I'm a full-time mummy

I've always been intrigued and very much curious with Montessori methods and am very happy I get to review an app for Montessori learning for my child. Anyway, my review as below for the "Montessori Revolution" app...

* Title: Montessori Revolution
* Price: $0.99
* Category: Education
* Updated: Jan 25, 2012
* Version: 1.0.2
* Size: 27.6 MB
* Language: English
* Seller: MEDL Mobile, Inc
* Rated: 4+
* Requirements: Compatible with iPad.Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

Description from the product page:

"The Montessori Revolution iPad app carries the rich and world-renown heritage of the Montessori method into the 21st Century, allowing you to bring home the time-tested techniques and methods that your child experiences at school. Developed hand-in-hand with a team of trusted and experienced Montessorians, This powerful Montessori pro-tool amplifies your child’s learning by marrying cutting-edge technology with the hands-on, discovery-based education system of the Montessori method.

The app employs several multi-sensory exercises to improve your child’s cognitive abilities in a variety of areas, including arithmetic, hand-eye coordination, spatial awareness and problem solving.

DISCOVERY OVER DIRECTION
Montessori Revolution taps into your child’s natural abilities in order to reshape their learning process. By promoting a learning process based on active discovery instead of passive instruction, Montessori Revolution gives your child the best head start on their journey through life.

CURB THE LEARNING CURVE
Six dynamic hands-on exercises highlight your child’s natural abilities, playing to their strengths while identifying and improving areas of challenge.
– “The Moveable Alphabet” grows your child’s basic phonemic skills using audio-visual cues, drag-and-drop screen gestures and several levels of difficulty.
– “The Pink Tower” teaches your child scale, direction perception skills, concentration and order by building a tower from several sizes of blocks.
– “The Pouring Exercise” develops your child’s hand-eye coordination and spatial awareness by transferring beans back and forth between two containers.
– “The Short Bead Stairs” builds your child’s arithmetic and direction-following skills through a drag-and-drop game
– “The Canvas” introduces your child to the world of art and color through a free-form drawing tablet.
– “The Globe” teaches your child geography through an interactive rotating globe with clickable continents.

TRACK YOUR CHILD'S GROWTH
Watch and monitor your child’s growth with the in-app progress tracker. You can keep track of everything, from time spent on each exercise to individual lesson scores.

TWO EXERCISES
As part of your purchase, you get two free hands-on exercises: the Canvas exercise to get you started, and a bonus exercise of your choice. Each additional exercise is only $0.99

PROFILES FOR MULTIPLE STUDENTS
Easily create and manage profiles for multiple students. You can add as many students as you would like, and each profile allows you to upload a photo."

There are 6 exercises on this app but this review is based on 2 of the exercises available which are: “The Moveable Alphabet” and "The Canvas".

(*Note: You get 2 exercises as part of the purchase, the other 4 are in-app purchases, each costs $0.99)

What's good?

* I like the varieties of exercises on this app.

* Although Ben is not at the spelling stage yet, I did try out the 1st exercise which is “The Moveable Alphabet”. It is an interesting approach to teach spelling and I'd like to go over this again when Ben is at the spelling stage one day.

* I got Ben to try out the 2nd exercise which is "The Canvas" and we have some fun time just doodling and drawing!

I drew the orange octopus on the top right. Ben drew his version on the bottom left.

To my surprise, Ben drew Spiderman's eyes! (* In case you don't know, it's on the left)

Room for Improvement?

* I would prefer if all the 6 exercises are made available in this app, perhaps 2 of them are fully accessible (as per the current settings) and the other 4 allows us to try out a basic or simple activity so we can have a feel of each of the exercises in this app.

You can purchase the " Montessori Revolution " app from the iTunes App Store.

I am so excited to be able to hold this giveaway for my lucky blog followers and readers! FIVE of you lucky people are going to win a copy of this educational and useful app! You will absolutely love it! Now, let's read below for the giveaway terms and conditions OK?

* Note: 2 of the exercises offered for the giveaway are: “The Moveable Alphabet” and "The Canvas"

To enter the giveaway, kindly read and follow the instructions as stated in the Rafflecopter form below.

• You can enter either via login through your Facebook account or just key in your name and your valid email address.
  
• Please also leave your valid email address in the post comment so that I can contact you if you win this giveaway.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I received no monetary compensation for this review, I was provided with the promo code by the sponsor to redeem the application for free from iTunes Store 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 iPad Apps reviews, you can do so by reading this post of mine called "My iPad App Reviews"

If you are a parent, you will surely have or need to use this: Baby Changing Station.

Now, what is a baby changing station? It is a table on which you lay your baby down to change his or her diaper. So, regardless your child is on disposable or cloth diapers, like I said earlier, we as a parent will surely own one.... or at least need to use one when we are out and about.

To be honest, we don't own one but we do McGyver-ise one of our office tables to be a baby changing station. Now of course, we don't just simply take a table and use it as a baby changing station! We have to consider whether the table is sturdy enough to support the weight of our child, whether the surface of the table is comfortable to place our child on, and whether the size is wide and long enough for our child to be placed on the table. And as our child grows up, we have to consider the functionalities as well, whether it can be used for other purposes later on.

When we go out, I like to check out the baby rooms facility provided by the place we go to. Some of the places (like malls) have wall mounted baby changing station which is space saving and strong while some places make use of changing pads and placed them on some table or racks.

Do you have a baby changing station?

What features do you think is important in a baby changing station?

** Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. All thoughts, opinions and words are 100 % my own.

Ben started teething at 9 months old.

Alyson on the other hand started teething a day before she turned 6 months old.

With Ben, it took about 2 light smackings (I used my 3 fingers to smack lightly) on his mouth when he bit me during breastfeeding and he got the message never to hurt mummy again.

With Alyson? Sigh... I'm still trying to teach her not to bite mummy. Sometimes she looks at me with her guilty face, sometimes she smiles as if she thinks she is playing with mummy.

Perhaps she's a bit too young to understand the concept of  light smack on mouth = punishment for biting mummy.