Flintobox review : Space Explorer theme

For the month of may I received  the Space Explorer theme from Flintobox.

The content of the box were:

• craft - Mission Moon
• Book - Fire in the sky 
• Conceptual - Constellation
• skills  - Solar System
• skills  - Race to the moon

First we started with Race to the moon game. Its a game similar in concept to snakes and ladder but its well designed to teach basic maths to kids, like go back two steps or jump forward 1 step. Also throwing the dice and counting dots on it, improves hand and eye coordination skill of kids.

  

Second was Solar system , it was in the form of a jigsaw puzzle. Just putting together the puzzle pieces give kids lot of insight about the solar system. Then it  has some see through tags which you have to put on each planet then ask question related to the planet . The tags have information printed on both sides . 

The craft activity that was included in this box is called Mission Moon. There is a canvas on which the child pastes moon and a rocket shoots to the star. Taking out the shapes from precut pieces improves fine motor skills. The additional activity was making the stars . Though we get the shapes precut but small detailing like sprinkling sparkle on stars kids have to do. Sma was with the mooon you have to sprinkle moon dust over it.

The conceptual activity was observing constellations through torch light. there was also a bunch of pieces using  which the chid can  make his own constellations.

Flintobox review : Box-1 : World Traveller theme

Since I could see many actvity boxes in markets for keeping your child busy , I just browsed over a few of them and I  ordered for flintobox 3 months subscription which I got at a price of Rs. 695 per box, there was some offer going on and this was the reduced price. A total of 3 boxes cost me around Rs. 2200 including the delivery charges.
My child is of the age group 4-8 years. The first box I received was based on World Traveller Theme.
When I opened the box I found the following items:

• craft - Flag of the world
• Conceptual - World traveller Map
• skills  - Map trotter
• learning - passport
• Book - Continent toss 

In flags of the world, kids had to make flags of 4 countries . The items provided were :

• Fabric base
• Colourful Felt stickers
• string
• Hooks

On the Fabric base kids have to stick felt stickers which were pre-cut in shapes required to make the flags. Children have to stick each piece by looking at the flags picture. My child was able to do all by himself. There had to make flags Japan, China , France and Brazil. Then they have to string the flags and they can hang it in their room.
I felt my child learn many things from this activity like names of different countries, flags as representation of a county , Why a flag is required by the country. Then it involved fine motors too in activities like sticking the sticker and stringing the flags. It developed his sensory skills too as the material provided was of different textures.

The next activity was map trotter, the items included for this were :

• World Map
• Game Cards
• Game boards
• Game chops
• Clothespin
• Foam Stickers
• Landmark & Travellers

On the world map kids have to stick all the landmarks using foam stickers. Then attach a traveller to a clothespin . Now they have to pick one game card and mark their traveller at the landmark which was specified in the game card and place a game chips over the landmark covered on game board.

The second player also precedes the same way.  A player wins when four game chips form a sequence horizontally, vertically or diagonally. 

Now in the Continent Toss activity the items included were:

• Continent game boards
• Stands
• Continent Cards
• Soft ball

Kids have to first attach stands on Continent game boards. Each player has to stand at a distance and throw the soft ball through one of the continents.  Then they have to pick out a card of  that continent and read facts about that continent. The player with the highest number of cards wins. This game enhances the child's gross motor skills when child exercises their arms and legs, while aiming and throwing the soft ball.  It also improve hand-eye coordination and concentration , when child aims and throws in the hole in the game board. It also teaches them sporty spirit. 

Overall the world traveller flintobox was a wonderful experience of  playing and learning together for my child.

Benefits of playing with clay

Whenever you find that your child is getting bored and cannot go outside for playing or not enjoying playing with his toys then Clay is very good option that can be used for playing indoors.

Clay is easily available in the market as play dough or you can make your Homemade clay from this link.

Playing with clay involves your child for long hours it also has these additional benefits  :

• creativity :  playing with clay builds your child's imagination four-fold. you can create almost anthing with them. Be it aby anymal, bird insect or any wild creture that comes to your child's imagination

• fine motor skills : these are building up of muscle tissues in fingers of children

• patience : playing, moulding clay , sitting for hours, teaches children patience, perseverance, problem solving and self-regulation

• activity based learnign : clay can also be used for colour sorting  or designing letters or numbers , children can make alphabets of their own names

• visualisation and coordination : Using hands and eyes together for moulding and rolling the clay increases the children's hand and eye coordination.

• family time : Playing with clay relaxes adults also , so playing along with kids you can also relax and develop some family time together

Fun from package cartons

Last week i had ordered for a toy hut for my little one from amazon online. The parcel came packed in a  tall box.  Generally we use these package boxes for storing extra materials at home but I couldn't understand how should i use this box because of its big size rather uneven size(less width and more height).

So, I planned to make some craft with it. I thought of making a little kitchen set for my daughter. I started by cutting the box into two parts where, considering top parts'height suitable for my child to stand and play.  From the other half, I again cut out the base to add a raised platform inside the bigger cutout and give support to my kitchen's base.

Now the structure of kitchen set was ready like this. Next, I  made two cut out for inserting pull out drawers. For making the pull out drawers i used old shoe boxes.
I also made one pull-down oven like bracket in the kitchen module.From the back side I covered this socket with another cardboard box. to look like a rack.

Now I had to do detailing of the kitchen like to add sink and gas. For the sink i took one small flipkart box, measured its base size then made a cutout in the right side of the kitchen platform. Then inserted the box inside this cutout and pasted its flaps outside on the platform.

I also covered the kitchen top with glace paper and play toy kitchen set for my little one was ready :)

Flintobox review : Aquatic life theme

This month I recieved  the Ocean Explorer theme from Flinto.

The content of the box were:

• craft - aquarium on canvas
• Book - Lost at sea 
• science project -submarine with periscope
• skills - snuba-do matching cards

My child started was very exited about making the aquarium. So we started with it first. He painted  the canvas for making his aquarium. The supply set provide by flinto included water colurs, tray, cuttings, moving eyes and messy mat. seeing all this I was content  as to i dont have to rush to get anything else from my own to complete the craft. Also i  felt elated as I was getting the full value for money spent.No after painting he has to make a big fish in the aquarium  with his hand-print, then we completed detailing by pasting other fishes, shells , sand and voila the aquarium was ready.

The second item was submarine making from pre-cut cardboard pieces, the most interesting part of making submarine was making the periscope. It was well engineered and I too was able to revise my concets of science. Seeing through the periscope keeps my child busy any time of the day.

The  third item was matching cards which had 5 item printed on them, related to Aquatic life , Its a good game that teaches the child visual discrimination alongside developing their  vocabulary related to aquatic life.

Overall it was a wonderful Aquatic life experience for my child.

Janamashtmi Celebration

Janmashtmi is a hindu festival on which we celebrate the birthday of Lord krishana. Lord krishna also called as baalgopal or nandlaal during his early childhood years was notorious as a loving ,cairng and mischievous child who loved to eat home-made white butter (called as maakhan). He had many female devotees called gopis and his love for Radha was so eternal and pure that Radha-krishna is synonym for love.

How we celebrated
We set up a jhanki depicting krishna birth and statues showing various krishna leelas.  Since the favourite food of Krishana is makhan , we kept makahn in many matkas.

The Children are asked to come dressed as Krishna ,gopi,radha or gwalas . Mostly boys dress up as krishna and girls as radha.

Take away crafts :
Krishna's favourite thing is maakhan (white butter)which was kept in matkaas in those times . So we made those matkaas' as 2D craft for children. We had coutout  a handmade sheet in the shape of matka then children decorated it with mirror, stones and sparkles.  On the top we pasted some cotton to look like maakhan.

Mango Party celebration

Mango is the most relished food amongst children. To enjoy the onset of summers we had a Mango party celebration for little kindergarteners.



Speak 4 liners

We asked children  to speak  4 lines on Mango . topic could mango as my favorite fruit or facts about mango or any rhyme related to mango..  This exercise improves their spoken skills, make them participative, removes stage frieght , builds confidence.

Group activity 
Children made a huge mango with their hand impression

Takeaway Crafts

Kitchenentte activity

Whenever their is kitchen activity involved we have loads of cheers in school. We made a sweet and tangy drink called Mango Tango. 

• first we churn the mango slices in mixer
• add crushed ice and water
• add some orange juice
• our cool mango tango drink is ready