Aug 30, 2016

Montessori Practical Life Activities For Toddlers - Taking Care Of Self & Surroundings (18 Months)

"Why is my child learning to throw trash in a dustbin, put footwear in a shoe rack or wipe off water spills when they should be learning how to do something more academic, like ABC, 123?"

Math, reading, and language all require one to have the ability to focus, to be able to complete a task with logical and sequential steps, to concentrate, to make intelligent choices, and to see a task from start to finish. This is precisely the intent of the Practical Life activities. Through the Practical Life work, children learn to calmly go about their work and to take pleasure and satisfaction from their efforts.

Practical Life activities are the activities of everyday life and they are involved in all aspects of life. The child observes these activities in the environment and gains knowledge through the real experience of how to accomplish life skills in a purposeful way. These activities help give the child a sense of being and belonging, established through participation in daily life with us. The child feels important and gains self-esteem. He learns to trust that he and his environment will be cared for and his needs satisfied.

During the child’s sensitive period between birth and 6, the child is constructing the inner building blocks of his person. It is therefore important for the child to participate in activities to prepare him for his environment, that allow him to grow independently and use his motor skills, as well as allow the child to analyze difficulties he may have in the exercise and problem solve successfully.

Montessori also saw the child’s need for order, repetition, and succession in movements. Practical Life Exercises also helps to aid the child to develop his coordination in movement, his balance and his gracefulness in his environment as well as his need to develop the power of being silent.

“A child who becomes a master of his acts through long and repeated exercises of practical life, and who has been encouraged by the pleasant and interesting activities in which he has been engaged, is a child filled with health  and joy and remarkable for his calmness and discipline”  ~ The Discovery the Child 
Here in this video, is my 18 months old son doing some such activities.



Do you involve your child in household chores? I would love to know about your experiences, questions or comments if any :)

Source: 
Info Montessori 
Montessori Guide 
Montessori Training 
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Aug 29, 2016

Montessori Inspired Early Learning Activities For Toddlers - Rainy Splash (VLOG)



It's time to share my Montessori inspired shelf activities again that I had set up for my then 17 months old son. It was rainy season, so I added a splash of rain theme activities too. It has activities for language building, fine motor skills, matching, sorting etc. A lot of fun!

Hope you enjoy them! Here is the video. And don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel HERE.



Thanks for watching. Share away if you liked it :)


Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori & Waldorf inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!


Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!


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Aug 26, 2016

Janmashtami (Krishna) Theme Montessori Inspired Activities For Kids (VLOG)



Here are some quick to set-up Montessori inspired fun educational activities & crafts for kids for this beautiful festival of India - Janmashtami that marks the birth of Lord Krishna. 


After watching my social media news feed full of little Krishnas & Radhas, in the afternoon, I quickly brainstormed within myself & came up with some ideas for Montessori inspired activities based on Janmashtami theme from whatever stuff I had at home. After that, collecting the materials from all over the house & arranging them was just a matter of an hour or so, and I did this when A was taking his afternoon nap. The activities basically weave together the traditions, stories & rituals of Janmashtami, and also provide opportunities for the toddlers to practice their skills in different areas. 


All we did were we made some beautiful memories! Trust me, we had lots of fun! I hope I was able to offer my son some insights about this festival & Lord Krishna with these activities. Here is the video that explains all the activities.



This set of activities was also featured on Baby Chakra, so if you are not a video person, you can see some pictures & details HERE.


Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori & Waldorf inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!


Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!


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Aug 23, 2016

What Can Vehicle Miniatures Teach A Child?


What a child can learn from free play is immense. Even more interesting is the way you can tap into the cues & interests of your child & drive learning through these interests. The child will be interested & enthusiastic in such learning activities. Read on how & what my son learnt, and is still learning following his love for vehicles!

My son who is 18 months old right now, is super duper fond of vehicles of any kind. When I realized this craze months back, I started hunting for miniatures of various vehicles. I did not want to stick to the routine cars, moreover wanted to encash this craze & encourage some learning. 

I finally bought a lot of vehicle miniatures like truck, bus, tempo, auto, bike, scooter, train, engine, fire engine, ambulance, boat, aeroplane, helicopter, tractor and some construction vehicles like dumper truck, digger, mobile crane, cement mixer truck, bulldozer, road roller and what not. This was not a one day purchase obviously. Whenever I found a deal somewhere, online or local market, I hoarded this stuff. Also, I did not give him all the vehicles in one go. It is overwhelming for the child. I looked for his cues, for example, there were days he got super excited seeing an auto. So I gave him the auto miniature & he would play with it endlessly, even sleep holding it. It was so amazing to see him so engaged with that little auto. Same happened for tempo (goods carrier in India), bus, truck etc.

There is a construction going on just in front of our place, so he used to stand at the balcony & watch those construction vehicles work with great interest. That was the time I pulled out his construction toy vehicles from the almirah & gave him to play! He would hold the cement mixer in one hand & watch the real cement mixer work on the construction site for long.


"Play is child's work." ~ Maria Montessori


I did not know how enriching it is to play with these miniatures before I actually saw my son playing with them! I am sharing how his love for vehicles facilitated in so much learning for him, I am sure I have missed a lot more points to enumerate but nevertheless!

  • Gross Motor Skills - See his large muscles at work while making a vehicle move. By the way, I made this maroon & yellow parking lot with a ramp for him from an old Flipkart box. All his vehicles were being dumped in a box, they certainly needed a better home ;) 

  • Fine Motor Skills while holding & manipulating the vehicles
  • Vocabulary Building - Learning about names of vehicles & parts of the vehicles in a hands-on way like wheels, headlights, tail & wings of an aeroplane, blades of a helicopter etc. In the picture below, I was having my lunch & he wanted my attention. So I asked him to get me one vehicle at a time from another room. I asked him, "please get me the dumper truck", and he would get me the dumper truck. So this huge collection you see below, he brought to me rightly according to the vehicle's name. This was at around 15 months if I remember correctly. In another picture below, he is trying to tell me where are the wings, jet engine & tail of an aeroplane




  • Counting the wheels in a 2 wheeler, 3 wheeler & 4 wheeler. 
  • Learning Shapes - wheel is a circle, window is a rectangle, so on & so forth
  • Enhancing Imagination & Making Connections - My son would play for 15 minutes at a stretch with his vehicles (which is a LOT of time considering the super short attention span of babies & toddlers). I am sure in his mind he is doing some kind of imagination & role play. Once he starts talking more, I may get to know what went in his mind while playing with his vehicles all this while. Moreover, seeing a real world vehicle & a toy vehicle side by side helps a child to make connections in his brain, helps to make one to one correspondence, which is a pre-math skill.
  • Related Book Reading - I invested in books that were based on vehicles, picture books, story books, sound books, lift the flap books & books of all kinds. He already loves reading books. And books with his favourite vehicles, all the more interested! He matches his toy vehicles with the pictures in the books every now & then. By reading books, he also gets to know more details about how these vehicles work. He LOVES these vehicle-based books! Sharing just a few of them that I already had pics of (along with other non-vehicle titles too). There are a whole bunch of more of such books inside!
  • Visual Discrimination - Based on his interest, I made some DIY activities for him to take his interest on a different level & he LOVED them too! These are some color, shape & vehicle matching activities that he started doing successfully from 15 months onwards.

Printable courtesy - Welcome To Mommyhood

  • Peeling Off Stickers - I got him puffy foam stickers of cars to peel off. Using stickers is a very good fine motor skill. He loved playing with them too! This sticker sheet had logos of some car brands & he would ask again & again what they are. I told him these are logos & he could remember the names & pointed to the right logo when I asked! This further gave way to learning of logos. We used to go to our society garden every evening & he would point each & every car & ask for the logo name. Now he recognizes some 7-8 logos on paper & on the vehicles on the road too. While in the car, he starts shouting Tata Tata after seeing a Tata bus on the road!
  • Perceiving Finer Sounds - My son now knows what sounds some vehicles like aeroplane, fighter plane, train, tempo, truck, car reverse horn etc make. In the middle of anything, when he is playing or reading or roaming around, whenever he hears these sounds (amidst all the noise, believe me!), he stops for a moment, points his fingers to the direction of the sound, says car or whatever is the name, if he can utter that word, smiles, does an eye to eye contact with me or his father, and goes back to his work again! Many times, we do not manage to hear the sound until he tells us to listen & acknowledge! 
  • Hands-On Learning & 3D to 2D Matching - Once a 3D object picture is stored successfully in children's brain, it is very easy for them to relate to their 2D counterparts. If we teach vehicles just from the books, they would see a 2D view of it, and would not know how it looks from other angles. They will tend to store a limited view of that vehicle in their brain. We also did shadow matching activity of vehicles & to my surprise, he could do it very easily! Also, anything that anyone can actually experience (hands-on), rather than just read, goes into the long term memory. 

I will link up all the books, toys & puzzles we have related to vehicles in a separate post! For now, you can search them on Amazon & Flipkart.

I also wanted to share a beautiful vehicle set that I got as a gratitude gift from Creative Express because I reviewed their awesome concept calenders. These vehicles are sturdy enough & lovely to play with :)


Next, we plan to do 2 part, 3 part & eventually jigsaw puzzles based on vehicles! We will also do some vehicle painting and sorting of vehicles based on where they go - land, air & water. Later on we will attempt pre-writing work with small vehicles, like tracing the shapes or different kinds of lines using vehicles.

Do you have more suggestions as to how one can use vehicles? I would love to hear. I would also love to know what all activities you did with your child using vehicles :) Do share in comments!


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8 Reasons To Introduce Music To Babies And Toddlers


Music is undoubtedly one of the best gifts we can give to our children. Music helps children learn. It helps in social, emotional, physical, cognitive and language areas. This article is first in the three part series dedicated to music, that I am writing for BabyChakra. Make sure to catch up with the other two which will follow soon – “What Exactly Is Good Music For Babies & Toddlers” & “Ways To Introduce Music To Babies & Toddlers”.

Click HERE to read this article I wrote for BabyChakra! 


Have you introduced any kind of music to your child? I would love to know what music is it, how your child responds to it, what benefits have you seen through this exposure. Please do share in the comments :)
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Aug 17, 2016

India Theme Montessori Inspired Activities For Kids (VLOG)



Here are some ideas of Montessori inspired fun educational activities & crafts for India's independence day for kids. Also mentioned are India themed books for kids that you can read aloud. 


I am following Montessori & fun learning philosophy for my son who is 18 months old now. This independence day, I set up India theme activities for him. Here is a quick video of all the activities on his Montessori shelf. 




Now this is another YouTube video showing how he enjoying doing these activities! 




Do subscribe to my YouTube Channel! Printables in the activities are from Mumma Diaries.

Apart from these activities, we are listening to some patriotic songs like Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon, Saare Jahan Se AcchaVande Matram, I Love My India, Sarfaroshi Ki Tamanna, Mera Rang De Basanti, Zindagi Maut Na Ban Jaaye etc. I have also put some India theme books on his bookshelf for this week. These books can be read to an older child as well. They are not just for young toddlers! Different age children have some different interpretation of the same book.  So go on & add them to your personal library :)


I am sharing the links for these books if you want to buy them online. 



Few that are not available on Amazon -
Handmade in India - Olivia Fraser
Dhammak Dhammak 
My Country 
Krishna with the Fruit Vendor - I got this from Iskon temple store in Pune


Hope you liked our independence day celebration in this special way :) Please share how did you celebrate independence day with your child. I would love to know!




Do not forget to follow "The K Junction" on Facebook page & closed Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram for day to day updates that might not always find a place on this blog. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to know more about our early learning journey, DIY & Montessori & Waldorf inspired activities for kids, kids books & toys reviews and much more!


Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!


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My Evergreen Green Tea Recipe


Green tea is the buzz word these days for its immense benefits for the body & soul. I have been consuming green tea for many years now & can pretty much not survive without it, well, I mean to say I feel something is missing if I do not drink my green tea every morning & after dinner. A simple google will tell you so many benefits of green tea. For me, it helped me in good digestion, weight loss, sugar control (gestational diabetes - during pregnancy), bloating during pregnancy, building immunity & it gives me an overall feel good factor.

Here is my own customized recipe of green tea. This recipe has been tried by many of my friends & family members, they love it! There were people who hated green tea before for its bland taste & now they swear by my recipe & enjoy it. Let me quickly share the recipe.

Ingredients 
I am going to share the links from where you can buy this stuff


Procedure

  1. Put a bit more than 1 cup water to boil
  2. Add some grated ginger, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon powder, 1/4 teaspoon divya peya, 1/4 teaspoon lemongrass leaves & let it boil
  3. Let it boil for 2-3 minutes till all the ingredients leave their aroma in the water
  4. Put 1/4 teaspoon green tea, stir the vessel so that it mixes in water properly & switch off the gas. 
  5. Cover the vessel with a lid & let it sit for 2-3 minutes
  6. Strain in a cup. Add few drops of lemon.
  7. You can add honey if you want, I do not like sweetened green tea. 
Hope you found this useful. Do let me know if you have any questions/comments/feedback. Share with your friends, it will always benefit, so earn some good karma :)
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Aug 2, 2016

5 Reasons To Introduce Indian Classical Music To Your Baby



There are lots of articles out there saying listening to Mozart music will make your baby smarter. I too bought Mozart music CD during pregnancy & listened to it everyday. The aim was not to make my baby smarter though, but to expose him to soothing calm music & inculcate love for good music. Whenever I listened to it during pregnancy, I could feel rhythmic baby movements inside & I somehow felt he enjoyed. After delivery, when we first came back to the hospital room, he was crying & as soon as I switched on Mozart music, he calmed down instantly! Looking back now, I realize it was not just the magic of Mozart, it was more of a routine that was set for little A & listening to the same music outside the womb, he felt secured & at ease.

So coming to the point, it isn't just Mozart music. After broadening my parenting horizons through various workshops & books, I realized how Indian classical music can be a boon for babies, for that matter adults too.

Here are 5 reasons you should introduce Indian classical music to babies, be it inside or outside the womb -

1. More Interesting Neural Connections - Indian classical music has a beautiful quality of having a structure within any composition. Any raaga has a set of rules & structure to be followed. Any composition in a raaga adheres to its structure. And the taal has a steady rhythm in it. In deeper spiritual sense, our life has rhythm & sequence in it everywhere. Be it making a cup of tea on a gas stove - every person follows a particular sequence & rhythm to make the same tea but still the taste comes out different, it is because every person's rhythm is different. Indian classical music inculcates a sense of structure & rhythm in one's brain, facilitating such interesting new neural connections. Zero to three is the age where tons of neural connections are being made, why should we miss out on these unique ones which this music can help us with.

2. Stimulates Right Brain - Art & music centers are located in the right brain. In the initial years, the child's right brain is more active by nature's design. It makes all the more sense to give more stimulation to the right brain through many ways, one being good music. There is pop music that's playing on TV & then there is Indian classical music, no second thoughts about making a choice for our little one, right?

3. Calms The Mind - Music therapies are not new to the world. Music calms the mind, provided it is music & not noise ;) Good music does exactly the same thing to the child as it does to an adult. A calmer & happier baby is not unwanted by anyone! And hey you yourself can benefit from the music while it is being played for your little one.

4. Sets Up A Routine - Toddlers love a sense of routine. It makes their otherwise unpredictable life predictable. For example, if you play a certain music every morning, they know what is coming next as an everyday routine & will be mentally ready for that & will be calmer. Many tantrums are because of disruptive routines. At the end of this post, I will share how I use Indian classical music to set a routine for my toddler.

5. Good Things In, Good Things Out -  A child's mind is so so absorbent! We can imagine 'garbage in garbage out & good things in good things out'. Indian classical music is not just good, it is one of the best things to go inside those tender developing brains!

And after all these good things, if your baby's IQ gets enhanced, throw a party for this bonus ;)
Now after all that gyaan, this is how I include music in our routine. If you haven't introduced your child to music, do not start today, start right away! Youtube has tons of Indian classical music by maestros, stream them away. Did I tell you, even instrumental music is awesome as are the vocals? Play some instruments like Sitar, Santoor, Jal Tarang etc & introduce that beautiful resonance to your child.

As a part of my routine, I play a set of tracks in the morning everyday, they are a mix of classical compositions, mantra chants & instrumentals in raagas that are relevant to morning hours. Indian classical music describes different preferred times of the day to sing/listen different raagas, it certainly has a science behind it, let's make use of it! Even if you do not know those details, just randomly playing raagas is perfect too. I make sure to start the music when A is still sleeping in the morning. Reason is, brain waves are in delta state while sleeping & it is the most receptive state of the brain. The good effects go directly into the subconscious, which is awesome! So make a habit to play some good music when your baby is asleep (day or night). Then at night, again I play a set of tracks relevant to that time of the day. These tracks go on for about an hour, so they continue playing even after A has slept off.

All this helps me to set a routine in the mind of my toddler. I have seen him getting up in the morning in a better mood when the morning tracks are playing. At night, he knows it is time to sleep when he listens to night tracks. It makes my life easier ;)

Hope this post pushes you to introduce Indian classical music to your baby & in turn to your family, if you haven't till now.

Do share your experiences in the comments below. I would love to listen to your stories & routines how you use music with your child :)
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Aug 1, 2016

How I Lost That Baby Weight - 10 Realistic and Practical Ways


I have had three pregnancies till now, first two unsuccessful though. I have gained & lost that baby weight three times in the last 5 years. And now, 17 months postpartum after my third pregnancy, I am slimmer than what I was when I conceived for the first time.
I know that baby fat is a matter of concern for many of us moms and we always have absolutely no time in hand for any form of exercise, or may be we make that excuse even when we could take out few minutes, but that's a different story. I too have this excuse till date that I do not have time to work out but I managed to shed all the pregnancy weight (10 kgs) by my son's first birthday.
After delivery, I also googled up tips & tricks to lose baby weight but most of the links suggested things that were pretty unrealistic, at least for me, like working out with the baby (naah that doesn't work for us!), sleep well (really?, I still breastfeed my son at 17 months & I have forgotten what is it to sleep through the night. He wakes up multiple times to feed at night), work out when your baby sleeps (those messy floors, unending laundry etc etc take up my time when baby sleeps).
Then I devised something that will work for me, it had to be realistic & practical. Sharing with you all, hope it helps achieve your goals in some way ...

1. Regular exercise before & during pregnancy - I know this might be too late to do but I really think this helped me a lot postpartum. I did regular yoga, pranayam & meditation throughout my pregnancy till the day I delivered. It helped my body to be fit & bounce back well after delivery. You can't be working out with a weak body to lose weight.

2. Breastfeeding - I can't stress upon this enough! It burns a LOT of calories apart from tons of benefits for mom & baby, that needs a separate post. I exclusively breastfed my son till 6 months, which means not even water or any other juices or solids till 6 months. And no, you don't need to be home bound for realizing this goal. I traveled cities, local places, nursed my son in public in my nursing cover (from Dulaar). And I have been nursing him on demand till now. I don't keep any counts or time interval between feeds, just trust my baby's cues.

3. Babywearing - We love babywearing!!! An ergonomic baby carrier is one of the best investments we have made. I have used a mei tai, SSC, ring sling & wraps & love the cuddles & kisses while carrying my baby. I used to go for regular 30 minutes evening walks wearing my baby in the carrier. It gave my baby natural fresh air & a brilliant workout to me. Trust me when you do a brisk walk with a 5-10kg something attached to you, it does burn more calories than a normal walk. And an ergonomic carrier does not put any strain on your back/shoulders. Having a vulnerable back, I have carried my baby for 3-4 hours at a stretch without any issues. Babywearing also demands couple of posts on this blog, that would come soon.

4. Green Tea -  Green Tea has been my ritual for the last few years. A little twist to the recipe has helped in weight loss too. In water I put cinnamon powder, lemongrass, ginger, green tea with a dash of lemon. I drink this green tea every morning & after dinner. Detailed recipe HERE.

5. Yogic Hand Mudra - I practice couple of yogic hand mudras for general well being & regulating metabolism. Some of them are Apan vayu mudra, surya mudra, praan mudra. They really do work! It's an ancient science & a simple google will give you results on how to do these mudras. Specially, I do surya mudra while walking or while sitting in the car or where ever. One can do it anywhere, no dedicated time required, just that your hands need to be free. It helps in regulating metabolism that in turn helps in weight loss.

6. Reiki Practice - I practice Reiki before sleeping, just a quick round of chakra cleansing. It helps to flush out stress & negativity from my chakras, and balance them. An equilibrium in the praanic body is important in general, all the more necessary if one is aiming some change in the physical body.

7. Lots of Salads & Fruits - ABSOLUTELY no dieting. I breastfeed my son, which means I cannot & should not go on dieting. I chose to eat healthy meals. We all know what is healthy food so no notes on that. I made sure to indulge myself with yummy (almost always unhealthy) food over weekends. It doesn't make sense to burn yourself up all seven days of the week ;) Main change in the diet was to have healthy alternatives for mid meal hunger pangs. I regularly eat fruits & salads for mid meal snacks. Having raw food helps a lot in weight loss.

8. Lauki Juice - Bless Baba Ramdev, he made lauki juice readily available or else I would have to make fresh juice every day ;) I drink it every morning empty stomach. Lauki is a natural weight loss helper!

9. Lots of Water - It's very important to keep yourself hydrated. I drink before I start feeling thirsty. Once my Yoga teacher told in a voice culture class that when you actually start feeling thirsty, your body is already in scarcity of water & your voice also gets affected by that, so keep sipping water & don't wait till you feel thirsty.

10. Be Joyous - Enjoy motherhood. Those early years are not going to last forever :) A happy mind & body is essential for losing weight!

Hope these tips will help you in achieving your weight loss goals. Start today & be consistent. Take your husband's support, mine helps me a lot! We both follow healthy routines so I kind of remain on track because of him :)

Do share how this helped you & share with anyone who needs these tips. Or if you have more tips, it would be great to hear.
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