My Kaspersky ONE Giveaway has now ended, so it’s time to pick a winner! There were 59 entries… random.org has spoken:
Congratulations to Jamielee Norris!
Our latest experiments in sensory play have been using a packet of ‘soup mix’ which is a mixture of dried peas, lentils etc which has a lovely mix of colours as well as being great for all sorts of sensory play opportunities. My latest investment to make cleaning up much easier is a Plasterer’s Mixing Tray
In the photos you can see that I have provided K with a range of pots and cups of different sizes and she loves pouring the peas from one container to another. This is great for developing hand-eye coordination and learning about concepts such as full/empty and capacity. You can also see she likes to get stuck in with her hands for a full-on tactile experience, and once she even tipped all the peas out everywhere and lay on them!
I tried adding some dinosaurs for small world play just to see what would happen. We put some peas in one of the small cups and pretended that the dinosaurs were eating them, but that got boring after about 30 seconds. At 15 months K is more interested in sensory/tactile play than imaginative play. I also introduced the measuring spoons again and I have been really amazed by how well she is beginning to use the spoons to scoop and pour the peas. They are nice deep spoons which makes it easier for her to practice these fine motor skills.
There’s no doubt about it, the Internet is taking over the world, which means it’s getting harder to protect yourself and your family online. With this in mind, we are offering you the chance to win a copy of Kaspersky ONE, worth £79.99, ahead of Safer Internet Day on February 7th.
Kaspersky ONE Universal Security is the easy, one-license solution to protect your PCs, Macs, smartphones and Android tablets. Based on award-winning Kaspersky Lab technologies, Kaspersky ONE delivers real-time protection against dangerous Internet threats with security optimised for each device. So no matter which devices you use to bank, shop, surf, or chat online, you know you’re always safe.
For more information on how to stay safe online, check out these top tips from Kaspersky Lab’s senior security researcher, David Emm.
- Got protection? This may seem obvious, but security software is the new “black”. It helps you stay fully protected against malware, spyware, hackers and identity theft. And don’t forget to perform regular updates and scans.
- Password strength matters. Use secure passwords – a different one for each Internet service. Set passwords to include 8-14 upper & lower case characters and numbers. Don’t use any words that are in the dictionary—they’re too easy for hackers to guess.
- Protect your family. You stop your children from talking to strangers on the street – you should do so online too. Be aware of the potential dangers of the net from online bullying to paedophiles. Take parental control over the sites you don’t what your children to look at by using the parental control feature in your online security product – it’s an easy way to avoid disaster.
- Click with care. If you’re checking your email or talking over instant messenger, make it a practice to avoid clicking on links in messages from people you don’t know. These links could lead you to a malicious website and result in malware installing on your computer.
- Practise safe online shopping. When you’re going to buy those new killer shoes or the latest toy for your tyke, make sure you purchase from a reputable online retailer. You always look for a URL that starts with “https” and has the lock symbol when entering your credit card details or other personal information.
- Socialise safely. By now, we’ve all had a bad link or two sent to us over our favourite social network. Utilise your social network’s security settings to their optimum level. Do you really need to display every detail about your life? And perhaps more importantly – do your children?
- Keep your privates, private. A good rule of thumb: Don’t post anything online that you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of your local newspaper! This includes your personal phone number, email address and street address, your holiday plans– and maybe also your bikini-clad, beach holiday pics.
- Stomp out spam. Most Internet Service Providers & security software programs have anti-spam technologies. The spam blocker will help prevent fraudulent emails from showing up in your Inbox tempting you with fake lottery wins or promising certain body-part enlargements.
- Be careful how you surf. Open wireless networks are called ‘open’ for a reason: anyone can connect, including hackers. If you do have to use one, use a password manager to store passwords and enter them for you automatically. This will prevent data being captured by cybercriminals using a keylogger. And only enter personal information on secure sites – look for the “https”
- Handle personal information with care. Beware of online sites that ask you to enter too much personal data. Read the small print – they may be selling on your personal details to third parties resulting in even more email spam and cold calls
How to enter:
- Leave a comment below with the answer to the following question: How can you tell if a website is secure? (Hint: read the tips above!)
To gain additional entries you can also:
- Follow me on Twitter @mummykins82 and leave a comment to tell me you have done so.
- Follow Kaspersky on Twitter @kaspersky and leave a comment to tell me you have done so.
- Tweet the following: “I’ve entered the Kaspersky ONE giveaway at http://mummykins.co.uk/?p=541 via @mummykins82″ and leave a comment to tell me you have done so.
NOTE: Please leave a separate comment for each entry. 1 comment = 1 entry. Maximum 4 entries per person.
The small print:
This competition is open to UK residents only. Closing date Feb 7th 2012. The winner will be chosen using a random number generator. If I do not hear back from the winner within 1 week of first contact I reserve the right to choose another winner.
My New Year’s Resolution for 2012 is to get happy, and I have taken the Action for Happiness pledge to try and create more happiness and less unhappiness in the world around me. My first action has been to keep a gratitude journal, and I’ve been using the website Happy Rambles to help me with this.
A gratitude journal is simply a diary that you fill in at the end of each day with 3-5 things that you are grateful for from that day. It can be as simple as the sun shining, a delicious meal, coffee with friends, basically anything that has made you feel good that day. I have done this in the past before, but I can be quite forgetful so I only ever managed to do it sporadically, and you need to do it every day to get the full benefit of it. The great thing about Happy Rambles is that it sends me an email at about 8pm every evening (you can choose the best time for you) and all I have to do is reply to the email. It also includes a randomly chosen previous entry which is great for reminding you of the good times that you might otherwise forget.
So is it worth it? I’d say I completed the gratitude journal pretty religiously for the first two weeks and I definitely noticed an improvement in my mood. I actually remarked to my husband that I was feeling really happy, not just ok but a definite sense that life was great, which is not normal for me (as a person who has suffered with depression for a large proportion of my adult life). Then I got a bit careless about it and didn’t respond to the emails for a couple of days, then last week was pretty tough with K teething, both of us having a mystery virus which wasn’t awful but made us both really tired and grumpy, and my husband being away on business, so I think I only completed one or two days last week, and my mood definitely declined a lot, and I was more focused on everything that was going wrong rather than the good things – because even on a bad day there are good moments if you look for them.
So to sum up, when I remembered to complete the journal every day, I felt great! Then when I forgot to do it or life got in the way, I felt rubbish. In conclusion, it works! If you suffer from depression or just want to focus on the positives in your life a bit more, a gratitude journal is a great way to help boost your mood.
Wooden toys appeal to me because I think they have a nicer quality about them than plastic toys, I can’t quite explain it in words but it’s to do with how they feel in your hand, the weight and texture, unlike plastic toys which can feel cheap and almost disposable sometimes. Having said that, wooden toys are often more expensive and with most families on an increasingly tight budget these days, if you’re going to splash out on one it’s a good idea to make sure it’s something that will be played with often and appeal to your child over a long period of time (rather than a novelty item that will get played with once or twice and then buried at the bottom of the toy box). With this in mind, here is what would be on my wishlist of the top 5 wooden toys for toddlers.
Walker with Blocks
This is a classic toy and is really 2 toys for the price of one! A walker is essential for little ones who are taking their first steps, but toddlers love pushing walkers around even once they are steady on their feet. Take the blocks out and they can even take their teddies for a ride! Building blocks have so many possibilities for play, from a simple tower to bridges and castles. Simple toys like building blocks are great for encouraging imaginative play.
Shape Sorter
Another must-have toy, great for developing hand-eye coordination and shape recognition. Simple shapes are best for non-frustrating play for toddlers. These can take many months to master as children work out which shapes fit into which holes and will provide hours of playtime.
Peg Puzzle
Peg puzzles are available for even the smallest of hands. Grasping the pegs will help to develop the pincer grip (important for handwriting and many other tasks). Little ones will love matching the shapes. There are all sorts of cute themed puzzles available, from farm animals to pirate ships! They range from very simple puzzles with just a few pieces (like the one pictured) to more complex ones including numbers and the alphabet so there is something to suit all ages.
Musical Instruments
I think it’s really important to introduce children to all sorts of music from a very young age – even before they are born! Music is something that is inside all of us and we can encourage our children’s musical ability by listening to music, singing and playing with musical instruments. Having a range of instruments will inspire creativity and good quality instruments will last for many years.
Sandpit
My final choice for my top 5 wooden toys is an outdoor toy and can be used from babyhood. Younger toddlers will enjoy the sensory experience of feeling the sand with their fingers, and as they get older the possibilities are endless! You can dig it, build with it, hide things in it, scoop it, pour it, rake it… it’s fantastic for developing all sorts of physical skills, not to mention the creative opportunities from building sandcastles to drawing pictures in the sand.
What would be on your wishlist of wooden toys for your toddler?
Note: This post was sponsored by woodentoyshop.co.uk but all opinions are my own.
This is my third post about our sensory play activities this week, I’m on a roll! I’ve also posted about playing with cornflour and jelly so don’t forget to take a look at those posts as well. This activity was inspired by the Flowers and Fairies sensory tub and Christmas Sensory tub over at The Imagination Tree. I dyed some rice red using food colouring and once it was dry added it into a large tin (for easy cleanup and storage) along with some Christmas sequins, baubles and bows that I already had around the house. I also put out some stacking cups (which cost a whole £1 from the pound shop) and some measuring spoons that came in a Christmas cracker so all in all it was a very inexpensive activity to set up! I also put a plastic mat on the floor (which cost 50p) to make cleaning up easier.
K had a great time with this sensory play activity. She wasn’t really interested in the larger items so I eventually took those away, leaving just the rice and sequins. However she loved pouring the rice over and over again using the stacking cups as well as scooping up great big handfuls and scattering it back into the tin (and everywhere else as well!) I think the first time we did this she played with it for a full 20 minutes at least (she was 14 months at the time) which is a long time for her – longer than any of her expensive Christmas presents! She also asked to play with it again on a regular basis (about 3 times a day) and was rather upset when I had to get rid of it!
The cleanup was a bit of a pain, as the rice ended up everywhere, even with the mat, so we have now got a plasterers mixing tray/tuff spot which is a huge plastic tray with a rim and I’m hoping that will contain any future messes much better!
Our first experiment in sensory play was with cornflour and water, this is our second – wibbly, wobbly jelly! We did this at the table with K strapped into her booster seat and wearing a bib with sleeves because I knew it could get messy!
Jelly is a great material for sensory play because when you take it out of the fridge it is cold to touch. You can watch how the jelly wobbles and then get stuck in with fingers and tools to smoosh it into smaller and smaller pieces. It also smells and tastes great! So it really stimulates several senses at once.
K got stuck in with her fingers, she also had a spoon, fork and ice cream scoop. She enjoyed scooping it into a smaller container and tipping it out again (with help). Not to mention the odd bit that disappeared into her mouth! Using edible materials for sensory play is good with younger babies as you can gently teach them to keep things out of their mouths without having to panic that they are poisoning themselves! K was 12 and a half months when we tried this experiment. For an older baby I would put small objects inside the jelly as it sets, to be rescued!
We have begun to dabble in a bit of sensory play at home now that K is starting to grow out of the eating everything phase. Our first experiment was with cornflour and water, which when mixed together creates a ‘non-newtonian’ substance that is somehow liquid and solid at the same time. It’s hard to explain, you’ll just have to try it! We tried this in November when K was 12 and a half months old (it’s taken me a while to get round to writing it up!)
We started with just plain cornflour. We used hands, spoons, and various bits and bobs from the sandpit to explore. Then I added water to create this fantastic gloopy substance which K found fascinating (you need around 2 parts cornflour to 1 part water). Then I added some green and yellow food colouring, which we watched as it spread across the gloop, and then we used fingers, spoons and rakes to drag the colours around to make patterns.
It was a very engaging activity for K and one that we will be able to revisit in the future. As she gets older she’ll be able to take more control over the activity, for example by adding the food colouring herself, or mixing in the water. At the age she was when we did this she was more of an observer at each stage, watching what I was doing before joining in herself.
Yesterday I blogged about how my new year’s resolution is to be happy. I’ve taken the Action for Happiness pledge and on their site they have 50 suggested actions you can take to help spread a little happiness. Action 4 is find three good things each day. Studies have shown that this simple action can help to reduce stress and depression. I think like many of us, I am probably guilty of taking the good things in my life for granted and spending too much time dwelling on any negative things that have happened.
The website HappyRambles is designed to help with this simple daily act of reflection. It is an online gratitude journal which emails you every night with the question “What are you grateful for today?” When you reply to the email it is automatically stored in your own personal gratitude journal which you can then look back on later. I’m going to do this every day for a week and see what effect this has on my happiness.
So what are you grateful for today?
A new year’s resolution blog post must be obligatory today. Mine is a little different this year. My new year’s resolution is to be happy. This might seem like a strange resolution but as someone who has suffered on and off with depression since the age of 16, being happy is not something that comes easily or naturally to me, it takes effort. I’m not depressed any more but I’m not as happy as I think I could be. I am very lucky to be happily married with a 1 year old daughter who amazes me every day, we have enough money that I am able to stay at home to look after her, we are healthy and so are our families and friends. And yet a lot of the time I am either grumpy and irritable, or anxious and worried, I struggle to just be happy and contented with things as they are.
I have discovered a website called Action for Happiness which is about living a happy and fulfilling life both as an individual and as part of society in general. They suggest that there are 10 keys to happier living (based on scientific research), half of which focus on ourselves and the other half on the outside world. Together they spell GREAT DREAM:
- Giving – Do things for others
- Relating – Connect with people
- Exercising – Take care of your body
- Appreciating – Notice the world around
- Trying Out – Keep learning new things
- Direction – Have goals to look forward to
- Resilience – Find ways to bounce back
- Emotion – Take a positive approach
- Acceptance – Be comfortable with who you are
- Meaning – Be part of something bigger
I have taken the Action for Happiness Pledge as a first step, which is “I will try to create more happiness and less unhappiness in the world around me”. Maybe it sounds a bit hippyish, but it seems like common sense to me and I’m determined to give it a go. I’m hoping to start by making myself and my family happier, and then spread more happiness through my friends and maybe even beyond. There are 50 actions suggested which I’ll be working through and I will be documenting my journey here on my blog, which will be a great way to reflect and share. Why don’t you join me?
