All of us had so much fun at our previous outdoor playdate that we unanimously agreed to have this week’s session at Bishan Park again.
I love that these outdoor playdates give the children the opportunity to explore nature, and even as we walked to the pavilion, Noah stopped to check out the fishes along the way, and we even had a creepy-crawlie guest, which all the mums couldn’t identify Mummy C identified as a garden millipede, with the aid of Mr Google.
鱼 (Fish)!
Pointing at the garden millipede
No idea what these two were looking at in the drain
Mummy C brought her own homemade zoo for the kids to play with, while waiting for the others to arrive, because she was going to read the book, Dear Zoo*
, for story time. I was really impressed by her creativity!
Playing with the zoo
We started with our usual Welcome song, followed by a revision of the colours and shapes that they’ve learnt so far. Mummy L was in charge of this segment, and brought a whole host of items for the children to touch and examine. She also introduced the colour brown, which explains why there were so many brown items.
All about colours
For story-time, the kids enjoyed lifting the flaps in the book, and identifying the hidden animals. Mummy C even brought along Dear Zoo colouring sheets for the children to work on, after the story was read!
Dear Zoo…
To take advantage of our outdoor location, I got the children to pick up leaves, twigs, and feathers for the craft session. 3M kindly provided us with some Scotch® Expressions magic tapes and washi tapes, which the children used to paste their collections onto sheets of drawing block. The tapes were very easy to use, as they didn’t require the use of scissors at all, and could be torn by hand, directly from the rolls. The mums and children all enjoyed using the tapes, as they were so colourful, and made the craft activity more fun. This is also a very good fine motor skills activity for toddlers, and requires almost no preparation at all.
Picking leaves, twigs, and feathers
Crafting with the 3M Scotch® Expressions Tapes
Look at all their beautiful creations!
I baked some cheese biscuits the day before for our playdate, and was so glad that the children seemed to really enjoy them. Either that or they were just really hungry by the time we gave them their snacks. I’ll be sharing the recipe soon, for those of you who are interested.
Munching away
The kids started running around after their snack, so we decided to move on to the Big Muscle Movement activity. It was a modified version of last week’s, and they had to use a small sieve to scoop up a plastic ball from the pail of water, then walk back to the starting point to put it into another pail.
Playing peekaboo
Exploring the different textures
Having fun during the Big Muscle Movement activity
This week, we had an extra segment: Chinese story-time and song session! I thought that it was especially good for Noah, because he isn’t usually exposed to the language.
Chinese story-time
We sang some action songs next, and instead of the usual actions for ‘The Wheels on the Bus’, we got the kids to walk around in a circle while doing the actions. We also sang ‘If You’re Happy and You Know It’, and Noah was especially enthusiastic about clapping his hands, stomping his feet, and shouting Hooray!
Clapping
Stomping
Hooray!
After the songs, we had some bubble play, and let the kids play a little football too, before singing our Goodbye Song. The bubbles weren’t as fun as I had envisioned it to be, because the bubble solution I got from Daiso wasn’t very good. Guess I’ll have to hunt for a better brand!
Bubbles!
Footballers in the making?
Goodbye, everyone!
I’ve learnt so much from these mums, and I’m looking forward to our next session, as always! 🙂
I received some 3M Scotch® Expressions tapes for our playdates, and will be sharing more simple craft activities in the following weeks. All photos and opinions are my own (as well as those of the other mums and kids in the playgroup). For more craft ideas, you can check out my previous post HERE.
*This is an affiliate link, which means that if you buy the book after clicking on this link, a few cents from this sale goes to Noah’s book fund, at absolutely no cost to you.
*******
If you’ve enjoyed reading this post, do like my Facebook page to get updates. You can also follow me on Twitter (@GrowingwtheTans), Instagram (@GrowingwiththeTans), and Dayre (@GrowingwiththeTans), for short updates on what’s going on in our lives. Thank you! 🙂
Comments