Bird park and The Super Hero plays masak- masak

Last week when I came back from teaching, my hubby told me that he and Sean had a great time playing Transformers. The funny thing was that the game involved "Optipus Time" and " Bubblebee" going to the chicken farm. That was the only place that Sean kept mentioning.

I think our trip to the chicken farm last month really had an impact on Sean. I would say that the trip was a rather let down for us adults but to Sean the trip to the chicken farm an exciting experience, especially sitting in the back of the truck. Chicken farm has become the destination of his imaginative play and the truck enters very often in his conversation .

So anyway, I was like...." Oh gosh, don't tell me my son only knows about chicken farms! There are so many things out there!". So we decided to get off our asses and rather than lazing about at home last Sunday, we went to the bird park.

We weren't too impressed with the bird park, we thought that it could be better. Sean wasn't that interested in all the birds, but he did enjoy chasing after the peacocks that walked about the ground, and the quails in bul-bul land. I like the quails too. They are so cute.

But after the trip to the bird park, every time he sees a picture of a bird, especially the hornbill, which is the logo of the bird park, he goes " Bird Park!"

I am currently reading a book " Endangered Minds" by Jane M. Healy. I quote " Without experiences, there are no concepts; without concepts, there's no attention span because they don't know what people are talking about."

I'm reading this after the trip. But it does stress that experiences enriches the experience stock of a child. That without these they will find it difficult to relate to concepts.

I can clearly see how each time we go somewhere interesting, it adds to Sean's ability to think imaginatively. This is only very recent though because we had brought him to the Aquarium before but it didn't seem to impact him as much as the chicken farm trip. I guess, it's only now that experiences are starting to make an impact.



Sean has started to have an interest in playing masak-masak. We don't have any cooking toys. The only things we have is velcro plastic vegetables that can be cut by a plastic knife. So yesterday, we played masak-masak. We turned a small stool to be the stove, a plastic basket as the wok, beans and plastic vegetables to be cooked, and wooden spoons for cooking.

Sean enjoyed the cooking, messing around with the beans (but I kept telling him to clean up). What he enjoyed most was serving me with inappropriate food.

Sean : Mummy Eat! (then runs away laughing and hide behind the sofa)
Me: Mmmmm... Eh! What's this? a fire engine? I can't eat this!
Sean: Laughs and laughs

And then he wanted to be a super hero. So I made him a simple mask cut out of red paper attached with 2 rubber bands, and tied an old sarong for his cape.

Sean : Mummy cook!
So I cooked.
Then he came running around pretending to shoot me with 2 marker pens as guns.

And then the super hero, spread some beans on the floor and pretended to water them. I asked him what was he doing. He said (I think) growing them. And he went back to cooking and kept serving me fire engine, plastic knife and cups for food.

He knows you cannot eat these and he was so tickled by that fact that he couldn't stop laughing. He just loves teasing his mummy. =P