Activities During the long Easter Weekends!

I have this planned 2 weeks before Easter Day that falls on 22 May this year. I bought 2 sets of egg painting dyes, chocolate eggs, eggs shells...from Cold Storage so that I can have some activities with the children on Easter. Last year, we did our egg painting at East Coast. This year, I have decided to do it differently. We will have our egg painting at home, by the car pouch area. Ashley is reluctant to my idea at first, by after I point to the sky (which is dark, as if it will rain anytime), she gives in to my suggestion. The children are excited when I take out the egg dye. Learning from the experience last year, I have made some 'improvements' this year. Last year, we use water colours on real eggs (which I need to hard boiled the eggs) and the colours smerge our hands even though the paint dries up (coz our hands may be moist from sweat). As such, I replace the water colours with colour dyes and ping pong balls from real eggs, saving the trouble from cooking the eggs before painting. Each child gets to paint 2 eggs, including me. I start off by showing the children how to handle the dyes carefully, avoiding directly contacts with fingers and clothing which stains. I am quite confident that Ashley can handle it well, but Cieran..... will be tricky. Nonetheless, I am prepared that Cieran will create a mess. Ashley choose red dye for her 1st egg to start with, while Cieran goes for blue-his favourite colour. As for me, I go for yellow. The children are very engrossed in their artwork. I have fun as well. As expected, Cieran has his fingers stained with dyes.... which will take few days to wash off. Check out our creations! Whose eggs was the best 'decorated'? This was only part 1 of our artwork.... part 2 was to be continued another day.

The next day awaits us with more fun activity. We are going to make our own orange agar agar! The children are trilled over the cooking activity. I have them involved in preparing the ingredients needed for agar agar. We have gone to the supermarket to choose the oranges and buy the agar agar powder. The children have also help to bring in the chairs while I carry the table into the kitchen. The children are excited to squeeze orange juice needed for the agar agar making. Instead of using the electric juice blender, I use the 'traditional' squeezer so that the children get their hands on squeezing the juice out. It is a joy that the children have showed 'teamwork' in their task. They take turns to squeeze the oranges. After hardwork of about 25mins, we manage to collect 1 full rice-bowl sized of orange juice. The children's face glow with satisfaction! Next, we need to boil the water and mix the agar agar powder and sugar. Both children, standing on their stools watch with interest. The children both get a chance to stir the mixture by the stove while I get the moulds ready. Cieran, who is still young and as a boy lose interest after a few stirring and left to play. Only Ashley stays on and assist in the cooking. After I scoop the mixture into the moulds, Ashley helps to put them into the fridge. She has show tremendous interest in cooking from the start, till the completion. Good Job Ashley! I enjoy the bonding time spend with the children and I do believe they have lots of fun as well. I shall think of more simple cooking session with them in near future. :-) How do you like our orange agar agar? On Sunday, the children prefers to work on a new craft work-sad craft instead of completing part 2 of our eggs painting. Since this is suppose to be a fun, enjoyable weekends activity, I let them decide. The children help by laying the table with newspaper, while I get the crafts ready. I have got the same designs for the 3 of us (to avoid fighting over designs). After demonstrating how to stick the sand on the picture, we are on our own freedom to let imagination go wild... by selecting colours of own liking on the picture. We have great fun on our sand craft. Both children take pride in their own art work. Several times, Cieran will run over to show his daddy the added on sand colours on his picture. While working on his craft, Cieran has also mention that he will gives his art work to his teacher from Lorna. Take a look at our crafts... don't you think it's beautiful? I will get more of such crafts again, so that we can have fun working on it again next time. What a enjoyable weekends we had!

Children's Sand Play with Little Clara

Waking up in the morning and had a sudden thought to bring the kids to East Coast for sand play. As such, I message my sisters if they will be keen to join. It turned out that little Clara will be joining us. This is the 2nd time the children play sand with Clara. We agreed to meet at McDonalds for breakfast before heading to the beach. We arrived 1st and got a seat outside by the playground. The children play with eyes watching over our stuffs while I went to buy breakfast. The children shared a fish burger and iced Milo, while I enjoyed my sausage and egg muffin. Little Clara had cereal before we headed towards the beach. The children were trilled when we finally walked towards the beach. Cieran was the 'big brother', holding Clara's hand and Ashley helped carrying the sand equipments. We settled down on our usual spot with shade and immediately, the children start on their 'project'. Watching the children was a joy. My sister, Marcus and I sat by the mat and relaxed. The sand was moist from the rain the night before, which was great for sand play. We stayed for an hour before we slowly walked to our cars and headed home. Great that the children had some fun time!