before dinner and another before bedtime.

I love the easy-to-understand wording, the realistic examples used, the colorful illustrations and the lift-the-flap format which makes it more interactive for kids. It's especially rewarding to hear her use words she learned from these books. She still has a long way to go in terms of good manners but with the magic words she's learned so far, like 'sorry', 'tkoo' (thank you), 'peas' (please) and 'labu' (I love you), I know she'll get there in time.