Wandering Toddler

Navigating our way to building a "yes" space with has endless possibilities! Once I got rid of all the passive toys(milder way of saying battery operated, self entertaining toys), I started thinking of what can I add.  I wanted to be cautious that I don't make this an expensive affair. Be more reasonable understanding this is an experiment but also knowing that I should try! Reading through a lot of article, experiences etc, there was a very common theme in all of them. RE-USABLE!!!  I am learning as I go too, so from how I have interpreted this is - You want to add things that are natural can be re-purposed in various different way in various different types of activities. Here are some examples : Play Dough Wooden blocks Sand Water Paint Sticks, leaves, pine cones etc They are sounds simple, doable and things that make sense. These don't cost a fortune too, so I started with them. I already had some like play dough, sand, etc. An

Our journey to open ended play and taking that first step. They say realizing you need something or you are doing something not so quite right is the first step towards making a change! Well, then the hard parts done and the rest seems to be easy. Ha! I didn't know what should I do next? Seriously, I had no idea. Before I could encourage open ended play, I needed the right set of tools. What are these tools, it sounds very interesting but how do I start, rather where do I start. What does it meant to have create the right environment!  And it started looking like OMG, this is going to be so MUCH WORK, EFFORT and MONEY! Yes, it is going to be some work and definitely lot of effort. Anyways, I was totally okay putting in the extra time, effort etc. But were do I being with all of this? FIRST STEP : Think about things in your kids room/play area/things they use mostly that are limiting, encouraging limited play.  When I say limited play: Things like b

Starting our journey with understanding, building an open ended play environment! Well, it all started when I felt like kids are meant to explore, be curious and NOT necessarily just follow instructions. Most of the toys today are very instructions based, match the shapes, color within borders, follow the path etc etc.  I saw that my toddler was getting good at following instructions and doing exactly what it said! Shouldn't this be like a win! I actually started feeling like I was taking away the creativity, making more instruction following kid. I am not in any way saying kids shouldn't follow instructions, they absolutely should learn too. And in many things they should, but while they play, do things, maybe NOT.  That's when I started exploring what would it be like if we weren't into these toys and having kids follow instructions to create things/play only in a certain way. The first thing I noticed was these battery operated toys. They ar

In this digital era, its sometimes nice to receive a handmade card. I am a sucker for handmade stuff and as a kid I loved making cards. Toddler S is currently into messy painting ;) so this thanksgiving, to express our gratitude we made some cards for the Montessori teachers. Things you would need: Cardstock paper (Preferably some light color) Washable brown color Orange, Red, black and green maker Wiggle eyes Plate or dish for color This is the simplest and the most enjoyable type of cards for kids. They can get their hands messy, play around with the colors and still be able to make some great cards!! Yay!! Take a card stock paper fold into into half and cut it. Fold the half again and cut them. (You can make 4 cards / cardstock paper) Pour some color on a dish/plate and let your toddler press their palm into the color. (After we were done with the cards, we let toddler S play with the color so she can get messy, and she had so much fun with that) Have th

It's Monarch season! Monarch - A beautiful milkweed butterfly in the family Nymphalidae. These are simple yet so beautiful butterflies that migrate to California and can be seen in Oct through Nov... They travel at a speed of 25 miles/hour and can go upto a height of 10,000feet(Woah!). These butterflies make Natural Bridges State beach natural preserve area their home from Oct through Nov. The park ranger have weekend free-1 hour tours at 11am and 2pm. These are great tours, they give you lot of information and are very kid friendly. The rangers were so friendly and make the whole tour so kid oriented with butterfly costumes and Q&A. You can then follow the trail and visit the preserve and watch butterflies.  Trail leading up to the area for butterfly watching They have some binoculars setup that can help you see the pods. (The picture isn't all that great but observe the butterflies hanging on the milkweed leaves. They look like dried leave

Gifts : Gifts is one of those things that everyone loves. And especially with all the festivities, its seems like the gifting/gift giving season. Where I grew up, it wasn't so much about gifting around the festivals or holidays. Something I dislike is the expectation you build about receiving gifts every year. With Toddler S growing up and getting to an age where she understands gifts etc, I thought of starting the concept of gifting as NOT buying new things but gifts/gifting - Is about GIVING Is about making something on your own, make it personal Is about SHARING Well, so with all these festivals - Diwali, Christmas, I wanted to make it all about GIVING! Toddler S has this awesome gift drive at school for the kids in Santa Rosa and I thought that's the best opportunity for us to start this. We bought some random wood trucks, cars, airplanes, colors and some gift boxes from Michaels. Toddler S loves coloring, so we painted them, packed them in

💥💥 H A P P Y    D I W A L I  !!!! 💥💥 Happy Diwali and prosperous new year!!! Diwali being one of the biggesssttt and brighteesstt festivals we celebrate, it is FULL of traditions and festivities and so much MORE!! I wanted to introduce a lot of traditions but wanted her to understand what it means by celebrating Diwali. Have her experience how I celebrated Diwali when I grew up in India. Growing up, it always meant helping mom, doing things around the house, decorating, firecrackers etc. I love the helping your mommy + daddy part! I feel this a great way to involve your toddler and they feel like they did something SO SPECIAL and IMPT. We started off by getting some earthen diya's and then coloring them with paint. You don't have to be the best painter / artist , we literally colored them in ONE color. But it was great way of introducing her to earthen diya's and talk about what we do.. When we light them at night, she was so happy to see her co