# This post is part 2 of the Multiply Your Joy campaign by NTUC Membership. Multiply your joy with Savings over $1,000 as an NTUC member!

Using the NTUC card discount, I bought 2 full-priced adults tickets (at $25 each). It comes with one free child ticket (worth $20) - this promo ends 31 Dec 2014, so grab this chance to save on the entrance fees!

Using the Alive Museum online ticketing system, I saved 20% on one child ticket.

We reached Alive Museum at 10:30 am on a Friday morning, and there was already a small crowd inside. But that did not stop us from having fun with our poses. What's a blog post of the Alive Museum without pictures ya? So here are our top 10 photos, voted by the whole crew of Simply Lambchops. 

All hail the King!

Sensory play. 

A type of play that is as important and beneficial to our children as teaching them A-B-C. Children, as young as a newborn, receive a lot of sensory input every day. The sounds, lights, smells, surfaces they lie on, and tastes from everything they put into their mouths provide sensory input. The sensory input stimulates electrical signals and travel along neurones to the brain. The child processes the new information and develop his brain to understand the input. When a newborn hears his parent's voice, it stimulates his neurodevelopment - he gets all excited, and starts waving and kicking in the air. For a toddler or preschooler, the action of pouring, splashing and scooping materials allows him to learn pre-math concepts, language and even writing. Even as an adult, I find myself drawn to the calming effect when I run the material (be it sand, water, or something more icky) through my fingers. 

However, I was brought up in a traditional way where the concept of sensory play is not widely known to our Asian parents. Hence, I did not know much about sensory play when I became a mom. My sister and I did have our share of sensory play when we were allowed to run around the sandy beach, or lie on the ground full of cow's grass. Those activities provided the sensory play we needed. But in today's context, such play has become a precious commodity and many parents would prefer to pass an electronic device to the child to entertain them. Hence, it is even more important to create such play time intentionally. 

Playing with water beads

Ever since K's two pneumonia infections which landed her critically ill at the pediatric ICU this year, we hardly bring her out now, except to her doctor's appointments at the hospital. We even stopped all her therapies and early intervention program as more exposure out of house would mean a higher risk of getting a bug, and possibly another medical crisis for her.

This means she spends most of her time at home.



Games are one of the best ways of learning for a child, and it is true for K too. Games Nights are precious family time for us, as we love the interaction and family bonding while playing a game together. We also see the character of the kids through playing games and how they strategize to win. Naturally, I want to start K on a simple board game so that she can catch on the games-playing bug in the future.

Pamela from My First Games (a local mumpreneur who is passionate about board and card games and owns an online store of fantastic games suitable for families) introduced Go Away Monster to us a few years ago. This is a simple board game which even a two year old can understand the game play. It is fun and enjoyable to see how the little ones become so engrossed in the game.


About the game

Number of players:    2 to 4 players

Suggested age:           3 and above (publisher's suggestion)

Playing time:             10 minutes

How the game is played:

Each player reaches into the monster bag and draws out a puzzle piece to place on his bedroom game board. Older kids learn to strategize by feeling the shape and size of the furniture puzzle piece they want inside the bag. This also heightens their tactile perception and stimulates the brain function when they "look" for things with their fingers. When the player draws out a monster piece, he shoos it away and the game continues with the next player. The first player to complete his bedroom game board wins. 



As I mentioned, the rules are simple enough for K to understand after one round of the game. She waits patiently for us to prompt her when it is her turn. Sometimes she has difficulty pulling out just one puzzle piece, so we try and help her a little when that happens. The interaction she has with us is immense as she uses her facial expression, babbles, hand signs and words to tell us that she enjoys the game. I'm happy with her progress, for she figured out where to place the teddy bear, bed and lamp on the game board today! A developmental milestone reached!



Go Away Monster encourages cooperative play too. K learns to give her puzzle piece to help complete our game board when she already has the same one on hers.

What is the best part of this game? It's seeing how K recognises the monsters pieces and shoos them away when we all shout "Go away, Monster!". She rewards us with her contagious smile and helps us throw the monster piece away. My heart just melts away when she does that.
My First Games does not carry this game now, but you can get Go Away Monster here (affiliate link attached). Unfortunately, this game is already out of print. My First Games carries many other fun and educational games, and I'll be looking out for more games for K! 
 

Before the start of every school year, I usually do what all parents have to do - prepare the books, stationery, lunch boxes and water bottles the children need for school, and labeling them. It is definitely a must to label the child's personal items that are brought to school, and the younger the children are, the more important this task is. It's amazing how often they can carelessly lose a file, a water-bottle or even shoes.

Yes. You heard me right. Shoes!
L ever came home from kindy with a different pair of shoes as his was taken by another friend.

So, marking their personal belonging is necessary. It is a tedious process, and I rely heavily on my boring label maker to ease the pain. And to label their socks and clothes, I have no choice but to scribble their names in black permanent marker with my best possible handwriting.

Just when I was thinking of a way to label L's shoes for his graduation performance, I received an invite to review some stickers by Stickerkid! What a timely invite!

I've read so much about these stickers from various bloggers, and all of them rave about the good quality and how long-lasting they are. I can see why too.

Screen shot from http://www.stickerkid.sg/sg_en/

Here are my reasons for liking the Stickerkid personalised name labels:

The stickers are of high quality. No doubt about that. 
Once I peeled the stickers out of the paper backing, I could feel the difference between these stickers and the usual ones we get from pushcarts etc. Stickerkid stickers are more flexible, and even when I removed one of the small stickers a few times to adjust the position of it on Ch's water bottle, the sticker held on firmly. It didn't have the usual creases I would find when a sticker is peeled off too many times. Trapped air bubbles under the stickers are also easily squeezed out and flattened.

And out of fun, I rolled one small sticker into a ball just like what Angie's children from Simply Mommie did. I was happy to confirm that the sticker still stuck on firmly and without any crease after straightening out. There were only a few small bubbles at the corners as seen from the picture below.

Oh, and did I mention that they are manufactured in Switzerland?



You will be spoilt for choice when customising your own stickers. 
There are many font styles, colours and cute picture logos to choose from. You can even use Chinese words in your text. Ch had fun picking the most suitable logo for L's stickers.

Screen shot from http://www.stickerkid.sg/sg_en/

You can label your shoes! 
With both rounded and square sides, these shoe stickers fit easily inside any shoes. There are three lines of text for you to include your child's info, and space for a cute logo. L's graduation performance shoes are properly labelled now, and I won't have to worry that they will be taken by mistake.

How ugly the insoles looked with the washi tape stuck on. Now, they are beautifully labeled with Stickerkid shoe stickers!

No more writing on clothes and socks!
With the iron-on clothing labels, it will be easier to identify the kids' clothing from their friends'. They can also be removed easily if you want. Just go over the label again with a heated iron. Do take note that you will need to protect the label with baking paper before ironing the sticker onto the fabric.

Stickerkid guarantees that the clothing stickers will withstand 45 machine washes at a temperature of 60 degrees Celsius. These labels are also washing machine and tumble dryer resistant (yay!).

Stickerkid offers three types of clothing stickers:

Screen shot from http://www.stickerkid.sg/sg_en/

So, all in all, we love the vibrancy of these high quality stickers! Since Christmas is nearing, why not personalise some stickers as gifts for your favorite children?

Stickerkid is now offering a 10% discount to readers of Simply Lambchops on all Stickerkid products, valid from 1 Dec to 17 Dec 2014. Just quote the promo code below during checkout:


Have fun customising your own name stickers!

Disclaimer: We were given a pack of Stickerkid stickers for the purpose of this review. Names on the stickers were edited for privacy reasons. No monetary compensation was given and all opinion are ours.