Children Toys in Malaysia

No wonder they say raising kids are expensive! Look at the price of children toys and clothes here in Malaysia and you will know why. For a good quality toy here, you will easily need to fork out hundreds (maybe even thousands! I'm not kidding and we are not even talking about the iPads and Wii!). Comparing dollar to dollar, you can easily get three toys for £20 in the UK and £50 can go a loooooong way! Second hand items still in very good condition sell at merely just a few pounds!

One example is the Leapfrog activity table. In the UK, a new one is selling for £35.75 while in Malaysia, it is selling for RM238.00! Dollar for dollar, can you imagine paying only RM35.75 for this item?? Even after converting, it is still shockingly more expensive in Malaysia!

Comparing second hand ones, one was recently sold for RM69 in Malaysia while it is common to see one sold for less than £5 on eBay! Some were even sold at their original list price of only £0.99!

Some solution to this:
1. Extend life of toys by buying second hand or hand over toys to younger children or donate to a charity. Only problem is second hand toy shops are a rare sight in Malaysia and we don't have many relatives to hand us down items while most friends are still keeping theirs for their third, fourth and fifth child  :(  Those willing to sell me second hand items, I'm willing to have a look! Those wanting to have more space at home, send your unused children toys and clothes this way please!

2.  Home made. Sure bought toys come with lots of sounds and lights but when a toy is crafted together at home, there is a sense of pride and achievement not to mention the special bonding session while sparks of creativity fly all over the place! Besides, it is fun, easy, doesn't hurt the pocket as much and green! Check out lots of ideas online or some of our little projects: play dough, five little freckled frogs, marble run and others which I will continue to post here.

3. Exchange. If you can find people who are willing to exchange toys with you for a few weeks or so, this is a great way to save and try 'new' toys on both sides. Just need to place your trust in each other to keep the toys clean and return them in one piece but don't have high expectations when dealing with curious toddlers. Though it is not easy to break the mental barrier of parents here regarding hygiene etc. it may be worth a try! Start with some small inexpensive ones first and if it doesn't work out, you can always scrap the idea.

4. Review. If you really need to purchase toys, spend some time reading reviews online before your next purchase to know what toys are suitable at what age to get the best mileage and have your money well spent. Hopefully I can help by putting some review posts up if I get a chance.

Any other suggestions out there??

Baking Chocolate Chip Cookies with Baby O

Recently, I bought Hershey’s Cocoa Powder and Hershey's Chocolate Chips to bake Martha Stewart’s Cream Cheese Brownie. Attached to the products is a mini Hershey’s recipe book with all sorts of chocolate goodies. So I decided to try the chocolate chip cookies recipe with Baby O as our little activity today.

Baking is such a great activity with toddlers. It is one of the activities that stimulates all senses! The child is able to see all the action and ingredients and tools, hear the clanging and noises spoons knocking on bowls, touch the different textures of the butter or cookie dough, smell the aroma of the cookies baking in the oven and finally taste it! Yum yum! On top of that, baking also develops language. During the activity, words like big, small, round, brown, crumbs, mix, fast, slow, and uh oh! (very often) can be related to relevantly. Have I mentioned that it is also therapeutic for the parent?


For parents who would like to conduct this baking business with their young ones, I recommend you to:

1. use a simple recipe with not too many ingredients - it will be a handful minding a toddler and trying to get everything together. You wouldn’t want yourself of your toddler getting frustrated so keep complicated recipes for yourself another time. Chocolate chip cookies is a good start.

2. bake something that the little one can enjoy later too - after all, he/ she did help out. It is only fair for him/ her to enjoy the fruit of his/ her labour! So go for something light or reduce the amount of sugar or omit the salt and use unsalted butter. You might even want to substitute chocolate chips with raisins.

3. expect mess, maybe loads of them - use a clear space and prep toddler with apron/ bibs/ clothes you don’t mind staining.

4. keep the communication going - this might be one of the most important step for the activity. Explain the steps while measuring, mixing, etc. Tell him/ her how the scale or oven or mixer works. Show him/ her how you crack an egg.

5. use a low surface - we prepared our cookie dough on an IKEA Lack side table which is at the right height for Baby O to participate and see all that is going on. If you don’t have a suitable low table, another suggestion is to prop your child on his/ her highchair while you prepare on a surface next to him/ her.

6. clean up together - don’t expect your toddler to wash the mixing bowls but you can always wipe the surfaces, put things away and wash your hands together to instill the responsibility.

7. take it easy - you’re not going to make a living out of this so just enjoy the process (and the cookies) together!

Note: Baby O is 19 months old at the time of this post. You can also start baking with babies. That's right! Sling them on you or put them on their high chair and dictate all the steps that you are going through to promote language development. It's never too early!

MOMMade: Five Little Freckled Frogs

We have designated Tuesdays our craft day. This Tuesday, we worked on an idea that has been stored in the back of my mind for some time now. So off to gather some scraps and have some fun with Baby O:

Materials
empty card board boxes
kitchen towel roll
colour markers/ crayons/ pencils
scissors
craft knife
pencil





1. Sketch five little frogs (about 3 inches high) on a piece of card board. Don’t forget to add little freckles and a little tab at the bottom of your frogs to insert onto the speckled log later. Colour them in and cut them out. Alternatively, if you don't mind my frogs, you can print them out, paste them on a card board and cut them out.

2. Cut open the kitchen towel roll from top to bottom. Fold back about an inch of the roll from the opening to allow the log to stand on its own. Colour the top of the roll in as the speckled log. Colour the folded part of the log as water.

3. Mark on the speckled log where you want your freckled frogs to be and make a slit the size of your tabs with a craft knife.

4. Insert tabs of freckled frogs into slits on speckled log. Ta daa!

5. Remove freckled frogs one by one while singing:



 
Five Little Freckled Frogs
Sat on a speckled log
Eating the most delicious bugs. Yum! Yum!
One jumped into the pool
Where it was nice and cool
Then there were Four green freckled frogs. Glug! Glug!

Four Little Freckled Frogs
Sat on a speckled log
Eating the most delicious bugs. Yum! Yum!
One jumped into the pool
Where it was nice and cool
Then there were Three green freckled frogs. Glug! Glug!

Three Little Freckled Frogs
Sat on a speckled log
Eating the most delicious bugs. Yum! Yum!
One jumped into the pool
Where it was nice and cool
Then there were Two green freckled frogs. Glug! Glug!

Two Little Freckled Frogs
Sat on a speckled log
Eating the most delicious bugs. Yum! Yum!
One jumped into the pool
Where it was nice and cool
Then there were One green freckled frog. Glug! Glug!

One Little Freckled Frogs
Sat on a speckled log
Eating the most delicious bugs. Yum! Yum!
He jumped into the pool
Where it was nice and cool
Then there were no green freckled frogs. Glug! Glug!

Note: There are many versions of the lyrics but they all sound the same like this:


Caution: Don't forget to supervise the curious little ones and use all sharp tools from a safe distance.

MOMMade: Homemade Play Dough

Lots to do but can't help taking a break and put a post up!! ;-)

This is so easy to make and made of 100% edible ingredient though I wouldn't eat it due to the high sodium content! I can only imagine how it tastes like!

What you need:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 cup water
2 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons cream of tartar
Food colouring

Method:
Mix flour, salt and oil in a bowl. Slowly add in water. The play dough will look sludgy at this point.  Cook over medium heat, stirring until dough becomes stiff. Turn off heat and leave the play dough to cool. When cooled, knead the play dough with your hands until they come together and form play dough! You can use it as it is. I have divided the play dough into four separate balls and added food colouring into each ball. You can also use vegetable juices like dragon fruit, spinach and carrot to make pink, green, and orange coloured play dough. Put the coloured play dough in separate containers to avoid the colours mixing - let the toddlers do that bit for you! I have been keeping the play dough in the refrigerator when not in use. The play dough are exactly two weeks old now and they still feel soft and look like how they were two weeks ago even though they have been messed with. Let's see how long it will last!

On hind sight, I should have used cooled, boiled water instead of tap water. Reason being the play dough will probably last longer. Second reason being should Baby O decide to put any play dough into her mouth, it is a tad safer and hopefully won't cause her any tummy ache(??). I doubt this makes any sense as the other contents of the play dough will probably be the culprit and not just the water alone. Regardless, please supervise your child(ren) at all times during this activity.

Another tip would be not to cook the play dough in a non-stick pot. I did that and the undissolved salt scratched the surface of my pot. :(

Happy play-ing dough!

Wooden Blocks

I have finally found it! I was looking for some wooden ABC blocks for Baby O. I like the classic looking ones with carved out alphabets/numbers. A friend has kindly sourced and recommended the Haba wooden building blocks. They come in beautiful colours and whimsical shapes. Haba wooden blocks are from Germany and claims to be made of hard wood with completely non-toxic, child friendly finishes. However, they are a tad pricey. The 25 pieces of Eeeny, Meeny, Miny, Zoo blocks are priced at $49.99 online. Besides the make, the price has to be right too. So, let's KIV that....

Then, I asked Mr Google for 'classic wooden blocks' and he showed me these from Uncle Goose going for $33.99. Also made from non-toxic inks, these 28 pieces made-in-the-USA blocks just ain't classic enough for me. 

The same friend then recommended me The Baby Loft which stocks the Wonderworld ABC Touchy Wooden Blocks. Made from rubber wood and non-toxic colours, this Thai product is priced at RM108.90. Not too bad but didn't spur me to buy them immediately.

Then one fine day at Toys R Us, I saw these on the shelves staring right in my face saying 'Buy Me!'.  These Imaginarium wooden blocks seem to check all the right boxes! Besides being wooden and carved, it comes in ABCs (both capital and lower case!) and 123s as well as pictures.

Building blocks aids a child's development in numerous ways - touch (the carved letters), cause and effect (stacking up makes a block tower/ knock them and they fall), fine motor skills (pick/ stack/ knock), size/ shape/ colour discrimination, visual stimulation (match the blocks).

I couldn't wait for Baby O to open the box up and play! While waiting, I went searching for reviews on Imaginarium. I noticed one review on the blocks I bought mentioned something about having the same letters on different surface instead of having different letters to be able to build more words. I didn't think much of it until the time came when we (excitedly) opened up the package. Three things struck me almost immediately:

1. The contents are made up of 1/3 blocks and 2/3 packaging! Very misleading indeed! Yes, cleverly hidden behind the alphabet blocks is another empty box that helps to put everything into a presentable manner. Tsk, tsk, tsk...

2. The blocks are pretty lightweight and have sharp corners. I suppose being lightweight is a benefit when it comes to being handled by tiny toddler hands and fingers. The sharp corners will probably wear off eventually (looking at how they are being handled!). 

3. The same capital and lower letters appear on the same block together with a corresponding picture. Eg. 'M' appears with 'm' and a picture of a monkey. This is great for learning the ABCs in upper and lower case and in association with an object. Then the review mentioned above flashed back at me saying 'See! Told you so!' when I tried putting the blocks together to spell the world 'BABY' for Baby O. There are 2 blocks of its kind so there are 2 'A's and 2 'B's and so on. To my dismay, the letter 'Y' appears together with the letter 'B'. So its B(Y)-A(Z)-B(Y)... and insufficient 'Y' blocks as they have been utilised as 'B's! Yikes! I guess this can also be easily remedied by .. erm.. buying another set??!?! For the time being, it'll be just building wooden block towers and knocking them down, Bab O!