Yet Another Doodle Pro

I bought Baby a travel-size Fisher-Price Doodle Pro last week. That was the 4th time I bought a Doodle Pro for my gals and I find that the Doodle is one of the best toys for a toddler. Your toddler can practise her writing and drawing skills while her imagination is being stoked. Plus the Doodle is totally mess and stain free. We used to have 2 huge Magna Doodles with magnetic shapes, stencils and colorful washable markers but they were all spoilt. No prize for guessing who spoilt them, I'm sure you know who spoilt them right?

Alycia Loves Coloring

Pre-school has somewhat disciplined Alycia. She used to laze around in the house, playing or demanding to watch TV all the time but ever since she resumed pre-school 3 weeks ago, her interest in writing and drawing has surfaced again. Last Saturday morning, after Alycia got up from bed, had her milk and washed up, she took out her Doodle Pro and began drawing with a stencil without being told to. After carefully tracing the stencil, she began coloring the pictures on the Doodle. She was so wrapped up with her coloring that she didn't even bother to eat her breakfast. So I fed her breakfast as she did her coloring and she had spent close to an hour carefully coloring on the Doodle. Her coloring skill has improved tremendously and she can now color within the lines of the pictures.

Educational Toys and Books

These are the ELC educational toys and goodies that koo mah bought Alycia and Sherilyn from Hong Kong recently. I have not let the gals play with them yet as they still have a few batches of new toys to play with and new books to read. I now have a closet full of the gals' new toys, books and stickers given to them by their aunties and grandparents and I will only release them in small spurts or when I've run out of ideas to prevent a meltdown.

Activities To Keep Toddlers Occupied

When I need to get some work done on the computer, I'll assign some activities for Alycia and Sherilyn. What they love most now are puzzles, colouring, scribbling and playing with stickers.

I have to separate Alycia and Sherilyn so that Sherilyn will not mess up her sister's work. When she does, a war will break out.

I let them stick stickers in a note book and they have so much fun with it. I had just created this new activity as I do not want them to stick those stickers everywhere in the house.

Magnetic Jigsaw Puzzle

This is the magnetic Thomas and Friends jigsaw puzzle that I bought Alycia from Safe n Sound, 1U. It looks easy to fix but if all the puzzles are dismantled and jumbled up, you will have a real hard time putting the puzzles together again. Yesterday, after the gals had jumbled up all the puzzles, I had to get my maid's help to put the puzzles together before keeping them as I was busy with some assignments. Alycia still needs some guidance from me to fix this puzzle as the puzzle pieces are quite small and difficult to assemble. I've also learnt a lesson. I can only give her 1 set of the puzzle (1 set consists of 4 Thomas characters) at a time and not all the 3 sets at once, so that she won't jumble up all the sets.

Jigsaw Puzzle

Alycia and Sherilyn love jigsaw puzzles. Alycia is quite good with them and can easily fix a 30-piece jigsaw puzzle in under 10 minutes. I had always thought that Alycia lacks attention span but when it comes to jigsaw puzzles, she can spend close to 1 hour quietly and intently fixing the puzzle. So whenever I need to get some work done, I'll just let her play with her puzzles and get her to teach Sherilyn the tricks to fixing a jigsaw puzzle. I intend to get her some new jigsaw puzzles with more pieces, probably a 100-piece one so that she will spend longer time fixing them and I get longer time to do my work!

Educational Toy

Sherilyn is good with this toy. During breakfast yesterday, she fixed the shapes puzzle in under 5 minutes without referring to the map. It looks easy to fix but can be quite tricky. Now, I've got a new toy to keep Sherilyn occupied whilst I work on my computer as she can spend close to an hour fixing the puzzle over and over again without any signs of getting bored with it.

Toys That Sharpen The Mind

SIL#3 bought this educational toy from New Zealand for the gals months back but it's only recently that I have brought out this toy for them to play. I have a cupboard full of new toys, books, colour pencils and stickers that my sils had bought the gals and I release them bit by bit.

For this toy, someone must sit with the child to guide her with it. It's both educational and fun. Alycia can sit with me for almost an hour to play with this toy but Sherilyn will be messing up the blocks. Anyway, Sherilyn has learnt some of the shapes through playing with this toy. Now, both Alycia and Sherilyn know the basic shapes like circle, square, heart, oval, star, diamond, semi-circle, crescent, pentagon and rectangle. They can pronounce octagon and hexagon but can't tell which is which.