Christmas activities for toddlers.

Quite late post on the things we have done on Christmas Day, but as I have a lot of things to share with you, and the pleasure to write another post of the day, I want to share our experience on the Montessori things we´ve done on that magic days of Christmas. I hope these ideas will be useful for you for the next year or for the future. Any comments are very welcome.

I thought about activities that would entertain my toddler and would help me to motivate him to stay away of youtube, the only thing that I am aware and I think it gets more complicated to restrict him once he grows.

The idea was to prepare: a Christmas tree, Santa Claus, a wreath and an unusual toy for Christmas tree. All these things were prepared from recicled things.

Christmas tree.

For this toy we needed: green watercolor, pompoms-little ones, and sticks of ice creams.

First step was to color into green all parts of Christmas tree. I think that my kid enjoyed this part more than any other thing of preparations.

Santa Claus

For this I needed: toilet paper, red color paper, scissors, glue, removing makeup discs, white stickers

Wreath for Christmas Tree

This was the easiest thing to do for me, and quite complicated for my toddler as this require a lot of patience.

I needed:  different colors paper, scissors and glue.

A toy for Christmas tree

I needed: pompoms, toilet paper tube, yellow color spray, glue.

Very easy thing to do for our kid, he enjoyed working with pompoms and glue.

Christmas Tree

1st Christmas Tree

I needed: colored paper, pompoms, glue, scissors

2nd Christmas Tree

I needed: paper, pompoms, glue, scissors, watercolors

As it was mentioned before all these activities are screen free activities. From my experience once the toddler grows up the task to keep him away of tv and other screen free activities is very complicated.

P.S. Be aware once you propose your toddler such activities, as I have used some dangerous utilities, and it is very important to make use of these very accurate and let your toddler to work with them less and only in your presence.

Enjoy your free time with your kid.

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Carnival 2016

Uhhh.. finnaly I managed to write a post.

Things go fast, our toddler is growing, I am happy the way he grows and how easier things become every day. He begins to be independent, to play alone and leave me with more time for myself. But, this doesn´t mean that me and my husband do not help on his developing skills in either way.

Today, I will talk about Carnival that were in his nursery this year. I think, that this year was the first one, when our toddler really enjoyed all the week, and went to the nursery very happy. All these, because every day he had to go to the nursery masked, and last day, on Friday, the nursery was one who prepares disguise for all children. I went on Friday to see him, and to listen all the songs that they prepared for Carnival. It was a very good experience, for me and for our toddler. I was proud of him, as he wasn´t crying or bored about the idea of Carnival, and he was proud as his mom comes to see him.

Some pictures below. How cute is he on elfs disguise¿?

xoxoxo

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Mataro - another choice for a beach getaway out of Barcelona

It is true that we have never stayed there overnight, always or we were going to any other place and stayed for a few hours on the beach, or another times we went early in the morning and got back to Barcelona late in the evening. So, we do not have experienced our family stay for more that 1 day on this beach. Even though, I would highly recommend this place for more than 1 day, as the beach is clean, the water is cristaline and you have an expectacular view of the sunshine on the sea with a lot of ships and yachts enjoying the sail.

Water is little bit colder than in Barcelona, but as children love water, they are not afraid of it´s coldness.

I really enjoy less crowded beaches as there is easier to stay with a kid, you are not worried if he is gone further than few meters away from your place, and your kid will really appreciate your kindness to give him more freedom to investigate the beach and water. Apart of that, on this beach we found precious fish shells.

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Getaway to L´Ampolla

Last weekend we had a very last minute getaway, as we were invited to stay in a house of one of my husband´s friends in a small village near L´Ampolla, this village is considered a part of this town, as I even don´t really know it´s name. L´Ampolla it is about 150km away from Barcelona and as well it is within Catalunya. We went there on Saturday and come back on Sunday...huuh... we got tired. But, you know, it was worth doing this getaway. As, since I live in Spain I have never had such an experience. What I mean? The experience to be so far from crowds and a lot of cars. We enjoyed the sounds of the waves of the sea, we have listened grasshoppers and even we have enjoyed the pure silence of this village. Damian was running there and forth in the late evening as the weather was fantastic, not hot enough neither cold enough, just great to take a walk through the village and see very Spanish townhouses.

As well on this village we(I) have seen for the first time olive gardes, I was happy as a kid, as I have never seen in one place so many olive trees.

On Sunday we left this quiet place and went to L´Ampolla, and more to this to the Natural Park of Ebro (Parque Natural de l´Ebro), another quiet place, by the way, where apart of the silence we could enjoy the sounds of different birds. We walked almost 4km to get to the place where Ebro spills into the sea, there we have seen flamingos, a lot of them, and very near of us. These weren´t pink, were white, but it was wonderful to see all these beauties.

Even if we were very tired of this getaway, I had finally find a place where to look for the silence.

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Festa al cel 2015 (Air show)

Huuuh... time flies I don´t know were. Almost one month I haven´t written any post... I feel really sorry for this... too many things happened, a lot of getaways, I will post about them later on other posts... I promise.

Yesterday, we went to a very known air show in Mataro (a town like 30 km away from Barcelona), called ¨Festa al Cel¨, an air show that take place once a year or at the beach of Mataro or at any beach in Barcelona, and it is amazing. Every year we go to see this show, the only thing that last 2 years it was raining and the show lost of its amazingness :).

Damian likes all about the planes, how they fly and even he enjoyed every flight we had, so this show was perfect for him. We discussed about this show previous days, we wanted him to prepare for this air show, and he was very excited about this idea. He even showed us how planes fly and so on. But, once we were there, he got bored, I don´t know why. Maybe because there were too crowded, or too hot or too sunny. As he looked after planes just first few minutes, then we had to pay him attention to every plane that had passed. Even though, there were a great weather, and we decided to lay on the beach and enjoy not only the airshow, but as well sun and beach.

image: www.totmataro.cat

image: www.festaalcel.com

image: facebook- Bravo3 Aerobatic Team

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Ideas for inside activities for toddlers

There is clean in the house only when children are at their grandparents... told somebody. This happened to be our case this week, as our toddler stayed with his grandparents (my parents-in-law). And now, I have plenty of time to prepare new toddler activities, for upcoming days, for our toddler.

Today, I will share just a part of prepared inside activities for toddlers. Something I have bought, something I decide to do myself. I am more of DYI, but sometimes I need some inspiration, and books are just perfect combination of DYI activities and professional activities :).

1. Crafting/ Painting - I know that our toddler enjoys painting. I proposed to make some crafts, easy ones, that he will enjoy to paint. I choose to craft objects that are well known by my toddler, as butterflies, cars and motorcycles. He will paint these objects with watercolors.

The main objective of this inside activity is to develope his fine motor skill of handling the brush and to take watercolor with the brush. Another objective is to learn colors and associate a color with an object.

2. BOOKS - I think books are the easiest inside activity for mums, as there are a plenty of things to do, written by professionals in this field and you just have to read and decide what to do with your kid. The books that I have bought for our toddler are about maths, letters and discovering the nature. As you can see, these books are for prescholar kids, that is why I will change excercises to be easier to make.

What I propose to do:
- to learn properly counting, and to count objects, I mean not just expect my toddler to count from 1 to 10, but to count like 1 potato, 2 potatoes and so on.
- to discover what is the weather and how it is changes. Ex. Wind, Rain, Sunshine etc.
- to learn small poems
- to learn new fruits, vegetables, things that we haven't learnt yet

Next week I will share with you an update of these great inside toddler activities, and how my toddler enjoys playing.

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Back on track - 2 weeks out of socials and blog

I haven't mentioned before that we are going on holidays as I supposed I will have plenty of free time to write you even more articles and share with you much more ideas of toddler activities and share motherhood tips with you. But, as every time happens, when I have holidays with my parents and my sister family, socials and blog came on second plan. I am really sorry for you... but being sicere I spent wonderfully these 2 weeks. Sometimes I think we need to disconnect from virtual life and to make a stronger connection with real life and the thing will go even better than before.


Before writing this article I wanted to share with you another thoughts and ideas, but during the day I saw a video about our dependance of IT things and how we lose great moments of our kids and family, like their first smile, first challenge to write, to paint, their first time playing alone with toys and so on. I do not judge any mum here, as I found myself in that video as well. After wathing that youtube video I thought that there won't be more socials while I am with my baby, there will be just me and my toddler, and no virtual life.

Last 2 weeks full of positive emotions made me realize that happiness is just around us and we must take it and feel it. I want my kid in 10 or 20 years to enjoy spending time with me and not with his virtual life once he will visit me.

Enjoy the moment and leave socials alone!

P.S. This article was written on my way back at home from work.

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Printables - Discover marine life with TODDLERS

I love printables!

I know, I repeat it every time I write a post about printables. It is true that it is a lot of work that has to be done before writing a post about printables. As you have to:

- look for nice pictures in internet
- create a power point with printables and print them
- cut and prepare printables for my toddler
- play with my toddler at least 2 times, till he ask me to play with printables.

But as any big work has a compensation, the results compensate all the work done before. I mean that printables:

- develop my toddler´s language skills
- learn about surrounding world, in this case marine/ocean life
- increase toddler´s concentration
- increase toddler´s love for environment
- change of type of games
- it is screen free activity (for what I like it)

To be sincere my toddler, first time when see printables, doesn´t accept them like a game, only after second time of showing these to him, he enjoys printables. It is interesting enough as, after few times of playing, he asks me to repeat and to see printables one more time. And of course, he loves good quality printables, he really dislikes if the image is pixelated. :)

Here you go with our free printables

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Swimming pool and toddlers

When you think of swimming pool, do you think about how great is to enjoy swimming? Right? Yes, it is true, kids as well enjoy playing in water, but of course depending on their age and their habits to swim.

It is well known that infants can swim in the water and control their breath by themselves. I do not know why, but this habit disappear once they grow up. I always thought that once I will have my baby, I will go with him to the pool from early days, well, this idea remains as an idea and nothing more. We began (our lovely daddy began) to go with our babay at swimming pool after he got 1 year. There were a lot of cries and screamings, as he didn´t enjoy as much water as we thought he will do. He was really afraid of water, but every time they went to the pool, this fear disappeared, and our lovely toddler enjoyed more and more pool and swimming. It is true that even now, he doesn´t like that we put him any protection and this means that daddy has to stay with him during his stay in water.

In summer, at gym, where we go to the pool, they open the little swimming pool, created for children, so, there he enjoys playing alone in the water, but we vigilate him.

Last few times daddy began to show our toddler how to swim, and gave him some classes. There is no any progress yet, but for sure he enjoys a lot their time at swimming pool.

Share with us your experience at swimming pool.

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Throwing & Catching a ball. Toddler outside activity

Looking through studies about toddlers development I have found a really interesting information about the topic we will discuss today. Throwing balls our kids are able more or less from their 18th month, I mean a conscient throw of a ball, not simple throwing of any objects, that even babies of 6 months are able to do. But how about catching? I was quite surprised when last week I tried to play with our toddler in catching a ball, and he perfectly did that. I wouldn´t say that he can catch 100% of times I throw him the ball, but more or less every time. As well, here depends on the distance between us, less distance, more possibilities to catch a ball.

I have never thought about this game before, but seems like a great outside activity for our toddler. According studies, were made about development of toddlers and kids of different ages, were seen that such a simple game as throwing and catching the ball, develop ‘hand-eye’ or ‘foot-eye’ coordination (when our eyes work together with our hands or feet), develop timing and balance of a kid. This skills are not an inherent skills, these are more learnt through repetition. This mean that more you play with your kid, more you will develop this skills in your child, no secrets at all here :).

The game is simple, you as a parent has to stay in front of your toddler having a short distance between you. Once you see that your toddler has mastered the skill to catch the ball you gently throw the ball from the larger distance. Eventually, you can move on to larger or shorter distance depending on how perform your toddler in catching the ball.

It is important in the process of the game, leave your child to catch the ball as many times as it is possible and engourge him doing this activity by telling him about his wonderful work of catching a ball. He must be proud of the results, to be motivated to play other time as well.

Here are some lovely images while we played this game.

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10 SECRETS of happy mama to build SELF-ESTEEM of your toddler

On how you will build your kid´s self-esteem, depends his happiness, and his mental health. As a parent you are responsible of your kid´s happiness and future, why not to make him happy from his early ages and be confident on what he does.

Confident people inspire other people to big deals. Usually the society would accept ideas and would prefer a confident person to a person with a lower self-esteem, even if the ideas of another one can be better. Just take a look to your circle as an adult, who do you listen more?

I can´t say firmly that I am very confident person, but it is true that I read and develop this skill within me. During my life, all the best things which had happened to me were due to my high confidence and in that moments.

Studies show that you can grow your self-esteem during your life, but real self-esteem is built at early ages, till 5 years more or less. Why at this stage? Because, during first 5 years of life you discover the world in which you live, the people nearby, your body and your mind.

I am not a psychologist and I do not insist on my ideas. Every parent has the right to educate his child on his own way. This is why I share with you my top 10 secrets that I do for growing self-esteem of my toddler. If you want to add any own secret, please comment. We like comments :)

1. Give hugs - Earlier, before being a mum, I had read an interesting article about the importance of touching. All people feel safe while hugging. This fact is for one simple reason; baby in mother´s utter has very few space, and his position inside the utter is like he is hugged by his mother and protected during his first 9 months of living. Even if we do not remember our first 9 months of living, our body remember. And a hug of a parent for a kid is like a recharger of happiness batery and his feeling of being safe.

2. Tell your toddler I LOVE YOU - even if it is a boy, he must know that he is loved by his parents, and that he is appreciated. All of us need to hear these magic 3 words.

3. Tell him he is smart and pretty - all children seem their perfection and they love their body and how they look like, but unfortunately after a lot of studies, have been seen that from 5 years they begin to feel uncomfortable with their body and begin to compare themselves with other children of their age. It is important that you observe this and explain him that he is perfect in his way.

4. Ask questions. If you want to know more about your toddler, ask him questions, it is a perfect way to find what he thinks about. At this stage it it important not to impose your ideas. You have to understand that you had your childhood at least 20 years ago, so many changes happened during this time, that your ideas are a little bit obsolete. In any case your child will repeat you and will be a little ¨copy¨ of you and your partner. By asking questions, let him discover the world, create his imagination and feelings. He is thinking while he answers you.

5. Listen - when you ask your toddler anything, please, be patient and listen what he wants to tell you. If every time when your kid will talk you won't listen, do not expect him after few years that he will share his thoughts with you.

6. Sing and dance with him - music forms his flexibility. Your child needs to understand that he is the Master of his body, every move has to be coordinated and understood by him. Music helps a lot your child´s to possess his body.

7. Ask for help - do not compel your child to do something. Ask him for a favor, and he will grow like a flower, because he will feel that he is doing something amazing by helping you.

8. Play together - remember about your childhood, and play with your kid as being of his age. I am sure you will enjoy as much as he does. He will find in you a good friend that is ready to be nearby.

9. Travel together - it is really fun to learn this amazing world with him, you feel like a team who discover the places that has been never seen buy you.

10. Be his HOME - your child must feel, that whatever and wherever he goes, there is always a place where he can come for relief. And if something bad or good happened to him, there is always a person waiting for hime to discuss his problem. Be his HOME!

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Tossa - wonderful beach and cristaline water. What can be better for summer holidays.

Tossa de Mar or Tossa, is a coast on Costa Brava. This town it is one of the most touristy places in summer. It is about 100 km north of Barcelona, so it easy to get there for us. We have never stoped there for holidays, but we think of it. We were in Tossa last year for the weekend, and it remains in our hearts and as a place to get back and spent some holidays there.

Water is colder there than in Barcelona, but this fact doesn´t make that children to play in water and bath there. Apart of it´s beautiful beaches, you choose some water activities like diving and discover marine life as it is full of wonderful plants and fishes. We wait our kid to get older and to dive with him. I hope this activity will attract him as much as it attracts us.

As Damian was 1 year only, he mainly sit in a stroller, so we enjoyed the fortress and other beautiful streets of this outstanding town. I urge you to come to see this wonderful place of Costa Brava.

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5 things to take with you at the beach. Dedicated to mums with toddlers

Last year I have written a similar post , please look here, but it was dedicated to mums with babies. Now, I decided to share some tips for mums with toddlers.

During last two weeks in Barcelona was too hot, and we went to the beach as many times as we could, as in our flat it was almost impossible to stay. Our toddler really loves the idea to bath in the sea, and to refresh a little bit. Every day at the beach, suppose to have our bag ready to go. That is why I have my top things to take with us and do not miss anything while laying at beach.

Here you go with our 5 Top things to take with you, when you have a toddler:

1. A cap and changing clothes - toddlers like to run and throw away sand, and it something normal that I have to change his clothes on our way back to home.

2. Toys , we take a lot of toys with us, the most important toy is our ball, as our son enjoys playing football with his father.

3. Food and water -  it is commonly known that at the beach you get hungry and thirsty, be ready your child will have a higher appetite there.

4. Solar cream - we take one with highest protection, as our kid had chickenpox, and it is highly recommended to expose less his skin to the sun for almost one year after he had chickenpox.

5. Towel and beach blanket.

If you have some special things that you use to take with your kid at the beach, please share.

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10 Summer Activities for Kids - inspired from other blogs

Those who follow me on twitter have already seen some tweets about how hot is in Barcelona this summer. More than for 2 weeks we do not do any other activities at home than storytelling while our toddler is playing in water with his toys. And on weekends we go to the beach, to play in water and to pass great time together.

Looking through other blogs that I use to follow, I have seen a lot of ideas of toddler activities for this summer. So, I would like to share some ideas with you:

1. Water baloon hunt  - this game is amazing, I saw kids playing even in the parks of Barcelona.

2. Summer ice cubes - I loved this idea, for sure our toddler will enjoy playing with these ice cubes

3.Sponge water bombs - I think it is the easiest game I have ever seen to prepare and to enjoy it with kids.

4. Home made giant bubbles -  I have seen this kind of bubbles for the first time in the parks of Barcelona and it amazed me, I didn´t know that it is not so difficult to make at home as well.

5. Water displacement activity - this one is great one for toddlers 3+, I will wait for one year more.

6. OMG- this one, has to be so much fun for your toddler - Bubble Wrap Stomp Painting

7. This Sponge building is amazing games for adults as well. I was playing something similar with my colleagues at an offsite. Brings your attentions and develop your thinking

8. Writing in Sugar or in flour, I have seen different ways to do, it is wonderful montessori activity for your toddler. It brings their attention and makes them develop sensitive skills

9. Ice Chalk - how great is to write with an ice chalk ? I liked the idea

10. Rainbow Bubble Snakes - firstly it is very beautiful to see a lot of bubbles, then it amaze our children to see them.


Once I will try them, I will publish our images as well.

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Tiger is our best friend. How nursery teach from early months to care somebody?

In every nursery there is a toy, that represents the class. And during the year this toy is shown as being one of the best friend of a class, which kids have to care. Then every week one of toddlers is choosen to be a Hero of the week. This means that they have to take this toy at home during the weekend, to care of this, play with this and be amazed as this one of theirs best friend in the nursery. It is likely to take one of your best friend to stay with you at home.

Our son, was choosen as Hero of the week this weekend, the main character is Tiger. Our toddler had to play, read, sleep and care of Tiger. We had to make some images and then to print them and give them to the nursery. During this week, Damian will explain (I don´t know how) to his mates how he passed his weekend with theirs common best friend Tiger.

My thoughts. It was amazing to see our kid to be so keen of caring of this toy, and time he dedicated to play with it. I suppose that even if he is not talking too many words, he is aware about his experience as he has seen it before in his kidergarden and saw how others was caring of this toy. Then I thought that it is wonderful that they learn in the nursery to take care of something and somebody, they teach them then to express their emotions during this process of care. This develops his social interaction with other kids and as well to grow his self esteem as being a hero in the eyes of his mates.

Our toddler even posed for taking the photos. This means that he knows what will follow :).

Here you go with this lovely experience.

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Painting as part of developing Fine Motor Skills on toddlers

   It is well known that children like to paint. It is a messy process but this is a part of their development. I love to give my toddler crayons and leave him alone to create his paintings, and while he paints I can prepare food or do any other work by home.

Reading through internet some information about how painting affects developing on our children I have found that fingerprints were used long time ago, almost 13000 years ago, children used to paint on walls and were drawing not only simple lines but also symbolic shapes. This makes us understand the importance of painting in children´s development.

This week, from nursery I received a booklet with all of works done by our kid. I have seen that they used to do different fine motor activities like painting with fingerprints, with a sponge, with an apple, drawing with cryons and so on. All these activities help him continuously to get used with colors, shapes, forms. Apart of that, when they work in group, doing the same thing together, they learn to share and to interact with each other, they learn to cleanup and to put materials away.

At home I try to find time to draw together with my child, usually he asks me to draw something, like a butterfly or a dog or a cat. Even if I don´t draw professionally, I try to show him how these animals or things look like. In this way he creates associations and understand that a picture means something in real world. I think this kind of toddler activity helps my toddler to be creative and develope his imagination. As well it is easier through painting to teach him colors and shapes.

In conclusion I would like to enumerate all advantages of painting with your kids.Through painting they:

- develop fine motor skills, get their fingers used to handling
- get used to texture of crayons, watercolors, sponge, apples, etc
- how to paint while paper moves and to handle this
- express their thoughts and feelings
- learn basic colors, and their mixture
- develop sensitive skills like: smelling, touching, hearing and sometimes tasting

Sometimes it is a messy work, but please do not think only on that, your kid will have a lot of fun.

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