Although sand play as a sensory play has been touched upon time and time again, I still wanted to bring it up on this blog because it’s very easily accessible to most of us, cheap and such a a great part of a healthy sensory diet. Your child is typically ready to play in sand between the age of 12-18 months (of course, bear in mind that every child is different, sooner or later is just as fine too!)

My criteria for allowing A to play in the sand pit at the neighborhood park was a crucial one to me: I allowed her to get her hands dirty when I saw that she had (for the most part) understood the distinction between playing and eating. It is important to note that mouthing is how children at this age explore things. If your kid is trying to eat dirt, or sand, it is because that’s part of their process of exploring. Not that I’m justifying eating the sand! I bring it up because once you understand why they do it, it may make it easier to deal with it!

As A learnt to eat different kinds of solids, she also learnt about taste, developing tastes of her own, she also learnt what doesn’t taste good. While I did not let her enter the sand pit for many months, she always knew the texture and feel of sand from here and there – on the steps of the slide, the slide itself, etc. For many months, she also tried to eat it. One fine day, I realized that she was just playing with it and not eating it. The very next day I decided she was ready to play in the sand pit, with her sand toys!

Eating or not, sand is a wonderfully sensory toy. You could start off by making a non-toxic sand pit at home using edible items such as roasted semolina (rava / sooji), or cornmeal. That way, even if your ever-curious child tries to mouth some, it isn’t the worst thing. Eventually, they will learn that there are way more fun things to do with the sand than eat it!

We also introduced sand toys at this stage. They don’t have to be fancy or sophisticated toys! sand toys can be as simple as empty plastic containers and extra ladles from your kitchen. Your little one will love trying to scoop out sand from the pit and pour it in the bucket! Of course, she may try to pour some on herself too. My little one pretty much needs a wash and a new set of clothes by the time she’s home, but so what! You could also take an old sieve and pour sand through it, or use a mould of some sort and wet sand to make sand sculptures. Using sand toys in the park has also introduced the practice of sharing to A, as she learns to share some of her toys with her friends at the park.

Sand play has become her favorite new addition to her long list of park activities. It’s a great form of independent play – of course, a huge plus in my book, giving us time to catch up on some reading or with some friends. I’m so happy she’s learnt how to play with sand. Do try it out !

On the outset, let me just say that I do not know much about politics. I have made no pretense of understanding much about political matters, nor do I try to feign an opinion.

But living in US during what appears to be one of the most hard-fought presidential campaigns ever, one can’t help opining peripherally. I think, for me, the real shock is not that Donald Trump is the next President of the United States. Sure, I understand, we all live in our social bubbles and social media had me convinced that Clinton would win. I was all-for a female leader, but that still wasn’t the biggest disappointment.

No, the real shock is that he has enough supporters for this to happen. It is one thing that his values are far from ideal, and his treatment of women sub-par to say the least. But the fact that he had more than half the voting population support said values? As women, we want to see the world move towards equality, and respect to womenkind. We do not want to see ourselves regress. As a woman, I am sad to see this regression. As a mother to a baby girl, I shudder to think that society can regress further.

Is this what we want for our kids? Is this the world we want them to grow up in? Isn’t this world, that we work towards building, all for them? Aren’t we supposed to progress, and not regress? These are just some of the issues that shock me about yesterday’s outcome. I hope and pray that things get better, moving forward, and that the people on either side of the divide in this country are able to overcome their differences, and understand that they are all here for the same important reasons – to make a better society, for all mankind.

This fascinates me as I watch my daughter A (13 months old) learn various things, like how to communicate, how to do things for herself like eat / brush her teeth / comb her hair and so many other things. She does not speak yet, but she is learning to communicate her needs through some actions and of course a lot of yelling.  But why does she yell so much? The reason she yells is because at the moment, it is her easiest way to communicate. We have been trying to teach her various other methods as she does not speak yet, such as baby sign language and pointing. She has started pointing at things when requested, such as car, plane, fan, baby. Over the last few days, she has started making sounds like “ka”, “pa” and “fa” which we can only assume she means car, plane and fan.

Thinking back to my days of research, my framework relied heavily on Bloom’s Taxonomy, which I chose to use over SOLO and a few other options I had. I have spent many months questioning my choices nonetheless always returning to the simplicity of Bloom’s Taxonomy which seemed to apply to so many real-life situations as well. I can’t help revisiting Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognition as I see A’s cognition grow leaps and bounds. To recap for those who need it, Bloom’s levels of cognition are Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, Create. At first, A did not know anything about the car. (I imagine, as her dad and I kept pointing at our car exclaiming “car! car!” she must have been thinking “these people are nutso!”) However, slowly, she started associating the “car” with our car parked outside home. She remembered what we told her and she now pointed outside our home when we said “car”.  Slowly, she understood what she was pointing at, what we were telling her and would point outside the house promptly. After awhile she learnt to apply the concept of pointing to a car in a different way – she would point at other cars when she was at the park! She has now learnt to identify a car.

I find that this strategy has been working to teach her about many different objects and with many different processes she needs to apply in her daily life. She has even learnt to brush her teeth in this way!

The human mind is amazing, and it is so wonderful to watch a tiny mind grow!

I wasn’t sure what to write for my first post, but oh well, here goes nothing…

Hi! I’m Vyshnavi, an edu-tech researcher and new mom. Often, I find my two worlds colliding as I watch my daughter learn new things and wonder how her mind learns, and how I can help her learn better. Here I document my thoughts and ideas.

Thanks for joining me for the ride!

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