Holiday Play: Bubble Wrap Flag

Happy Independence Day, Philippines!  In your honor, Ladybug Girl and I made your flag to celebrate.

We had already planned for the day to include making the flag but I hadn't thought beyond that.  But as  I picked up some bubble wrap from Awesome Guy's toy organizing session in the dining room floor, this use came to mind:

Freehand painting on bubble wrap during one playdate activity with her cousin, at three years old.

  And so in five minutes flat this was set up:

First I taped down the bubble wrap over the bench so it wouldn't move.  It was already making a very nice rectangle shape for the flag, but any table would do if you pre-cut the bubble wrap.  Then I drew a flag with a black permanent marker.

Now mix up each paint color with with equal parts glue.  This makes the paint stick to the bubble wrap.

Ladybug Girl mixed in some glitter with paint, too.

Now paint!

Before painting, we looked at the flag and talked about which colors go where.  

I filled in the tricker parts of the flag while Ladybug Girl did the blue section.

But I was really just itching to try it out myself.  (So fun)

Now the yellow, my favorite part of our flag.

But here was Ladybug Girl's favorite part: sprinkling more glitter on.

Skip this if you don't want more mess.  Not only did glitter end up on the floor, there's no guarantee that every granule will stick to the paint mixture when dry.  The little girl absolutely loved it though.

We forgot the white, so I hurriedly painted it on while Ladybug Girl followed my brush with some silver glitter.  We laughed together as she teased me to hurry up.

So few materials and such a lot of fun!
I just cut away the extra bubble wrap on the sides, and had ourselves a flag.

We even did a 'print' of the whole thing: I cut some white craft paper from her easel, and she did the print all by herself.

And then the celebration went on with her "preparing for a party".

She ran to get her window crayons to decorate the mirror and made Ube ice cream from her sweet shop.
Flag stickers are from Kultura.

"Party preps"

And now I need advice.  How do you explain to a four-year old about Independence Day?  And to my little Dove who tears up whenever there's a story with conflict -- let alone a war?

A page from Filipino Celebrations.

This was my spur-of-the-moment attempt during bedtime:

Can you guess who the bad piggies and angry birds were?  
Ladybug Girl laughed and said "but Mommy, Spain is not bad!"  "Well they were back then, sweetheart!"

This was probably not very politically correct, but you must admit it is very preschool-friendly.

Turn a Bed into a Playscape

This is the biggest project Ladybug Girl and I have undertaken together.  A week of forced bed rest can make one think of crazy ideas that actually work!  

Back in January, I was down for a week of bronchitis and then another week of pneumonia.  Ladybug Girl and her daddy moved to her room to sleep - which left this big blank space beside me to stare at day after day:

This extended sleeping arrangement jumpstarted the big move to an independent bedroom for Ladybug Girl.

I began to get this idea to make use of all that "unused" space hidden under the bed cushion for a play table.  It's the kid in me : I love diorama displays in museums and toy shops.

... like this Lego diorama of Bolinao town in the Philippines (at Legoland)

... or this farm table in Ark Avilon Zoo.

I figured the best way to maximize the play would be to make different kinds of 'landscapes'.  I used masking tape to mark each area, and we did one new habitat per day.

We spent 20 minutes a day doing our project.  I was highly contagious but she still had separation anxiety then (and I missed her too), so I wore a mask and was very careful not to cough near her.   Twenty minutes was all I could do before getting tired.

Set the timer... Mix some plain old poster paint ... And sponge it on.

Can you tell what landscape we made?

The next day:

We mixed some sandy brown for the beach.

The day after, we did the snow landscape:

I handed her a circle-shaped sponge that I had saved from some packaging before and left her to do some snow art.  I called it a ...er... snow fort?

I asked her what other landscape areas we needed, and she said "rock".  

So that's what this black blob beside the beach is.

On our last day we did a lake:

We talked about what kind of animals live in each habitat we were painting.

And finally a grassy plain:

"a plain is a large grass space with no trees!", declared Ladybug Girl.
Credit goes to Super Why videos on the iPad.  

By this time she was getting bored and left me to turn her bathroom into a play space.  I finished up while she was away and we celebrated with our "dance of joy".

Basically we just jump up and down and scream "yay".  She did the jumping for me this time.

This stayed for a few days until I got well and was able to coat the whole thing with some polyurethane sealant, which you can get at the hardware store.

The sealant keeps the colors from staining the underside of the cushion.
A safety tip: if you see some wood splintering (like I did), go over it lightly with some sandpaper before painting.

Once it was dry and cured for two days, we moved it to her playroom and set it up to celebrate Ladybug Girl's new big girl room.

And I had just as much fun setting up the playscape!

We brought out all of the Strawberry Shortcake toys we had collected...

... and we made Berry Bitty City!

Worth mentioning: we had collected the toys when Ladybug Girl was two and half years old, when nearly all the Strawberry Shortcake toys went on 50% off sale to be discontinued.  But frankly, I went too toy-crazy when she turned old enough to play.  The playroom used to have a permanent playscape spot like this:

Which was too much clutter for the amount of play it got anyway.

After a mini-epiphany from reading an article about how physical clutter becomes mental clutter in kids, I swept everything into two bins that we only take out during special occasions like when visitors come over.

I still can't bring myself to part with the whole thing though.  I'm hanging on until I get more return on investment.  LOL.

So we spent a Saturday morning getting lost in pretend stories.

Or using the landscape as a racing space.  Racing is her new thing.

And now we have an extra play space in her room!  There are so many possibilities for other themes: like a racetrack for boys... or hey, planets in space for an Angry Birds Space theme?  Ok, Ladybug Girl would love that too.  How about painting it with chalkboard for the most versatility?

This was probably my most productive bed rest ever.  I think I enjoyed being sick just a little too much.

Hammering Hearts

I am not particularly girly, but I couldn't resist these heart paper fasteners at a paper craft store:

So Ladybug Girl got to use them on another leave-behind activity to do while I was at work:

A hammering tray!

Here's how I made it from an old cork board piece you can get at National Bookstore:

I used two boards so the pins don't poke through the other side and secured the edges with tape (I used washi tape).  Finally tape down a thin piece of kitchen tissue roll.

Draw a design on the tissue using dots as a guide.  You can always leave it up to them to freehand too.

I did this in a few minutes while this strange event was going on:

It's a long story.

Here it is when she finished hammering all the hearts in:

And a few days later, I left some nail polish bottles in fun colors for her to paint the hearts (this was without a photo due to the early morning rush to work):

We ripped out the kitchen tissue together that night.

And here is what it looks like temporarily hanging on her art gallery wall:

If I had discovered these fasteners when Ladybug Girl was younger, I would have used a squishier base like styrofoam.

We tried it together one weekend anyway.

You didn't even need a hammer to push it in, but it was fun!

We only had a styrofoam ball handy, which I split into two and we painted each half with our favorite colors.

Any ideas what else I can do with them?  Valentines is a long way off!

How Do You Get Your Kids to Clean?

How do you get your kids to help clean up after themselves?  In yaya-friendly Philippines, you don't.  Admittedly I'm still not that hung up over it, either.

After reading up on Montessori principles of independence and mastery, I know I need to rethink this and encourage Ladybug Girl to take care of herself and her surroundings.  In fact, Montessori curriculum starts with a strong foundation on "practical life" activities like pouring, dressing up self, and cleaning one's environment.

Ladybug Girl and her practical life work from her school scrapbook : cleaning a table and pouring

Independence is empowering in children who often feel powerless.  It naturally progresses to caring for their environment and for others.

Nyark.  I am so not doing any of this on purpose.

In toddler school, I love how her teachers in Poveda used a song as a signal for pack away time.  I sang that song at home, but was never consistent about it.  I never left instructions to teach her to pack away either, having seen how it can turn into a fearful or negative situation.

Her yaya was the one who potty trained her - I didn't do a thing!

I was shocked during floor play one day :  she drew with a marker, tossed it carelessly on the floor after, and then reached for a new color.  After I told her to pick it up, she dumped all the markers on floor, looking curious about my reaction the whole time.  She was three, and testing her limits.

It was time to start being more consistent at home.  

Half of what makes Montessori work is a "prepared environment" that makes everything orderly, accessible and inviting for children.   I try to adapt that in little ways at home.  Of course the tools that work for me may not have benefits for others, but they sure work for my little one:

These three stools are always in use and moving around the house.

In use in the kitchen and bathroom 

A low shelf in the kitchen where she can get her own water and a spoonful of Nutella

The kid-height outdoor gardening and messy play area

I am so thankful for her Montessori school for doing most of the motivating on independence.  In the middle of the school year, her favorite phrase became "I did it all by myself!"

Here she started to clean her playroom table with her lampin and water spray bottle (we keep that in her room for her aqua beads crafts).  She even cleaned the floor.

Here's something else I copied from Ladybug Girl's classroom:

A cleaning supplies station inside her playroom.

Such a simpler solution in contrast to this horribly expensive toy that didn't even clean:

Look at that sorry excuse for a mop.  This ended up in a garage sale.

I found these great tools at Muji that are perfect for kids:

And this costs less than the toy, too.   Now that's a mop that can clean.

And finally the crown jewel of independence tools:

A teeny toilet!

It was a surprise from Awesome Guy one day.  It seems like a luxury, but it has been a major life saver since Ladybug Girl still can't manage to do the toilet by herself.   We saw one of these things in a Singapore mall and fell in love!  This is also one step ever closer to sleeping independently because she still goes to pee at night.

She uses the towel hung low to wipe and then flushes by herself.  Her little fingers still can't work that bidet.
Surprisingly, this only costs less than 2,000 pesos.

Seeing this little person on her toilet really makes me grin.  Before this, Ladybug Girl would wait until the last five seconds to pee - sometimes I would just be lifting her up to the bowl one second too late.  But now she just disappears from floor time and comes back on her own.  (Now this is something I wish her Montessori school had copied from other modern schools today.)     

A few weeks ago, her cousin came and he was just starting potty training -- he sat down on his own with no fuss, too.   This would have been great for potty training!  Such a relief not to have the run to the bathroom with her anymore.

You think maybe this is what independence will look like a couple of years from now?

As early as now Awesome Guy and I bet on what age our Ladybug Girl will stop needing a yaya.  My goal ended up four years later than his.

Whoops.  Time to get a move on.