My first-born daughter, Chesska, just turned 9 years old a couple of months ago. I almost forgot to blog about this as I couldn't do blogging and vlogging at the same time due to busyness. 😁 However, I prefer to vlog right now because blogging is not as lucrative as vlogging based on what I've read online. And also based on my experience with blogging, it's even difficult to earn $5 dollars per month unless you have a hundred of thousands views per month. But my main purpose for blogging is not only to earn money but to document my experience as a mother, my personal life, and my children's milestone. It's also my outlet to express my opinion and feelings in whatever situations that may arise. 

Anyway, back to Chesska's 9th birthday. 

Every time my children celebrated their birthdays, I always posted it here because I want to have a remembrance of them. I also wanted to make a post about what we did during this pandemic. Aside from that, whenever I got bored, I just opened my blog and read my post again. It made me happy instantly while looking at their pictures at how much they have grown. 

Obviously, we chose Unicorn theme decorations as this is Chesska's favorite toy. Well, who doesn't like unicorns? It's super cute.  If I had to be a little kid again, I would have chosen this kind of decoration. 

Nothing so fancy about the celebration, it was just a simple one. Though the decorations look extravagant, I'll tell you, it was very cheap since we just used crepe papers as a backdrop. It at least eased the mental boredom of my children during this pandemic. We all know how this pandemic has affected the children so much especially that they are not still allowed to go outside. 

I bet, many of us are homeschooling our kids due to what is happening in our world today.  A week ago, I created a schedule for kids in order for them not to spend too much time on TV and gadgets.  Kids are naturally active and mobile so they need activities that will not only tire them but also improve their skills while classes are suspended due to enhance community quarantine.  I can tell that my schedule was pretty effective. You may access all my homeschooling ideas here.

So last week, I introduced letter H through heart sensory play.  My kids love hands-on activity, allowing them to explore and become creative.  It is also effective in soothing children when fussy or anxious.
I discussed with Psalm what letter H sound like. I gave her examples of what are the things that begin with letter H.

After exploring the sensory bin, I asked Psalm, my younger daughter to sort out the hearts according to colors and count the number of hearts per column. As I said in my previous post, Psalm was a bit challenging because her span of attention was short.  So I had to reinforce the concept learned using another activity the next day.




We love this sensory play and I hope you will try this out using your available resources at home since we cannot go out for buying materials. I was just so lucky because I was able to keep the materials I used for Chesska when she was three years old.

Bago turuan ang bata or ang iyong anak magbasa, dapat turuan muna ng tunog ng mga letra or letter sound. This video is for mothers out there who would like to teach their children at home. 

After I weaned off my second child, Psalm, from the breast (she was 10 months then),   I already gave her Bona products (Browse Bona Products Here).   In fact, until she reaches 3 years old, she still loves this brand. I heard comments from other moms say that kids get smarter and healthier if they drink expensive milk. But for me, it's a lie.  We are bombarded with TV ads nowadays that really affect our buying decision. Sure, some expensive brand has other add-on nutrients like DHA but almost all brands have the same nutrients that a growing child needs. So it's very important to check and compare the nutrition facts when buying in the supermarkets. 

A couple of days ago, we celebrated mom's 60th birthday. We just made the celebration simple because we couldn't also invite many people due to the COVID-19 health protocol in our city. As a creative gal (I claimed, hehe), I made the decorations myself in a gold and black theme because this is what I saw online after my research. At first, it was a little bit off because I didn't like a black design but when I saw the output, I loved what I was seeing. Mom liked it very much and she was happy with the design. Materials used: 

I couldn't believe Psalm just turned 4 last month. How time really flies!

Psalm's birthday was the most simple one because it so happened during this time of crisis.  Aside from that, we are not allowed to celebrate in a big crowd so we decided to just invite a few relatives close to us. 

She chose Harry Potter herself as her birthday theme.  It was kind of strange because I was expecting she would choose a unicorn or princess theme.  But since we started watching the 7 episodes of the Harry Potter movie, she became a huge fan of it.  As a matter of fact, even before her birthday came, she kept requesting me to buy cake, toys, and clothes with the characters of Harry Potter in it.  So without further ado, I would like to share with you our pictures. 

The Block Model Approach helps students solve word problems involving fractions easily using bars.

Block model approach or Singaporean Math helps children visualize a problem situation using bar models. Thus, it helps them solve problems easily. In this video, I gave three examples: 1. Mr Donald had 456 oranges. He sold 178 of them and threw away 49 rotten oranges. How many oranges had he left? 2. John has 20 marbles. He gave 3/5 of it to Peter. How many marbles did John give to Peter? 3. Ann had five books. Bill gave her more 7 books. How many books did Ann have altogether? I will be sharing more problems soon. Stay tuned!