3 Favorite UVC Sterilizers | Disinfecting Essentials

 My 3 favorite UVC sterilizers that I use to disinfect our stuff from gadgets to rooms to keys and even money!

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3-Year-Old Twins Bake Chocolate Chunk Cookies

 My 3-year-old twins making their favourite cookie. Of course the couldn't resist eating some of the chocolate chunks while baking. I was worried we should run out! Aside from having freshly baked treats, I love how baking has helped them practice basic math skills, expand their vocabulary, and work on listening and sequencing skills when they follow steps in a recipe.

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5 Ways To Encourage Creative Play

Giving our kids plenty of opportunities to play is one of the best things we can do to support their learning and development. Sharing some ideas to encourage creative play at home.

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5 Favorite Newborn Essentials

Sharing 5 products I couldn't live without during my twins' newborn stage. What are your newborn essentials?

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Play to Learn: FREE mini eBook!

So how are you guys doing? We're a week into the coronavirus lockdown and with all the uncertainty and bad news going around, it's really been a stressful period so I want to spread a little joy especially to our little ones at home.

So the past few days, I've been working during the kids' nap and sleeping times creating a mini ebook with a week's worth of activities for toddlers and preschoolers.

All of these activities make use of everyday materials that hopefully you already have at home. The mini eBook is FREE to download for everyone. The link to download is here.

Here's an example of one of the activities you can find in the Play to Learn mini eBook:

I hope you will find this helpful and share it with others who need it. Let's all stay optimistic and playful! We can do this together!

Sensory Play

When the twins turned 2, I discovered the magic and benefits of sensory play. Sensory play is any activity that stimulates any of the 5 senses: taste, smell, sound, touch, and sight. It's a great way for kids to learn because it allows them to actively use their senses and explore to understand the world around them. 

So why is sensory play beneficial for kids?

1. Research shows that sensory play helps build cognitive skills which are important for problem solving. 
2. It allows children to practice fine motor skills and increase coordination (squeezing, pinching, scooping, pouring, etc.).
3. It helps in vocabulary building (Learn words to describe characteristics of objects: sticky, cold, wet, etc.).
4. It inspires imagination and creativity when children come up with different ways to play. 
5. It's FUN!!! Children really enjoy hands-on experiences. 

For me, the easiest way to incorporate sensory play into the twins' activities is by creating sensory bins. It stimulates sight, touch, and sound all at the same time. The first sensory bin I made for the twins was super simple: just rice and and some spoons, cups and funnels. They spent about 55 minutes pouring and scooping and later on pretending to sell me some "rice juice." That's a long time for a two year old to stay focused on one thing.  They loved running the rice through their fingers, scooping up a handful of it and watching it drop, and even shaking it in a cup because it reminded them of the sound of rain. They even invented their own game: rice foot spa! They took turns pouring rice over each others' feet. Judging by their laughs, it sure sounded like a lot of fun. It was a total win for me! Who knew that a common household item like uncooked rice would be able to hold their attention for more than 30 minutes!?

Rice will always be a favourite sensory bin base for me but I've also started experimenting with different kinds of sensory bins each week. The most successful one to date is our bean scooping and pouring sensory bin which the twins played with for a total of 5 hours in one day! It was a playroom miracle! If you want to see our bean scooping bin (hehe that was kind of a tongue twister), head on over to Instagram and follow @startermama where I document the twins' sensory play activities.

Jollibee Fast Food Pretend Play With The A Twins

Audrey and Antonino's love for Jollibee started about two months ago when they first saw a Jollibee statue at a mall. They both pointed to it and asked "Who's that?" Joey and I simply answered "That's Jollibee." then went about doing our usual errands. But since then, the twins' eyes would light up whenever they would see Jollibee's face on a billboard, sign or store front while we're out driving. In fact, during a recent road trip to Tagaytay, they entertained themselves by looking for Jollibee. Kind of like the usual find the red car game. They had a blast shouting "There's a Jollibee on my side" whenever they saw Jollibee and Bye Jollibee!" when they could no longer see him.

Then, about two weeks ago, the twins started getting very picky about their food. After almost a week of mealtime struggles, my mom (aka LaMom) suggested we order in some Chickenjoy for lunch as their weekly treat since they love crunchy food - tempura, fish and chips, and corn flakes. I wasn't so sure about it at first because you know how toddlers are when you try to introduce new food to them. We're at the terrible terrific two's stage. But, long story short, we ended up calling Jollibee Delivery at around 11:30AM. Well, my mom was right (Isn't that funny about moms?) - they loved it! They ate one piece of chicken each, no questions asked, and they declared that they "love so many deliveries."

So last weekend, we took them to Jollibee for their first in store experience. They ordered their kiddie meals, ate Chickenjoy, and even got the free toys! Then I had another treat for them back home...

Disclaimer, I'm not a DIY mom, not even close, but armed with Google Images, a printer, and a bit of glue, I repurposed their play kitchen into a Jollibee counter. I made a sign and menu board then added their cash register and some of their existing food toys which matched the Jollibee menu. LaMom also saved and framed the takeout menu as an extra prop. Watch the video above to see the twins at work. My non-DIY mommy heart is full. Watch until the end to see how much they love Jollibee!

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