Hannah Learned to Ride a 2-Wheeler!!!

Hannah was close to learning how to ride a 2 wheeled bike without training wheels just before the snow flew but on her first day out this spring she mastered it! 

There are still some wobbles

and the occasional fall

but my girl has officially said goodbye to her training wheels and is now free wheeling!!

Way to go Hannah!!!

A Treasured Gift

When Hannah turned 3, M3 and I were chatting about gift ideas and she told me how much her girls had enjoyed the Disney Junior magazine when they were Hannah’s age.  I mentioned this to my parents and they purchased a 1 year subscription for her.  This gift quickly became a treasure and something she checked the mail for on almost a daily basis.  We receive either 6 or 8 magazines each year so it’s a long wait between them but she reads them over and over and over again!  (There are times when I spot it in the box but if we don’t have time for her to delve into it or if she’s not with me I leave it there for her to discover the following day.)  MMC magazine days are special days where she gets to get out of the car and help me collect the mail.  A special treat for sure!

These magazines are a wonderful combination of reading, writing activities, craft ideas as well as cutting and pasting. 

This year may parents extended her subscription again and she’s still just as excited now as she was then to open the mail box and see her magazine waiting!

This is what I hear each time she climbs back into the car.

The moment she’s buckled back into her car seat the magazine is open and then once home she can often be found walking down the hallway still reading it as she makes her way to a comfy spot to pour herself into her magazine.

If you’re looking for a gift that keeps on going for your 2-5yo, I don’t think you can go wrong with Disney Junior.  There’s nothing better thank making supper and seeing your child absorbed in a good book!

Science Fun–Part II

Hannah received a really neat birthday gift from her little friend Ella.  (Pic from last October.  Can’t believe how they’ve both grown in this short amount of time!!)

Ella gave her a Primary Science Lab Set.

Hannah has been excited to try out this fun kit and recently we tried our first experiment.  It was a great success!  One of her favourite books to read is White Rabbit’s Color Book.  We’ve read it many times and it’s about a little white rabbit who hops into a pot of yellow paint.  Next he hops into a pot or red paint.  Expecting to turn red he’s surprised when instead he turns orange!

The first experiment the kit suggests is mixing water with food colouring to create new colours.  But, rather than just doing it in little bowls the kit supplies test tubes with lids and holders plus an eye dropper, all kid sized and made of sturdy plastic.

What fun we had!!

Step 1 was assembling the materials and donning the safety goggles included in the kit.

Step 2 involved filling the test tubes with water and some drops of red, yellow and blue food colouring.

Finally Hannah used to eye dropper to add the red water to the yellow and blue tubes.  What fun it was to see her little face light up when she saw what we’d read about many times actually be displayed before her eyes!

As soon as we finished she asked if we could do another experiment!  I love it when learning is fun for my girlie!

I’m hoping we can do another experiment this coming week and it will be a fun one.  We’re going to put pennies in water and others in lemon juice to see what happens.  It will be fun to watch her reaction.  When we go to Disney she creates pressed pennies for her collection and is saving for those.  How fun it will be for her to have bright shiny pennies that she created for herself to use for her pressed penny creations!

Science Fun–Part I

The weekend before Hannah turned 4 I received a call from my SIL while we were at gymnastics.  They were headed into the city to go to the Ontario Science Centre and invited us to join them.  I quickly said yes and plans to meet in an hour were set in motion.  It was one of the last things where she would still get in for free.  *sigh*  Oh well, it was a fun way to say good-bye to the ‘baby’ freebies offered!
When Hannah found out she was going to spend the day with her cousin Kenna she was jumping with joy! 
I haven’t been to this museum since I was a kid but Hannah has been a couple of times with Ange.  (The most amazing daycare provider in the world!!)  There is an area that is similar to the children’s museums that we’ve been to when visiting friends in the states so Hannah and Makenna were in their glory. 
First stop – grocery store!

Shortly after we arrived there was a craft class offered and the girls were all over that!  We made pinwheel hats that ended up being really neat.
Makenna and Daddy (my brother Dave) working together
Adding the first set of beads.
Showing off her finished product.
She wanted to see if she could make it go around and I think she thought the additional height of the stool would be helpful.
The girls taking their new hats for a spin – literally!

Kallen was their ever patient cheerleader and kept an eye on the girls!
Water play is always a hit with the kiddos!

Hannah had me in splits at the fishing pond!  Other kids were gently dropping their lines into the water to catch fish but my girlie was attempting to cast over her shoulder.  LOL!  Mr. Cory would be proud!

Our future astronauts!
At the craft station.  Less is never more for my girlie.
As we were waiting for my brother to get the van I caught this sweet picture of Hannah playing pee-a-boo with her baby cousin.
Thanks for sharing such a wonderful day with us Uncle Dave and Auntie Trish! 
We had a great day with you!
This final pic just made me laugh.  As I was trying to figure out the logistics of moving Hannah to a place where she would stay asleep while we moved her car seat from the van back into our car, David came up with this solution.  Heh!  He was able to move her in her seat (by pulling her out the back door of the van after reclining the seat!) and securely install her car seat (faster then I ever can!!), all the while Hannah slept.  The next time she woke up was the following morning in our bed!  Dave – you rock!

Wow!!! It Won’t Be Long Now!

Tonight Hannah and I sat down to read some little books that are some beginner readers.  When she started preschool in September she recognized the letters in her name but that was all.  I noticed her growing and learning immediately and she loves to soak in new things.  By nature she’s my ‘get it done quickly’ gal and we’re working on that but that seems to be changing bit by bit too.  I see differences in her tap lessons and gymnastics and she’s beginning to slow down and work on how she accomplishes something rather than racing for the sake of being done.

Tonight we sat down to read a great little set of books that we’ve read twice before.  What happened shocked and amazed me!!  I know that she’s not technically ‘reading’ this book because if I gave her the words without the pics she wouldn’t know them yet but oh my – she sure is close!  I’m sure it won’t be long until Hannah really is reading!  I will be moving her into French Immersion when she enters Grade 1 so it’s important to me that she has a foundation in reading English before that happens.  I realized tonight that that will not be a problem at all!

Here is my 3yo (okay – 3 days shy of 4yo) ‘reading’ for the very first time!  Way to go Hannah XiaoFen!

A Little Snip Here and A Little Cut There!

You would think Hannah won the lottery tonight!  For the first time ever she was given some little scissors to use and oh, the squeals of glee!  Before they were in her hand we had a talk about what she is able to cut: )Paper and only paper mommy says is ‘okay.’   Hopefully she remembers that for a very long time but I’m sure she’ll accomplish that right of passage someday and mommy will find little wisps (I hope it’s only wisps!) of beautiful black hair somewhere other than on her head.  Oye!  Already dreading that!

But for tonight, it was construction paper at the ready and an independent little girl with her own scissor style.  Picking my battles, it was easier just to let her have fun tonight with her own creative way of holding the scissors.

Hannah enjoyed this activity for well over half an hour and just kept snipping away and talking about how proud everyone would be of her!  She can’t wait to show her new skill to all her loved ones so if you see us within the next week or so, be prepared to be wowed with some awesome scissor skills!

This pic makes me giggle as does the video after it.  As I watched her cut away I noticed that most times her little tongue went in and out with each little snip.  So cute!

Cutting is exhausting work!

We had a few minutes after the paper play before it was time for bed so Hannah pulled out her Duplo blocks.  What fun to build a tower with her!  We haven’t played with these for a month or so and I was totally impressed with how her skills had changed and improved even in that very short amount of time!

Way to go Hannah XiaoFen!!  Awesome tower!

Sorting, Colours and Using Chopsticks!

I found another great activity for Hannah to try and she had a lot of fun with it.  I switched it up a bit and made it using small tin pie plates with construction paper discs in them, pompoms and chopsticks. 
I just let Hannah go as I was interested to see how she chose to do this.  It was cute to see how she chose one of each pompom colour and put them in their corresponding containers. 
Her colours are coming along much better in the past month or so and she knows most of them although often calls pink, purple.  She’s also at the point where she will tease and when asked the colour of something she purposefully says a different colour until I say a wrong colour too and then she quickly corrects me.  Oh yes, she is a clever bunny!
Two handed chopstick style. 
Picking up pompoms takes great concentration
I love how she has her little feet tucked under her
A video of my little lamb working on her project.  Before I went over she was chattering away to herself which she does often and it was oh so cute!  You hear a little bit of it at the beginning.  Heh…she is her mother’s daughter!

While she continued playing I checked some emails.  When I peeked back around the couch I had to laugh.  I think her neat little bowls of pompoms had decided to throw themselves all over the floor!
Tidying up is something that still needs lots of encouragement and mommy’s participation but we’re getting there.  Today when it was time we made quick work of cleaning up the pompoms together.
Hannah enjoyed this sorting game for over 20 minutes so I know it’s an activity we’ll be doing again.
On another note, we’re trying an experiment and it’s going pretty well.  Hannah has learned the difference between ‘stop’ and ‘go’ and with all the craft and activity supplies we’re accumulating I made signs for this bin and began to store things in there.
The green ‘go’ drawers mean she’s welcome to take out the things in there and play with them at anytime she wants.  In those drawers are crayons, paper, pompoms, pipe cleaners, stickers and we’ll be adding more things as time goes on.  The red ‘stop’ drawers contain things she can play with but must ask Mommy first, mainly so that I know she’s got those items out.  In the ‘stop’ drawers are play-doh, glue, markers and eventually will be scissors but right now those stay up where I can give them to her and watch carefully err a piggy be removed!
I have been finding lots of great activities for Hannah on Pinterest and will be sharing more of those here.  It’s wonderful how much fun this website has added to the time we share together.