After growing up in a big family, one of five children, I am used to having a lot of noise around me. Since having our first daughter we have music or television on in the background while we go about our everyday tasks and activities.
I was always a little unsure about introducing television too early to a little person. I did a bit of research, aka google-ing, and the majority of reputable governing bodies claim that little persons under two years old should not watch television... Hmmmmm. I was a little anxious reading these recommendations as I already had exposed my little one to television, but I felt a little better when I realised she didn't actually watch it very often. Although we have it on in the background, in general the only time she actually watches television is when a song starts on ABC4kids, she dances and then goes back to the activity we were doing.
Now that she is older, she sits and watches little programs, Play-school, Sesame Street, Peppa pig, Octonauts, Tinga Tinga. We have only just started watching disney movies but they need to be supervised and themes softened {disney villains and dastardly deeds can be very scary for little ones}. After my earlier google-ing I made a decision that watching television would be an interactive activity, it would be a chance for us to learn new words, concepts and social relationships.
One of the shows recently introduced on ABC4kids "Big Teds Adventures" is great for this! It is a short offshoot program from Play-school, where Big Ted goes to the zoo, basically the program introduces an animal, explains a few interesting things about a animal, the actors and Big Ted take pictures and have a bit of a song at the end. My daughter loves pretending to take pictures with the actors and we always sit together, talking about and exploring what's happening and right at the end we go "click click click".
After seeing how much my little one enjoyed taking pretend photos I wanted to be able to give her a little pretend camera to play with. Trying to keep costs down on purchasing toys that may never get much play, I decided I would make one. It cant be too hard to construct a box out of felt/fabric, sew on buttons, stuff it and such. A few weeks went by and I never had the chance to craft something.
Eventually I came up with a brilliant idea that we would make cameras together out of recycled soap boxes, paper, glue and pens. It meant we had a fun craft activity and we would have a purpose for the item when it was completed! My daughter loved it, she never wanted the activity to end, had to use up all the spare pieces of paper and glue as much as she could manage.
I didn't think the cameras would last very long, but after five weeks, we still have two cardboard cameras floating around the lounge room and every time Big Teds Adventures come on my little one runs for her camera and gets ready to "click click click"! She has also taken lots of photos of mummy feeding her new little sister, a few pictures of her dollys and some pictures of Daddy.
