Hey Everyone. Hope you all enjoyed this weeks Polkadots Adventure Activity. If you haven’t seen it yet check out my girls Caydence, Camryn and I on our Nature Obstacle Course on the Polkadots Adventure page.

So lately the girls and I have been feeling rather ADVENTUROUS! Doing obstacle courses has become apart of our daily routine and over time they have begun to evolve. We started doing mini imaginary obstacle courses in the lounge in front of the TV while listening to The Polkadots ” Jump, Shuffle, Jump” song. The girls soon mastered the indoor course and decided it was time to venture outdoors. Wed round up broken tree branches, wooden logs, buckets and chairs and lay them out in a sequence. Then we would run through our backyard obstacles, singing out favourite Polkadots song…

” Jump up and down, up, up and down, foward and back foward and back” The girls would sing as they jumped over the broken tree branch.
“Can you balance on a log, count 1, 2, 3″ they would sing as they crossed their wooden plank.
“Can you climb the highest tree, look what you can see.” They would sing as they imagined their bucket was a giant tree. And . . . “Crawl through a tunnel, shuffle, shuffle” They would sing as they imagined the deck chair was a tiny tunnel.
The girls would race through our imaginary finish line as if they were the winners of an Olympic Race, throwing their hands in the air, laughing and giggling, their confidence growing and growing each time they took up the obstacle challenge.

So now we’ve mastered the indoor imaginary obstacles, we’ve conquered the outdoor “Jump, Shuffle, Jump” obstacles and as you would have seen on the adventure clip we’ve had lots of fun exploring our Nature obstacle course. Caydence and Camryn have definitely become quite familiar with all of these challenges and are now coming up with their own new, exciting and more challenging courses that are literally reaching new heights, and quite possibly starting to enter into the EXTREME category of toddler obstacle courses.

Sarah and Camryn had a great time on their obstacle course

Today Brooklyn had a very special treat for afternoon tea – a juicy, succulent, fleshy, WATERMELON! But this afternoon tea was no ordinary afternoon tea.
As soon Brooklyn saw the watermelon there were a few excited giggles. As I placed the watermelon on the chopping board, Brooklyn immediately associated the shape of it with a ball and started to kick it! It didn’t really budge as it was almost as heavy as her.

We then sliced down the middle, and cut a slice off. We both had a little sniff . . . it smelt very sweet.  MMMmmmm I love the smell of watermelon!

We hollowed the flesh out and made a big circular frame. Brooklyn loved this and held it up to her face to look through the hole. She started feeling the inside with her fingers and couldn’t resist nibbling around the outside. We then decided to press cookie cutters into the flesh to make fun watermelon shapes! After demolishing a few of these, she turned to the big piece of watermelon and started poking her fingers through the flesh and picking out the seeds. She liked the cool feel of the flesh on her hands.

Who ever knew that exploring watermelon could be such an adventure!

RANDOM FACT: Did you know that because watermelon is part of the ‘cucurbitaceous’ family, watermelon is also classified as a vegetable. Some growers consider it as both fruit and vegetable, and sometimes call it a “Fregetable”. How interesting!

Yes! it’s time for the green Polkadot to do some blogging this week! How exciting! As I was lying in bed this morning thinking about Brooklyn and what her interests were, one of the first things that popped to mind was food!

The morning routine went as usual but when we were in Brooklyn’s room to get her dressed, she spotted something poking out behind the shelf. It just happened to be . . . a Food Chart! It was a present for her 1^st birthday from her very health-conscious Nanny wanting to pass on her wisdom! Using her manners (and in a most insistent tone) Brooklyn repeated “Eeese! EEEase!” She finally managed to pull out the chart. I was quickly lead to the lounge while a very excited Brooklyn placed the chart down and started to point to the images.

I thought it would be best to tell Brooklyn “We can eat lots of these foods because they are good for our bodies and very yummy!” She put her head down to the fruit and started making little munching noises. Too Cute! Then we named and pointed to each fruit and vegetable. It was so adorable to hear her repeat each name because every word had about 10 syllables! Sometimes there was a little story for each fruit we pointed to. (I’m loving this stage!) The fruit she best pronounced was her favourite fruit of all time ‘naana’.

However, pointing to pictures just wasn’t enough for Brooklyn. So we thought it would be best to take things a step further and actually taste the fruit. There’s nothing like the real thing! So I brought out some strawberries, a banana, and half an apple. She was happy to chomp on her banana as we named them all again. She got quite good at identifying each fruit on the chart when getting her to point to them.

Brookie looking at the Fruit and Vege Chart

Learning the proper names of her fruits and vegetables as well as tasting the real thing, Brooklyn had the opportunity to start recognising healthy foods. The younger she can start learning about healthy food, the more likely she will be to practise a healthy lifestyle later on in life! And don’t we all want healthy children?

I just got asked a question from a friend via our Polkadots FACEBOOK page about how to do activities with children of different ages (ie. and infant and a toddler)… and I decided to answer it here because it is a challenge most parents who have an infant and a toddler  face… and my mind is racing with different ideas, so I needed more space to write. The question is as follows…

“Okay prepare yourself for a long question:) What are your thoughts on including older siblings in the activities? I used one of your activities for inspiration with C today and completely lost F (hes 3 and a half) . I tried to include him but i think he got bored because it was too baby for him (we were lining up toy animals and doing their sounds then sang old macdonald), to the point that he started throwing the toys around and then distracted chase in a throwing/hugging cuddly toys game and I gave up. I am finding the transition from teaching one child to teaching two children different ages quite tricky. I’m trying to teach F his letters/numbers/writing etc and C gets bored and starts crying, or I try do stuff with C and then F starts playing up because hes bored. Everything seems to be a rushed 2min exercise to get through before the other one gets lonely. I don’t know maybe I just have needy kids! Any ideas you have would be much appreciated.”

(I’m going to bullet point my thoughts or else I could get extremely carried away!)

* Start the activity with an activity that you know both ages will be interested in and can both relate to, like reading a story. Preferably one that relates to the topic of focus that you plan on doing in the activity. This will mentally prepare both children for the activity and give you opportunities to ask questions and talk to both children at their level. You may even ask your older child to help explain or point things out to your younger child so that they feel they are helping.

* Specifically ask your older child to be your helper in teaching their younger sibling. Children like to have responsibilities. Praise them when they do a good job at being a “teacher”.

* If you are trying to teach your older child something specific (just as mentioned above – teaching letters and numbers) figure out a way to tie that into the activity for the younger child. Example from scenario above: Trying to teach younger child animal names and noises, but your older child letters or numbers. Put a piece of paper behind each animal and as you point to the animal and make the noise or same the name of the animal for your younger child, have your older child write the letter or name of the animal on the piece of paper. Or you may ask them how many legs the tiger has and they have to write the number on the paper.

* Try to make time where you have individual learning time too, so that each child feels that they have had your undivided attention when it comes to learning and in turn has a positive learning experience. This will make them more inclined to approach the combined learning moments with a more positive approach and won’t resent engaging in learning activities with you.

* (Last one… I could go on FOREVER!) Take photos of your adventures or activities, of your children engaging in learning together and share them with your other family members, with your child. Have your older child share how and what they learned together and how they helped to be a teacher. Reflect on the learning moments and discuss what you might do together next time.

I hope this can help you in some small way. If you want any further clarification or help on anything else! I love sharing… it gets my brain working! Thanks Shannon!