Review on Legoland @ Johor Part 1

During the March vacation, we went on a family trip to Legoland....I was trying to ask around to find out if Legoland is a suitable place for a  2.5 years old toddler to visit, but seriously I couldn't source any single review online and since I have visited the place with Le Xin haha I think I should just write my own review :)

Does this somewhat look magnificent? It truly is and you can't help but admire the hard work of those people who made this possible.

 

 Unfortunately the sun was burning hot that you can't even stand there for a minute or two to enjoy the beautiful scenery, we had to quickly snap those photos and madly rush to find a place for shelter.

 

Legoland will be a very nice place to visit if.....there are more shelter and benches that visitors can rest. Afterall it's JB we are talking about, just like SG which has very hot weather!

 

Even though I put lots of sunscreen for Le Xin, I had to put her in the stroller to protect her from the hot sun! Kiasu Mummy who wants Le Xin to be Snow White forever ---> I am joking okay!

 

But you know.......toddlers will always be toddlers and she.....

 

protested of course, Mummy Mummy I want to come down, I want to walk said Le Xin :(

 

 

She became quite cranky that my sister had to bribe her with Mamee...haha

 

If you were to ask me now will I ever bring Le Xin to Legoland again? My answer is definitely NO and I will insist that you don't try to be funny (like me) by bringing a child below the age of 5 to a place like Legoland! It's not that there is nothing fun to play in Legoland, there are indeed some cute rides and nice things to look at but the killing weather is good enough to drive you and your family nuts. I need to be fair too, perhaps it's not all year round the weather will be hot like the day that I went but sorry I do not wish to risk it, I do not wish to 赔钱来受罪 again! Haha!

 

You need to read on to find out why?

 

The first ride that we explored was the tea-cup ride (Legoland style of course) Le Xin couldn't reach the min height limit and she had to stay at one corner with my sister while......

 

Mummy and Daddy hop on to enjoy the ride :p

 

Next, I went for a spinning ride where I was shot with water.  Daddy Scott was not interested to play (he was scared of getting wet) and of course Le Xin was unable to join in because of height limit AGAIN! haiz...This ride was not really fun, just going round and round and you can't wait for it to stop because you just practically stood there (with nothing much to do) and I really wonder why the queue was soooo long....

 

Then we went on to play the next ride......Roller Coaster! I was feeling super bad deep inside because it seemed like most of the rides my poor Le Xin couldn't join us and to top it off......

 

a timid Mummy didn't bring justice to this supposingly fun experience! I was screaming all the way.....I guess this was the best ride I had in Legoland but definitely not the best in my life!

 

Phew, managed to find a place with shelter and was soooo much cooler.....I would say this was like a sitting cum waiting area where children can work on some lego pieces...

 

Le Xin was observing Tricia jie jie

 

The three of them were quite engaged....I guess children still prefer hands on materials.

 

Suddenly I saw Le Xin showing a letter C....guess what she was trying to tell me?

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

V

Ohh! She was actually trying to show me the hands of a legoman picture which she saw... how cute!

 

Seriously, I wasn't trying to be mean but the one and only thing I like most about Legoland was..... their TOILET! Super clean, super child friendly, super cooling and super duper colourful and cute!

 

Wow! I finally found a sink of my height hooray :)

 

Le Xin placed her hands below the dryer and was amazed her hands were dried after a while. You look Mummy, my hands dry "oh-la-dee" commented Le Xin :) Can you stop being speaking Singlish Le Xin? Please don't learn from your mum and dad ....whahaha bleah :p

 

My lovely Tri Tri and my baby Le Xin!

 

My sister trying out the merry go round with her family :) Both her children passed the heigh limit except Le Xin Aww~ so frustrating to see Le Xin just sitting at a corner to wait for us, poorthing :(

 

A silly me who just focused on taking photos of  the two of them so much so that I've totally forgotten to take a picture of the entire dinosaur~ Fortunately, I managed to capture Le Xin's smile!

 

Just before you assume that I am now an ANTI-LEGOLAND person  or pehaps thought that almost all our our experiences at Legoland were nasty ones......eh actually I need to clarify....I don't feel that way at all!

 

 Come on.... we still enjoyed ourselves at the end of the day and we had some joyful experiences too. The fact that it was a family trip was a good reason why I strongly feel that this trip was still a memorable one. I just love to travel with my families....(both my family and my hubby's family)

 

Check out Review on Legoland Part Two (Coming soon I hope!) Sorry, I become super lazy to type long post these days as I am kind of hooked to playing games on ipad (which I feel very guilty about)  Alright, I will motivate myself to share how Le Xin finally found a place in Legoland where she had lot's of fun! As for the evaluation, which I usually write at the end of a post, hmmmmm let's leave that for Part 2....

 

Byeeeee.....eh nope......See you soon in the next post :)



Homemade Playdough!

Remember my post on the playdough set we bought? This time, we made our own playdough and we experienced more fun than ever!!! Let's check it out!



Ready to start!

 

Let's take a closer look at things we need!

 

Deliberately asking Le Xin to observe the water so that I can introduce the word "transparent".

 

Put a drop of yellow food colouring and observe what happen...

 

As she was stirring, she said Yellow!

 

Then this time I got Le Xin to add a little blue food colouring to it and she began stirring again...

 

What happen to the water? asked Mummy. Now green replied Le Xin.

 

Can't wait to start making the dough right?

 

First up, let's transfer the flour from the metal bowl to the glass bowl. There was a reason why I chose to use a glass bowl instead of a metal one. Firstly, the bowl was bigger which facilitated the kneading process. Secondly, it's transparent which allows Le Xin to have a clearer view of what were the materials that were added in even from the side, thirdly, I wanted to introduce her the importance of taking care of the bowl since it was fragile. Lastly, it's for aesthetic purposes- a big glass bowl just somewhat looks prettier whahahaha :p

 

Next the salt....

 

Pouring the vegetable oil....

 

Lastly adding the food colouring....

 

Mixing.......

 

Feeling the dough......

 

Pushing it......

 

Poking it with her fingers...... (Please ignore my ugly toes whahaha :p)

 

Pulling the dough, she was really happy!

 

Before we continued to get down to "work" she had to show us her infectious smile  as always :p

 

Gave her some plastic animal figurines for role-playing.... This wasn't my idea, I've gotten this idea from here, my current favourite blog!

 

Thinking deeply about what to do!

 

Then I observed her placing a big elephant with a smaller elephant then she looked up and said Mummy elephant and baby elephant nice? Mummy you look!

 

Isn't it a beautiful thing that at aged 2.5 she is capable of thinking about motherhood?

 

There is something I like about playing with play dough, somehow I often feel that it's a big representation of creative play where children get to use their hands in a purposeful way. The above is a rather detailed documentation of Le Xin's learning process. I like how she was so enthusiastic to get involved in the entire process of the dough making.

 

 After creating a green patch of land for her "animals to live in", I noticed how she makes connections about what she knew and the coolest part is that she could also recognise most of the animals too. For those animals that she wasn't sure...for example a chimpanzee, she was also quick to find out what it was by asking Mummy what's this?  

 

Providing such play experience will bring so much joy to a child's life and to top it off it is also very meaningful. I guess Le Xin has taken pride in making her own dough and that's the difference from using commercial play dough. Many thanks to NTFFC for the idea :) I guess as parents we need to constantly research online to dish out some of the best ideas to carry out with our children. It doesn't matter if the ideas are not uniquely yours anymore, what matters most is your child/children are benefiting from it..... right? Do remember to give credits to whatever source you have taken the idea/info from :)

 

Leaving you guys with this photo that I love the most!

 

Love is in the air and yes Mummy could instantly feel your happiness too hahaha :)

Parallel Learning!

Was at my MIL's place when I observe some form of parallel learning going on! I saw Kaiting, Le Xin's cousin writing some words on the ground, so I offered her to write on Le Xin's red IKEA table instead. When Le Xin saw Kaiting using her table, she was mad angry and shouted My table, my table it's mine, jie jie used my table!

 

I explained to Le Xin the need for her to share her table and fortunately she could accept my reasoning. Then she began to observe Kaiting for a while before requesting my mother-in-law to give her some paper to do some writing too.

 

She observed what Kaiting was writing and how she held her pencil and tried to follow her!

 

According to Ages and Stages by Karen Miller, children aged two are "groupies" meaning they enjoy being near other children. Of course Le Xin is one of them too! She likes to imitate what other children are doing. If Kaiting jumps or hops around, she follows her too! Although she is still not ready to give and take, often demanding Kaiting to give in to her needs and wants,  she still find it hard to refuse Kaiting's invitation to play which is really good. Most of the time, the minute Le Xin sees Kaiting, she gets really excited and pounces on her for a big cuddle! How sweet :) 

Let's have some fun with green beans!

No this post isn't about Le Xin and I cooking green bean soup.....We really had some "mad" fun with green beans hahaha!

 

But first up let's see how I set up a simple provocation for play!

 

I hope I manage to excite her!

 

Yes I did and I also added a few more materials in while she was playing....

 

Trying to scoop the beans into the cup. I use the ladle said Le Xin!

 

Using a container to pour the beans...

 

Le Xin tried to transferred the green beans over with a spoon :)

 

Then she tried to pour the green bean into a mineral bottle.... Ohh Ohh spill already said Le Xin!

 

Daddy Scott managed to find a small funnel and handed it over to Le Xin...

Is it easier to put the green beans in now? asked Mummy and Le Xin yes!

 

Le Xin continued to explore with the materials provided! Trying to find out if it was easy to scoop up the beans with a big jug or.....

 

 a big bottle. Of course, she couldn't but my role at that point was to facilitate with questions,  observe and scaffold her so as to help her build her own understanding through experimentation. Frankly speaking, I was quite tempted to say  "Hey Le Xin it's not possible to scoop the beans with the mineral bottle" but eventually I still held back as I know providing the opportunity for children to construct their own knowledge is a very important process of learning. We just need to observe, watch and listen sometimes....(but certainly easier said than done :p)

Ouch Mummy my leg pain exclaimed Le Xin

Some green beans have stuck onto her leg so I tried to ask her what happened to her leg to find out if she could think and come up with an answer and she replied the bean make my leg! There is something magical about the word "make", most children tend to use it frequently but wrongly and we need to guide them to rephrase but avoid correcting them by saying they are wrong!

Le Xin decided to explore the beans with her legs and....

her hands too!

Play materials which involve the sense of touch for example play dough, clay, sand, water, rice, beans or confetti seem to be a big hit among children. They are just super good materials to explore with! Le Xin particularly likes to play with water, however it's just as difficult to stop her when it comes to bean play haha. She appears to enjoy using containers to hit the bean to produce sound, pour the beans from one container to another or just simply throwing them around! This activity has helped her to refine her fine motor skills and provided her an opportunity to be exposed to another form of sensory play.

Ending my post with a happy smile of Le Xin!

Please let me play this again!!!