I'm a full-time mummy

I came across this article which I must definitely share with you guys as I'm very interested to know your thoughts on this. Do note that sharing this does not mean I agree or disagree with it. For your convenience, I have copied the excerpts from the article here:

While many parents build special time for reading into family life, we don’t all do the same for writing. I believe we should. Why not call these times "read o'clock" and "write o'clock", the way I do. Don’t worry about what time precisely to do this. It doesn't matter WHEN we fit reading and writing into each day, so long as we do.

We need to make sure our kids know that writing is important and an activity we value. That means ensuring they see us writing, whether that be a grocery list, a note for a friend, or a recipe we're creating. Little ones will want to copy us right then and there, so it’s a great idea to have some writing materials available especially for them.

Before children start school, writing is mostly scribble with some letters thrown in, and maybe a picture for good measure. This is an important stage for kids. They gradually become aware of words and letters in their environment, and often want to copy what we write. Having kids write their own grocery list when we shop together is a great way to include writing AND make a shopping trip fun. Food clip art can help them make a list, and they get to cross off items as we shop.

As children master the early stages of writing, it’s important to keep write o'clock going. It's a good idea to be alert to opportunities that call for writing. Birthday party? Invitations and thank you cards. Kids nagging for something? Have them present their ideas on paper. Camping holiday? Lists galore! Often youngsters will have their own interesting ideas for writing activities, but if not, here are some more suggestions:

* Help children create a comic strip, perhaps using software, or an online editor.

 * Write a letter to someone real or imaginary, persuading them about something. Maybe your child might want to persuade The Big Bag Wolf to change his ways, or talk the Prime Minister/President into having more school holidays.

 * Take a photo or find an image and write a caption to accompany it.

* Create a character - with words, a picture, even act it out - and use this character in a story.

* Write instructions to explain something you know how to do, perhaps how to build something in LEGO, or how to blow up a balloon.

* Link writing with reading when that works for you. If kids are unhappy with the way a story ends, you might suggest they write a new ending. If they adore a book character, they may be thrilled to write more adventures for him/her. Some children will love the idea of recording all the books they read and writing a single sentence about each one.

Apart from the importance of regular daily writing, for however short a time, and having our kids catch us writing, here are some more tips. If our kids already have writing homework, that counts! I want children to enjoy writing as much as I do, and turning it into a chore won’t help. As much as possible, write o’clock activities need to be short and fun. Having special writing stuff like cute paper and pens, or being able to borrow Dad’s iPad, helps make daily writing time something children look forward to.

 

I personally would like to add that as parents, we can also make all the writing utensils and tools exciting and interesting for them. Get them colorful marker pens, highlighters, white erase boards, make it easily and readily accessible for the kiddos to use and write on whenever they want.

I also get our 6.5-year-old boy to write to a penpal. I looked for trusted parents in the FB groups I joined and exchanged addresses with them and get our boy to write whatever he fancies and mail it off for him. I use aerogram (50 cents for Malaysia) and it is easy and convenient as well.

What do you think?

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I have been cutting down on doing product reviews ever since our 3rd kiddo came along in end of Sept 2013. I do still accept review pitches but only when time permits and if it is something that I can see it being useful and beneficial to our family. Also, as busy as I am with 3 kiddos, home cooking, taking care of hubby's administration site of the business and swamped up with managing my FB page and blog, I just can't say no to reviewing good books! Reading is my passion and coupled with books that are of parenting, children, family or religion or educational genre, all the more I gotta say yes!

Title: Extreme Colouring: Amazing World
Author: Beverley Lawson
Publisher: Carlton Books Ltd (5 Nov. 2015)
ISBN: 978-1780977379
Paperback: 96 pages

Description from the product page:

"Extreme Colouring: Amazing World is action-packed with challenging, complex and advanced scenes that will keep any artist entertained for hours. Inviting you to relax and unwind, as well as encouraging and inspiring you to discover your inner artist, this extreme book of high- quality illustrations is like no other adult art book on the market. Taking inspiration from amazing places and locations around the world, this exciting, and expertly designed DIY art book will help you create your own advanced art masterpieces, one splash of colour at a time. With lots of thought-provoking and complex illustrations to inspire your imagination, Extreme Colouring: Amazing World encourages you to live life in glorious colour."

 I think I've been living under a cocoon or something as only recently I discovered this crazy colouring phase as I watched friends uploading their colouring results and seeing people asking where to buy certain brands of colour pencils at cheaper price. I absolutely cannot fathom the reasoning behind this colouring mania so when I was offered an opportunity to review a colouring book, I thought 'Should I jump into this bandwagon? I'm not artistically inclined, should I even attempt this?'

I asked around why people do this and was told that it was a therapeutic thing for them, to be able to slow down their life and focus on colouring, bit by bit. Whoaaa... therapeutic?! Sure, I'm in! As a busy mum of 3 kiddos, the last thing I could ever achieve was to slow down my busy life and do something crazy like this. I mean, attempt something crazy like this. I told myself, even if I could just colour 1 page that is a major achievement!

Now, I have to confess, I don't have any special colouring tools. All I am armed with is our kiddos' colouring pencils hahaha...

I like the theme of this book as it covers some famous places all around the world, Taj Mahal, Great Wall of China, Eiffel Tower in France and more. At the same thing when I colour the pages in the book, I get to show and teach our kiddos as well. I started colouring, telling myself, no rules here, just take whatever colour my heart desire. I mean, this is art right? Doesn't mean the colour must conform to real life right?

When I started colouring, I do feel it is so tiring as I had to concentrate on the finer details. I asked myself 'What have I gotten myself into?!' I find myself restraining my impatience feeling, to slow down and really focus on colouring one spot at a time. After a few minutes, it gets easier and easier and I do feel more calm and happy seeing the paper coming to life bit by bit.

At some point, my 4-year-old girl was intrigued and decided to doodle on one of the pages in my book. As a young girl, her favourite colour is PINK so whatever she is colouring in the book is ALL PINK. Nevertheless, like I said, no rules. Just colour.

I even sneaked in some colouring time for myself as our kiddos were busy doing their colouring activities during the school holidays. Below is a picture I snapped as we were colouring haha...

And here are some of my completed colouring works... do not laugh at me okay?

The pink coloured fences in the picture below was done by my 4-year-old girl :) Now one thing I must add is I am very happy to notice how this colouring book impact my 4-year-old girl as I discovered one of her colouring work during Sunday school where she coloured the flowers and leaves separately. As in the flowers were pink (of course!) and the leaves were green. All nicely separated instead of her usual style of colouring everything pink. I'm glad to observe this in her!

In summary, it is an eye opening experience for me, I'm glad to review this book, to be able to slow down my busy life and enjoyed the calming moments as I coloured away. The sense of accomplishments as you see the pages being brought to life by your own colouring is amazing!

The book is available at all major bookstores. For international fans, you can find it at Amazon.

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with a copy of the book in order to facilitate my review. All opinions expressed in this post are my own. Please do your own research when purchasing products, as your opinions may differ from mine. And if you'd like to read my previous book reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My Book Reviews"

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.

I came across this article the other day while I was on my usual bedtime news articles reading routine to our 3 kiddos. Had a great conversation with our oldest kiddo especially, explaining to him what does 'Regrets' mean and then further explaining and giving examples as we go through each of the items in the list.

** Note: I have disabled the commenting feature on my blog engine thanks to all the spammers who happily spam my blog every day. If you wish to ask me any questions, you can find me at my Facebook page (I'm there almost everyday) or just drop me an email if you wish to maintain some anonymity.