Growing Up STEAM

I recently got a National Geographic Crystal Garden Kit courtesy of Incredible Novelties. Even though the age recommendation is for kids 8 years old or older, we decided to try it out as a family. So dad, mom and 3 year old, we all sat together to have fun with it. The kit comes with 2 different tree patterns, markers to paint them, the liquid to grow the crystals, 2 bases for the trees, a geode sample, a booklet regarding crystals and the instructions on how to use the kit. To use it, you need to take the trees, paint them however you want, give them some shape by folding branches, put the 2 parts of each tree together and stand them on the bases. We all took different parts of the tree and started painting. My son had a lot of fun painting everything in orange, while my husband did a very minimalist look and I went as heavy as I could on color. After you put it together, the instructions say to set them wherever you are going to leave them when the...

This week I wake up and get my son ready for daycare. Need to put sunscreen before he leaves, make sure he wears the right shoes, eat something, get dressed, bring the plastic bag with necessities and not the backpack, it's easier to clean. First condition of the day that we must follow for him to go there, no backpacks, no extra things like toys, only the essentials in a ziplock bag. We get in the car and drive to daycare, telling him all the fun things we might be doing today, what are they? I can't get in the daycare anymore, so I don't know which friends are going there this week, he can't play with the sandbox or any shared activities, all stations in his classroom are separate enough so kids don't mingle much. So I ask him what he does during the day and him being 3 and all, his answer is always "I don't know" or "Nothing", great. We are at daycare now, get off the car, put on my mask, grab him and his plastic bag and line u...

I bought this Playground Engineering & Design Set by Learning Resources a few years ago in Amazon for a present. I wanted something fun but very heavily STEM related for a 5 year old girl, and this seem like a great idea. When she opened the present, she was fascinated to see a playground, and a bit disappointing when at opening the box she saw she had to build it :D That's ok, I told her it was part of the fun and I would help her. Once she started playing with it and realized she could build it however she wanted, combine the pieces however she felt, she was so excited. We played for a long time, building the set, making the play people use the playground, undoing the set and redoing it again. Her younger sister either trying to add some extra pieces, or using the second play person to use the set. She was having fun and learning Engineering concepts without even knowing! I love this play set, it's great quality, it's fun, it's very smartly created to let kid'...

These magnets are fantastic! I had seen my son play with similar magnets at the Early Years Center and liked them so much I went online in search for them. After looking at different brands, it was clear that Magformers has the market but they are incredibly expensive. NextX offers in my opinion the same quality, more pieces, for an affordable price. The set I bought came with 46 pieces with different shapes, 4 sets of wheels, and a manual with ideas on what to build. My son doesn't use the manual of course but builds incredible pieces that have become more and more complicated the older he gets.  We have use NextX magnets to build towers, houses, parking lots for his cars, trucks, castles and others. While he is doing that he is learning motor skills, engineering and physics, as putting several magnets together can cause opposite poles to reject each other and lots of frustration when he is trying to put them in a block. That's ok though, we all learn about gravity by falling...

The Early Years Centres are free educational centers in Ontario, Canada. From their websites, they "offer free, safe, and engaging high-quality drop-in spaces... You can learn and play with your child, meet people and get advice from early childhood professionals". They are all over the province and we love them. During the last 4 months we have self-isolated at home, this has been the one consistent place my son asks about almost every single day. Before that, we used to go once a week almost every week and stay for 2 hours or so every time. The staff there is incredibly nice and knowledgeable, it's clean, has lots of light and its conducive for kids to explore and learn on each and every single station. They have art, loose parts, cars, sand play, books, a baby area, an eating area, and an area that changes each week (we have seen electronics, tools, homemade play-dough, etc). They also have daily activities like exercise, singing, sign language, dancing, etc. I absolut...

We have been home for 115 days. That's 115 days in which we have been trying to work from home while caring for our son. 115 days of no parks, no Early Year Center, no daycare, and no socializing with other kids, and our son is cracking. We have tried a schedule, we have taken as much time off as we can, and we opened up our self isolation to the grandparents, aunt and uncle around day 60, but we still struggle. As long as one of us struggles, we all do, and when the smaller of us struggles we all break. Our son is sweet one minute and losing his mind the next 2 hours. Last week he spent all week refusing to look at us. I've cried every week the last few weeks and right now I want to cry every day. Our son needs socializing, he needs routine, he needs to interact with other kids, and he needs more time than we can give him. He also needs less TV but if we do less than the 2 hours a day we currently do, then we can't work. This is hard, and we know we have it eas...

I first found the Fallen Workbooks when I was looking for fun school like practice activities for my son in Amazon. The reviews for the Play Smart Early Learning workbook were excellent so we bought that one. Once we got the boon I LOVED it and was already planning to buy a second one when I had a chance.  A month or so after I was running around in Costco and saw the Ginormo workbook and for $8.99 I just grabbed it without a second thought and brought it home. For the first time today (about a month after I bought it) I noticed the book is also a Fallen workbook! No wonder the book had the same playful type of activities. The both come with tons of activities and stickers both for some of them and for a good job sticker for each activity. My son usually does between 3 and 5 activities in each sitting because he really enjoys them. He has used his fingers, scissors, ripping paper, and colored. We have done matching, pretend play and even origami! I can already see the G...

Yesterday we had a bad afternoon and evening. As we tried to survive the last hour before going to bed, we all lost it. So much screaming, so much fighting. I went to the kitchen, grabbed the TV and hid it in the basement. A message to my 3 year old that TV was off limits, tomorrow there would be no TV. So, how can we survive working from home without the TV? We can't. I had no choice though. Toddlers are not meant to be in front of the TV, they crave connection with other people. Even when he is watching something, he is constantly asking me what I am doing (working) and why (to make money?). So I took the day off work and took him out the house. Not everyone has the privilege of taking days off work so I'm happy and blessed. This morning we kept fighting to make him eat breakfast and dressed but once we were on the car, everything was much better. We took a drive where out of nowhere he said "I like music mommy, I'm happy", and now we are seating nex...