Kids Archive

What my kids are like, and how to raise your child/children in this day and age.

Creating A Super Hero Bedroom

Getting kids to sleep is never easy, but creating a fun bedroom space for them can at least help with the transition to the bedroom – which is the first barrier to overcome. Many children love superheroes, so this is a great design idea for a child’s room.

The chances are that if your child loves superheroes, he or she will have a particular favourite, usually dreamt up by either DC Comics or Marvel. These characters are designed in such a way as to have an impact using two or three bold, striking colors. If you want to design a room around a particular superhero, you should use these colours as a base – red and blue for example, with a hint of yellow for Superman and a hint of black for Spider-Man.

If you have a little artistic skill, however, you can use a neutral shade for the wall and paint the character over the top – or if you’re feeling particularly inventive, create your own superhero. This can be a great way to engage the child in storytelling, as it provides the freedom for the child to think up his or her own stories for the character.

The bed is obviously an important feature and so you’ll want one which is a little bit fun to engage the child; you can do this by selecting superhero bedspreads for the relevant character. Also, it might be advisable to look for a firm which provides affordable storage beds, like these ones http://www.time4sleep.co.uk/beds/childrens-beds, as you need to free as much shelf space as you can.

This is because action figures are a vital part of completing a superhero bedroom, and these should be out on display, not stuffed away in a box. While the key character should of course have pride of place, the more characters you add the better – your hero needs someone to interact with after all. A great way to finish the room off is with a life-size cardboard cut-out of your chosen hero – that way your child can feel safe with a superhero watching over them.

Alphabet Chart, Number Chart and Nursery Rhymes Chart

When I said that my alphabet chart is the best alphabet chart in the world, I am not kidding.

Started last April, finally, it was conceived. As mentioned in my article about teaching ABC to your kid, the chart will function not just for alphabet familiarization but as well as a tool for phonics. And from that post, I mentioned words/ objects that I will use for the chart. My dilemma in drawing was solved by printing the letters, using clip art for the objects. I cut and paste then add a few color using crayons (oil pastel to some) and voila:

So far, the only confusion is Q where there is a duck.. I still have to explain the sound ducks made.. Row for R was tricky..same with run.. I opted for row so we can sing row row your boat..

With my alphabet chart, teaching phonics will be easier, the chart can be used for teaching how to read 3 letter words, beginning sound, middle sound and last sound.. if you noticed, all vowels were used as middle sound.. fan (jar, van) for a, bed (keg, net..) for e, pig for i, log for o, sun for u and so on..

Aside from the alphabet chart, I also made a number chart.. numbers 1-10 and numbers 11-20 (as requested by Chico):

was too excited to make this number chart that I did not consider the size of the objects used.. seems like 3 and 6 is equal..

This week, I will make colors and shapes chart, I will also make nursery rhymes poster.. this is our list so far:

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (for shape)
The Ants Go Marching One by One (for letter A as well as counting)
Row Row Your Boat (for letter R)
Barney Elephant Song (for letter E)
Butterfly song for F
What the Duckies Do for QUACK QUACK
Wheels on the Bus for letter B
Bahay Kubo (for vegetables)
Sit Down, You’re Rocking The Boat (for Up and Down)

will also make copies of alphabet and number charts to place in our bedroom. And will also plan Chico’s curriculum and Sati’s too. Hopefully by July, we can start homeschooling and of course I will give you updates every week 🙂

Sati’s New Play Clothes: Tie Dyed Shirt with Heart Design

If you have noticed, my boys only wear white sando as their pambahay..it has been that way ever since. And we only buy one kind of sando (Loving Couple sando)..when Sati arrived, most of her clothes were printed house dress or house blouse. Recently, she’s developing a certain likeness to Chico’s sando and insist on wearing it from time to time.. it must be the cooling effect of cotton sando.. but oh boy! she looks like a boy wearing a boy sando!

It’s so hard to say no to this girl.. so I take out my creativity once again, bought a few boy sando, dyed it and sew to make a razor girl sando.. teehee

That’s the finished product.. 10 new sando fro my little girl! to make it a bit more girly, here’s what I did:

I sewed a garter on each side of the sando (leaving at least one inch from top and from the bottom) then sewed the back to give the a more defined razor back effect, and here it is:

Tie dying is one of my favorite thing to do.. when I was in high school, I used to tie dye my old shirt, but I only knew one design, the simplest tie dye design.. circle tie dye. When I had my first born, I learned how to make spiral design with 3 colors and tie dyed some of their clothes with spiral design in red, green and yellow! (reggae yeah!)

Here’s how to to create a spiral design for tie dye:

Take the center of the clothes and start twisting it to form a circle
Tie the clothe and make sure it is tight.
Divide the clothes into 3, then pour dye in each part.
Do it on the other side then rinse with water.

For this project, I used blue, green and red.. not a good color combination haha

For Sati’s play clothes, I had to look for other designs and so far, the easiest was the heart design:

Here’s how to tie dye with a heart design:

Using a white shirt, flat it out then take the center of the front of the shirt.
Fold the center then draw a half heart, mark it heavily
Fold the heart design and make sure that your marking forms a straight line when folded.
Tie the folded shirt, to the part where the markings are

to make a two tone tie dyed shirt, dip the smaller area to the desired color, as it is with the photo above, the heart design submerged into red dye. After that, dip the bigger part to the other color. You can also use one color for this design (like the violet sando above)

Here’s the finished product: