Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Self Portrait for a Cause : No Child is Born to Die Campaign and Petition

Thanks to Michelle from Best Toys for Toddlers, we have been included in this special project for Save the Children Foundation and their "No Child is Born to Die" Campaign started by Maggy from Red Ted Art.
Info about this campaign:


In January Save the Children launched it’s most ambitious campaign to date, No Child Born to Die. Every year 8 million children under five die from illnesses we know how to treat or prevent, such as diarrhoea and pneumonia.

Save The Children is focusing on the provision of vaccinations and healthcare workers. In June there is a meeting in London hosted by David Cameron and attended by other world leaders. Save The Children aims to make as much noise as possible to ensure the funding shortfall for vaccinations (4.7 billion) is met by all the donor countries.
If this funding gap is met the vaccines that could then be provided would save the lives of millions of children.
This week 3 bloggers/ vloggers are going to Mozambique to follow the journey of a vaccine from the coldstore in the city right down to a rural community. They will write, make films and tweet about their experiences, the children and families they meet and the challenges of “cold” vaccinations in hot countries.
The bloggers going are diverse,Lindsay Atkin (@Liliesarelike) is a hugely popular YouTuber, Chris Mosler(@christinemosler) is an influential parenting blogger and Tracey Cheetham (@tchee) is a popular political blogger and recently elected councilor.
Are you willing to sign a petition?  
And now, the Challenge:
This crafty challenge is designed to support their work – to spread the word about their No Child Born to Die campaign and to highlight the funding shortfall for vaccines. We are lucky that our children have a future. They can dream about becoming policemen, doctors, teachers or artist. The children in Mozambique dream about survival…
This is the self portrait made by Putti who has recently started adding shapes for body which used to be line all this time!!
Challenge for you is simple:
1) Get your child to either draw or craft a self portrait of themselves now or in the future. Even a simple circle with dots and lines is sufficient for us!!!
3) Sign the Save the Children petition and then pass it onto your friends
4) Write a blog post about it as soon as possible, including info about Save the Children and the petition. We want as many people linked up AND signed up the petition by Sunday 29th May 2011
5) Tag 8 fellow blogger friends
6) Come back and link up your posts, so we can all share your craftiness
7) If you have time, visit each other posts and say hello!
And don’t forget to follow all the action in Mozambique on Twitter using the hastag #PassItOn.
Passing it on to:
Shruthi @ Mindfull Meanderings
Dr Sonia @ Cards, Crafts and Kids Projects
Tammy @ Housing a Forest
Michelle @ Michelle's Charm world
Laura @ Art for Little Hands
Vinitha @ Pooh's Den
Himadri @ Mum Paints Lives
*Not been tagged, Take part ANYWAY… do the below and you are away*
**Don’t want to craft/blog, but do want to help? Go and sign the petition**

Friday, May 20, 2011

5- A-Day Book Challenge - Week 7

Well, we completed our sixth week of the 5-A-Day book challenge. We didn't get around to reading all 5 books especially on weekends. Putti really has gotten into this 5 books thing. Anytime we read, she insists on reading the 5 special books.
Her vocabulary has improved a lot, given the fact that We speak to her only in kannada at home except while reading english books to her. Thanks to Anna for starting this and inspiring us. The main reason for me to take part in this challenge is I being born and brought up in India in a non english speaking home, havenot read any of these books as a kid, so all are new to me. And this challenge has helped me pick some great books for putti!!

Here's our pick for this week:
To learn more about 5-a-day challenge visit 'The Imagination Tree'
5 a day books

Monday, May 16, 2011

Baby Play Ideas from the Web!!

Couple of my friends have little ones who are around 8-11 mnths. The enthusiastic moms have asked me what I did with Putti during that age and for some fun filled activity ideas for their little ones. But I have not done any planned activity with her while she was an infant. She loved being talked to her, i would talk to her while giving her a bath, while nursing, cooking.. well almost always when she was awake :) She loved playing with boxes, bottles, lids etc.
Here are some of the activities for infants I recently came across on the web which I hope might be useful to my friends and some of you too...

Read about the Importance of play, a wonderful article written by Anna. While you are there on her blog donot miss out to check her ideas for discovery boxes.


Cathy at Nurture Store shares lots of awesome play ideas for the little ones. Check out their list of ideas here.

No time for flash cards  shares many wonderful ideas for the little ones here.
 Also check their Discovery bottles



Ready set read also has some great ideas for babies here.


Sparkle Bottle for the crawling baby by Pickle bums
Baby fabric bucket by Tinkerlab

 Parent connect shares some fun indoor activities for babies.

And for artsy activities I think kitchen is the best place as it has washable floors when compared to the rest of the house.You could put the child in a high chair in the kitchen for painting projects.





Do you have a link for fun baby play? 
Please do share with us in comments, Thanks!

5- A-Day Book Challenge - Week 6

I have been sick for the last week and  was not able to read to/with putti  much. And I am so glad she had picked two of Eric Carle's books which she and I have known by heart now, so made it much easier to read.
Have You Seen My Cat?
Have you seen my cat by Eric Carle is a little boy's story whose cat is missing, and he goes around asking people to find his lost pet. He sees many members of the cat family, including lions, tigers and panthers. "Have you seen my cat?" and "This is not my cat!" are repeated and are the only text to read in the book, which makes it very easy for putti to read it. She loves recognizing the various wild cats all through the book!!
Very Hungry Caterpillar 
The very hungry caterpillar by Eric Carle has been Putti's favorite for a long time now. It teaches days of the week, the days of the week, counting to five and also the life cycle of a butterfly in a wonderful way.

 One Hungry Monster: A Counting Book in Rhyme
One Hungry Monster by Susan Heyboer O'Keefea wonderful is a counting book with lots of rhyming text. Purple eggplants and pickled pears are putti's new favorite food to ask for snack!! The monsters paint their lips with peanut butter, put spaghetti on their heads and more and putti has attempted to paint her lips when she eats peanut butter. Hope she does not try to mimick the monsters' other acts.

Ten in the Meadow
Ten in the meadow  by John Butler The critters are almost too adorable. The book has nice rhymes with the hide-and-seek story. And there're some visual clues about who the Bear will be finding next which putti loved guessing.
Duck in the Truck
Duck in the truck by Jez Alborough is the story of a Duck in his truck which gets struck in the muck who is helped by a sheep in a jeep and goat in boat!! Loved all the rhyming words. Putti  pointed out that Duck did not Thank his friends for helping  him and she did not like that!!


The books for the coming week are:
Three Bears by  Paul Goldone
Crazy ABC by Judy Hindley
Do Knights Take Naps?  by Kathy Tucker
Hide and Squeak  by Heather Vogel Frederick
Dont Hop with Pop by Anders Hanson 

Linking to :
5 a day books

Monday, May 9, 2011

5- A-Day Book Challenge - Week 5

Well these are the books we read in our week 4:

 Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? My First Reader
Brown bear brown bear by Bill Martin Jr is a very simple book. I had to read to her only once on the first day and by the end of the day she was "reading" this book to me by herself.  Later on each and every day, she read this book to me instead!! Putti loves this book and has even made up her versions for our family and plays with her soft toys too. She sings it as a song and goes on "amma amma what do see?" or "Barney barney what do you see" etc.
   Chicka Chicka Boom Boom: Anniversary Edition
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Jr Bill Martin and John Archambault has nice rhythmic text. The letters of the alphabet race each other to the top of the coconut tree. When the weight is too much they all tumble down! And loved the illustrations of  stubbed toe E, F with a Band-Aid and the black-eyed P. The repetitive phrases "skit skat skoodle flip flop flee" were a big hit with putti.
The Sheep Is Asleep (First Rhymes) 
The Sheep is asleep by Kelly Doudna was a wonderful book to learn 'eep' word family. Simple illustrations and text which is great for beginning readers.
The Little Red Hen (Folk Tale Classics) 
The Little Red Hen by Paul Galdone is a first time read for putti and she absolutely adored it.  The words "Not I said the cat/dog/mouse" has a picture of each animal next to it making it very easy for her to 'read' that part of story even from first day!! 
Each Peach Pear Plum   [EACH PEACH PEAR PLUM-BOARD] [Board Books]
Each Peach Pear Plum by Allan Ahlberg has plenty of rhyming text based around a game of 'I spy'. Putti loved searching for some familiar nursery rhyme characters such as Mother Hubbard, Bo beep and Jack and Jill. We ended up learning the baby bunting rhyme too as it was very new to both putti and me:) Yay for added fun!!

This week's choice are:
One Hungry Monster by Susan Heyboer O'Keefe
Have you seen my cat by Eric Carle
The very hungry caterpillar by Eric Carle
Ten in the meadow  by John Butler
Duck in the truck by Jez Alborough

Linking to :
5 a day books