Fun with Mama

Move With Me Yoga DVD Giveaway Winner

2012-02-23T05:31:18Z

The winner of the kids yoga dvd (through random.org) is comment #9! Congratulations Amanda! Move with Me will be contacting you shortly.

Thanks to everyone for entering

Our Trays January 2012

2012-02-10T16:21:42Z

Color matching activity with paint chips.

Tweezer Activity.

Placing the Pegs in the holes and then placing marbles on top.

Butterfly Pattern. Sorry for the blurry picture

Velcro Zoo Animals Visual Perception Activity + Printable

2012-02-07T17:41:37Z

I created a zoo animal themed visual perception activity that can be re-used by laminating or printed once off.

Mom basically places the zoo animals in certain circles and the child can then copy the placement on their own circle mat.

Here I laminated the circle mats and the pieces. I then had Aaliya copy it.

Here I just printed it out and had her glue them in the right places.

To download the printable click here.

If you would like to see a similar activity but for an older child please let me know in the comments section.

Move With Me Kids Yoga DVD Review + Giveaway!

2012-02-07T17:59:59Z

Yoga is calming for the mind, body, and soul. I have recently started doing yoga and am amazed at how much more centered I feel. After feeling the effects on myself I set out to find a yoga dvd that could help my kids find the same peace and balance. I came across Move With Me Yoga DVD’s and contacted them about doing a blog review. Their customer service is excellent and I received prompt and personal replies. They sent me their award winning yoga dvd called The Birthday Gift. The Birthday Gift DVD increases strength and resilience.

I first breezed through the dvd to get a feel for it. I was really unsure whether Aaliya or Deen would like it. While I was taking a quick look at the DVD. Aaliya was sitting next to me and observing.

A few days later:
Mama: Aaliya, would you like to watch a yoga DVD?
Aaliya: Yes Mama! The one with the little people like me!
Mama: Little people? Oh… Kids!

Move With Me Yoga DVD’s are not just exercise DVD’s. They are movement story adventures that invite kids to tell the story with their whole bodies. They help kids develop fitness, balance, coordination, direction following skills, and focus. Yoga helps kids to calm and center themselves when frustrated, angry, scared, sad, confused, or over-stimulated.

This yoga DVD was also great right before bedtime to allow the kids to center themselves and unwind.

Aaliya loves to do yoga while watching The Birthday Gift and often asks for me to put it on. Move With Me Yoga dvd’s are recommended for children aged 3 and up but my 2 and a half year old was fine doing it too.

Move With Me Yoga Action Adventures would like to give one of my lucky readers one of their yoga adventure DVD’s. They have offered the Pizza Party DVD or the Birthday Gift DVD.

To enter the giveaway(MANDATORY entry):
Visit Move With Me Yoga website and leave me a comment stating which DVD you would like.

Extra Entries(leave appropriate comments for each extra entry):

“Like” Move With Me’s Facebook page and leave them a comment stating that Fun With Mama sent you.
Follow Move With Me on Twitter.
Subscribe to my blog in a reader.
Become a funwithmama twitter follower.
“Like” Fun With Mama on Facebook.
Tweet about this giveaway.
Post about this giveaway on facebook.

*This giveaway closes on the 21st of February 2012. Winners will be announced on the 22nd of February 2012. This giveaway is only open to US Residents. *
I was given this dvd for free to review but all opinions are true and based on my children and my personal experience with the item. Pictures speak volumes.

This youtube video explains the benefit of Yoga for kids

and here is a scooter and me preview video:

Knuffle Bunny Printable

2011-11-23T08:47:36Z

I purchased a Knuffle Bunny from Amazon and couldn’t wait to give it to the kids. I wanted them to tie in to the story more and make Knuffle Bunny even more special to them. I made up a note from Trixie in which she gifts Knuffle Bunny to my kids.

To download/print the note click on the picture or click here.

I know that in Knuffle Bunny Free Trixie gives her Knuffle Bunny to another child. Deen asked me why Trixie was giving it to him instead of the other child who had Knuffle Bunny. I told him that the other child grew older and gave Knuffle Bunny back to Trixie. Trixie knew that Deen and Aaliya were feeling a bit sad because their grandfather passed away so she sent Knuffle Bunny to them to help them feel better.

I will be using the Knuffle Bunny Teaching Guide and the Knufle Bunny Free activities this week. The two guides include a maze, games, and story questions that will make the kids think and will help them notice small details about the story and pictures.

Frugal Water Squirting

2011-11-15T15:08:35Z

South Africa has been extremely hot the passed few days. The kids needed to do something that was gonna cool us off while burning off some excess energy.
We had a water dropper fight!
There was pretty much no preparation needed and we used things we already had at home.

Water in a big bowl
Medicine squirter/dropper

The kids were full of giggles! Mama was full of smiles!
It was great exercise for me too. When they came loaded with two droppers loaded with water I had to run away as fast as possible.

And its a great fine motor skills & problem solving activity for your kids. They have to learn how to fill the dropper and learn how to squirt the water out.

Velcro Animals

2011-11-12T06:52:53Z

Aaliya really enjoyed this simple but fun activity at her play group.

To create this: All you need to do is get a stick of some sort/dowel and add velcro (hard part) to the stick. Take one long line of hard velcro and glue it on to the stick/dowel.
Then glue on some soft velcro to the back of some plastic animals.
Place in a bucket.
Hang the dowel somewhere. You can lay it on two couches or two coffee tables.
Your child will love hanging the animals up!

After this activity Aaliya sponge painted on a frog which was literally a three minute activity but she was so proud of her work.

October 2011 Has Been A Shocking Month

2011-11-12T06:52:37Z

October 2011 has been a month full of surprises — good and bad.

I had an important event during the first week of October that took a lot of preparing for and the end result was amazing. Three days later I decided that I wanted to go visit my family in America so I booked a last minute holiday to Los Angeles. Five days later I left with my kids for what was supposed to be 23 days. The kids were very excited to be able to spend Halloween in Los Angeles! The holiday itself was great. It took about a week to get over the jet lag.

October 25, 2011 — 9 days into my holiday I got some very unexpected news. My Father In Law passed away.
I didn’t believe it. It didn’t really hit me. The only thing I knew at that stage is I needed to get home. I got the news at around 10pm (while the kids were sleeping) and I took the next flight out at 9am. After a 26 hour journey I made it back home.

My husband had gone on a business trip and his flight left 10 minutes before I received the news. We had to wait 7 hours until he reached Italy to break the news to him and then he had to board a flight and come right back.

It has been very difficult for us to adjust to the change and since we missed the funeral we do not have closure. As time goes by we are learning to accept but the past two weeks has been tough on us. Mourning and jet lag do not make a good nights sleep.

This was my facebook message:

I have returned to South Africa with a heavy heart. I am devastated by the loss of my Father In Law whose kind soul and generous nature touched the lives of so many people. He played an important role in my life that I highly valued.
He was a person who genuinely wished happiness for EVERYONE. I have never met someone who was more accommodating or helpful than he was. He was always t.rying to help others whenever he could be it with a kind word, a helping hand, or easing their journey in some way. He expected nothing in return and gave whole-heartedly. I have seen my father in law almost every single day for the past 6 years. I will treasure the great memories and am thankful for the values he instilled in my husband. His presence in our life, advice, and kind soul will be greatly missed. May Allah SWT grant him Janaat al Firdous. Ameen!

We are getting into routine again and school will be out in the first week of December. That means my blog posts will be back up and running.

Missing In Action

2011-09-29T09:21:51Z

As you may have noticed, I have not posted much in the past 3 weeks. I have an important event happening during the beginning of October and I have had to use up all my spare time on preparing for this event. Posts should be back to normal within 2 weeks so please bear with me until then. I am still available through e-mail, if you have any questions, but my posts will be on a standstill till the event is over. Thank you for your patience!

Zoo Theme Preschool and Tot School

2011-11-12T07:47:52Z

Deen is 4 years and 7 months old.
Aaliya is 2 years (28 months old).
I will be posting this weeks Tot School and Preschool Posts in one post.

We started the week off with an activity that my kids love; Our Sensory “Treasure” Hunts.
Aaliya had to really practice some patience here as she was really eager to have a turn.

Aaliya found it so hilarious when Deen decided to feel the beans with his face and lips. It was giggles galore when Deen lifted his face up and she saw that beans were stuck to his lips.

Then when Deen was done I told him to place each of the animal objects back so that Aaliya too could have a turn with the search.
We told Aaliya to look away while Deen hid the animals. She kept trying to peek! I would then tell her, “Hey.. you are peeking!” and she would immediately giggle.

We then used the Zoo Pack from 2 Teaching Mommies.

This was the first time he played a roll and graph game and he loved it. Since Deen does not like to color I gave him circular stickers to place each time he rolled a particular animal. This activity was great for all types of math lessons. I would ask him which animal he rolled the most. He would have to answer by looking at the graph without counting. I would also ask him which animals he rolled the same amount of times as well as the least. I highly recommend these type of roll and graph games!

He also sounded out each of the animals and was then able to place a clothespin on the right letter.

We practiced counting together.

She was able to match the zoo animal pictures to their shadows without any help from me.

Aaliya LOVES playing the game of Memory. I place 4 cards (2 pairs) face down and she then plays Memory. As she gets better I will increase the number of cards(pairs) I place upside down.

Aaliya glued together a Shapes Person with my help.

Since I did not post about Deens Preschool activities last week and since it was also his last week of school holiday before school started I didn’t work too much with him and allowed him to just play and relax.
Here are some of the activities we did:

We did Carissa’s Batman Preschool Pack.

He also used a few items from the Pretty Bugs Preschool Pack that I knew he would enjoy. Although it is a girly theme I figured that since Aaliya was using it and I had everything printed out that it would still be useful for him.