My husband and I have always believed in early brain development and we wanted to fully make use of first 3 years of Aiden's life as this period of time is believed to be the most crucial period for a child's brain development. Hence, we often engaged in spontaneous and simple made-up games with Aiden at home. For example, I used to hiding familar toys in the different rooms in the house after showing Aiden where I had placed them initially and then told him to find all of them. This forces him to recollect information that he had been already given and thereby stimulating his ability to absorb and store information in his brain, and subsequently using them.
Creative play with a baby doesn't have to be complex. However, they do take up time. And may I remind you that I am a stay-at-home mother and full time housewife living in a foreign country with no help. By the time Aiden was 2.5 years old, I have to admit, I was getting a little exhausted with the constant playing. I was looking forward to the time he would be ready to do independent play by himself or at least be interested in board games, which are technically more fun for an adult like me.
One day, I got him a set of board games from Orchard Toys. It is called "Bus Stop" and is an educational and fun adding and subtracting game where all the players start off with a bus each. You throw the dice and will have to move the bus in the number of steps that is indicated on the dice. Where the bus land, there will be either a "+" or a "-" sign. That means you will have to either add, or subtract passengers from your bus. Then you throw the dice again to see how many passengers you have to add or subtract. The person with the most number of passengers on their bus when they reach the destination stop will win the game.
I have always been a fan of "Orchard Toys". The toys and board games that they produce are always fun, creative and educational. Aiden is now 3 and at the right age for simple and interactive board games. He can understand the rules and knows how to follow them (previously he will probably throw the dice at ME instead of throwing them on the board). Besides, he has always been good with numbers and I thought this bus game could make him understand the fundamentals of addition and subtraction.
So yeah, I finally get to do board games with my boy. But if we were to have another child, I will have to do all those creative, simple but boring (to me) homemade games with the baby ALL OVER AGAIN. Dammit!
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3 comments:
Hey babe, where can I buy this game in Singapore? Sounds like fun and I can play it with Sarah. Kris
I got mine here in Japan but there is a shop in Singapore that sells alot of toys and games by Orchard Toys. the shop is called "Growing Fun" (i think). They have 1 outlet at suntec (the level where toys rus and some maternity shops are) and another one at Vivo. But I can't remember where in Vivo. somewhere corner and not obvious. It is a really good shop with a very wide range of educational toys and games for all children age groups. including babies!
Sounds a bit like all the stuff I used to do with Sarah from baby to school age. It was exhausting though Cindy. Somewhere I have all the old programs I used to use, they were implemented by a group called 'Peach' from Bunbury in WA. I did have some help several days a week, I needed it as well I can tell you. lol
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