Growing Up STEAM

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...

Yesterday I received an email from my son's new school (he starts JK in September) and I wasn't expecting much given that Covid has cancelled everything. The email said a welcome bag had been delivered to the families of new JK students and I was incredulous, I would have seen it already if it was true, right? Turns out they were that efficient and a bag was hanging at my front door. As I got excited and took the bag to my bedroom to inspect, the more I saw, the smaller and bigger I felt, and I started crying. I cried and I cried, because I'm still an immigrant. I have been in this country for almost 13 years but I still am and will always be an immigrant. What the bag represented was a dream come true. When I left my country I had only one thing in mind, a better future for my future kids. What this bag represented was 13 years of hard work, 13 years of being away from my family, 13 years of leaving my friends and everything I knew behind and taking a leap of a...

Little Tikes makes some awesome toys and it's a brand I buy without worrying about quality. You can buy second hand without any issues whatsoever so the quality new is superb. One of their main toys is the Cozy Coupe which my son adores. He has had it since he was 2 years old (he is almost 4) and he continues to play with it almost every day. Drive it, fill the gas, get it dirty and wash it, back it up into a parking spot and use the horn when other cars are coming. It gives him the freedom to drive as adults do and practice pretend play which is so important for little kids.  Every time I think he might have outgrown it, he finds a new way to play with it. I'm actually going to be sad when I have to let it go, but will keep the memories of my son playing with it, and I'm sure it will make yet another kid happy because this little car has many more years to go! The Little Tikes Cozy Coupe is cute, sturdy and lots of fun to play with. From kid to kid, it's th...

Hi, my name is Aiglee, and although this is a new blog, I have blogged for the last 10 years in several different subjects. This time my sister brought up the idea of writing about my parenting style, the toys we like and the video games we play. Why did I chose the name of the blog? Some of us have the opportunity to grow up with STEM or STEAM surrounding us and some of us don't. My husband grew up in a farm learning about growing animals and plants, how to have fun getting dirty, play with atvs, jump on lakes and all around enjoy nature and working with your hands. I grew up with a biologist dad, a mom that instilled me no limits, and the University halls as my playground. I grew up around science as my main education and technology as a goal, and our almost 4 year old boy is growing up with the best of both worlds! In a technology focused world, growing up in a STEAM household can be an amazing advantage. In our particular case, we both chose technology as our educat...

When I first heard about Green Toys I was in love. They make all their toys from recycled materials and they are great quality. Good for the environment and for my pocket. The first chance I had, I got my son the Ferri with its 2 cars. Since then, they have provided a lot of fun for him. He plays with the cars both in land and on water, and the Ferri has been on land, the bath, and the pool.  As I'm writing this, the 2 cars are in the bathtub and the Ferri is providing the fun in the pool. My son puts other cars on it, tries to sink it, and throws it from as high as he can. We have talked about why it floats and it doesn't sink as his other toys, what capsized means when the Ferri ends up upside down after being thrown, and the very basic, like how they work moving cars from one place to another.  When you are having conversations with your kids around the activities that interest them, it's very easy to insert all sort of concepts, from vocabulary, to numbers t...

We bought National Geographic's Kinetic Sand a couple of months ago when we were looking for an easy solution to have a sand box inside the house without the mess! My first impression was how vivid the colors are and that it would provide as much fun for the parents as it would for our toddler :D After a lot of back and forth between mom, dad and toddler as to who got to play with the sand first, we decided it was only fair for the 3 year old to have fun first xD He loved that it came with different molds he could use to create things, and I loved how easily the sand came out from the molds while also keeping its shape (not to mention how easy it was to clean it from the floors when inevitably some of it ended up there). The sand was perfect, it helps my toddler practice the motor skills necessary to put the sand in the molds and take it out still intact, it has a good texture that satisfies his sensory needs, it shows him new shapes like pyramids, and it allows for free play where...