Baby Basics Program at momstown Kitchener-Waterloo Got Artic with Footprint Penquins

This week at momstown Kitchener-Waterloo BabyBasics, we embraced the artic cold and made footprint penguins. We also gave away a soft book, "Sweet Dreams - My First Taggies Book" for babies courtesy of Scholastic Canada! About 10 people braved the cold and snow to come out. We had a great chat including welcoming a new member and her little one to their first Baby Basics session!

 

After a quick explanation, the ladies got to work on their penguins. Getting a clear footprint from a squirmy baby was not an easy or clean task. Luckily we had enough mamas around to help hold babies and have wipes ready to clean up the paint before it got everywhere! While everyone agreed footprints were easier than handprints, it was still a challenge to get the prints without smudging. In the end, everyone got some nice keepsakes of their little one’s tootsies.

 

 

 

On top of our fun craft we had a book to give away. We all took a look through the short story of putting animal friends to sleep. It’s the perfect book for a bedtime story for our young babies. After drawing a name….Cecily and her mama Alicia were the lucky winners! Congratulations and enjoy your new book!

 

 

momstown Kitchener-Waterloo Baby Basics Program Massages with Michelle

Last Thursday, at the momstown Kitchener-Waterloo  Baby Basics program we welcomed guest speaker, Michelle, RMT. She talked to us about the benefits of massage for mamas such as pain relief, increased circulation and even reducing headaches! We all agreed that feeding babies (i.e. sitting in the same position for extended periods of time) causes most of us muscle pain and massage would be beneficial.

 

 

 

 

Michelle then discussed how massage can be beneficial for infants. She talked about the benefits to the gastrointestinal system, increased circulation and bonding. Looking into a babies eyes as you massage them can help create a close bond! Michelle suggested including massage as part of your bedtime routine as it can help relax infants to help get them to sleep.

Michelle then walked us through a basic massage routine. Started with the chest and stomach area, moving to arms next. She made sure to remind us to always finish each extremity with a motion toward the heart in order to increase circulation. Michelle then showed us how to massage the legs, followed by having us turn our babies onto their stomachs for some “tummy time” as we massaged their backs. She finished the routine with some gentle head massage.





All the babies participating in massages by their moms seemed to enjoy it. Michelle also left us a gift card for one lucky winner. Congratulations to Kristen who is the lucky winner! Enjoy your massage!

momstown KW Kiss, Kisses Good Night at Baby Basics

Each month, momstown literacy sponsor, Scholastic donates 

a baby safe book to the Baby Basics program! 

This weekly program is the perfect place for moms with babies under a year old 

to get together and chat and bond, while creating their baby's first piece of art 

or learning about a topic relavent to their changing bodies or growing babies! 

This month, Scholastic donated Kiss, Kiss Good Night by Kenn Nesbitt. 

Surely this months winners will be curled up tonight reading this bedtime poem 

all about how mommy animals say good night to their little ones. 

momstown KW Never Lets Go With Baby Basics and Scholastic

Brand-new this year, momstown has a great Literacy partner on board for Baby Basics -Scholastic Canada provides baby books to all of our Baby Basics groups across the country! 

Each month our groups will try out a different book (board books, soft books, perfect 'first' books) and one lucky mom wins a copy to take home!

This month's book was "Never Let Me Go" by Patricia Storm. 

This hilarious book captures the enduring bond between a parent and a child. 

Congratulations to our lucky winner this month!

This story is sure to be a favorite in their home.

Join us next week for our momstown KW Baby's 1st Halloween Party!!! 

Not yet a member? Try us for FREE or join for a one time low fee of only $45/year 

(which also comes with a 1 year subscription to Today's Parent!)

momstown KW Babies and Moms Sensorize Oktoberfest!

Every week momstown KW moms gather with their babies to chat and connect with other moms at Baby Basics. Alternating weekly, mamas will discuss topics led by an expert and /or create a keepsake craft in our “Baby Picassos” mini art session. 

This week, with Oktoberfest, we decided to bring Oktoberfest to Baby Basics! First, everyone discussed their Thanksgiving weekend plans and then we broke out a favourite Oktoberfest classic and all did the Chicken Dance with our babies! 

This song is a fun and interactive way to get your baby smiling and giggling everytime! 

Next, we brought out some feathers and let the babies and moms play with them. 

Moms were tickling babies noses, tickling babies toes and tickling babies tummies! Babies were watching them glide, float and sway to the floor.And we even threw in some bright colors too! 

Come join us next week with our guest speaker! 

Not yet a member, get your FREE 3 week trial today!

Glücklich Oktoberfest!

momstown KW Baby Basics Sponsored wth a Giggle by Scholastic!

Every month, Scholastic sponsors the momstown Baby Basics program by giving away a FREE book to one lucky Baby Basics mom and baby!

Septembers theme was Silly, so Scholastic donated the novelty sound book, Giggle! by Caroline Jayne Church. 

With a press of a button an infectious giggle lovingly echoes through this ticklish board book, proving that laughter is, indeed, the best sound in the world. Accompanied by Caroline Jayne Church's bestselling toddlers, Giggle! is a book that will have children and parents laughing and loving out loud.

Congratulations to this lucky mom and baby!!! And Thank you again to Scholastic for helping momstown continue it's commitment to early education! 

 

Shapes and Colors at momstown KW's Baby Basics

momstown KW's Baby Basics program is growing again! It was wonderful to see so many new faces and tiny babies! Our Baby Basics program is often a new mom's first introduction to momstown. It's designed for moms with babies aged 0-12 months who are looking to connect with other moms with infants. But it's really much more than that a "new mommies" group - it's also an opportunity for moms to learn about topics important to them, try out baby's first keepsake crafts, and make friendships that may last a lifetime.

This week at Baby Basics, our momstown Mama's created their own sensory shape book! This easy to make craft is a great way to introduce your newborn to the fun world of shapes, colors and textures!

While your newborn's eyes are physically capable of seeing just fine at birth, his brain isn't ready to process all that visual information, so things stay pretty fuzzy for a while. So, try making black and white images of squares, circles and triangles on separate flash cards and hang them somewhere your baby can see it. As your baby learns to focus, the starkness of the black and white will grab his attention!

For older babies, add fun shapes, colors and texture to the pages and watch them have fun exploring the new sensations!

You can be as creative or as simple as you'd like! Your baby will love anything new you introduce to him. *As we used paper, please remember to supervise your baby while discovering with this book to 
prevent them from eating the paper (always known to happen)* 

Baby Basics runs weekly and moms can join in at any time! Like all momstown programs, it's included with your $45/yr membership and there is no start or end date - it's ongoing and flexible to allow moms to join when they feel ready! Try us out today with our FREE 3 week trial and see for yourself what momstown is all about!

Shapes, Colors, Texture and Scholastic!

Every week at Baby Basics momstown KW mommies and babies get together to learn and chat and have fun. One week a fun craft, the next a great guest speaker and then a foot print or hand print craft to remember how little our little ones really are.

This week we made fun and interesting Tactile Ribbon Pulls for the older babies to play with. This inexpensive and creative craft is a great way to get your baby to learn about cause and effect, hand eye coordination as well as spacial reasoning all while discovering color and texture!


Take an old formula can or other container that is easy to pierce and simply thread ribbon through the container. Tie a knot in the middle of the ribbon (in the can) as well as at the ends of the ribbon, to prevent the ribbon from being pulled all the way out.

Use different colors, lengths, widths and textures. You can even use popsicles sticks in the lid!

Show your baby how they can pull the ribbon and watch the other end slide to the can! Then encourage them to try themselves. Always remember to supervise your child while playing and discovering, especially when they discover that they can throw the can around while holding onto the ribbon and potentially "bonk" themselves or you in the head!

Shapes and colors are always a hit with our babies at Baby Basics! So when Scholastic, momstown's literacy sponsor, gave us a shapes cut out board book, Away We Go by Chieu Anh Urban, we knew it would be a hit with our moms too, especially since one of them would be lucky enough to take it home with them!

In this fun book, triangles become sailboats and hearts become airplanes as each page reveals a different mode of transportation made from bright colors and geometric shapes!

Congratulations to our lucky mom and baby and we'll see you next week!

momstown KW Babies Splash and Play with Scholastic

At momstown KW, every week our new moms get together at Baby Basics to chat and let the babies play! Some weeks we have a guest speaker, some weeks we have a craft, but this week we had a pool party!

Complete with baby pool and sunshine, we let the babies splash and play!

We set out two smaller bins for them to explore as well. One of them was filled with water and ice so they could play with the ice and feel the temperature difference of the water. The other one was filled with warmer water and some more toys!

And of course we had a baby pool! This one was filled with warm water and lots of baby water toys so they could splish and splash and get soaking wet!

Every month Baby Basics is also sponsored by Scholastic! They're books are the perfect way to start the literary process and language development in babies. So, after all the babies were done playing and dried off, we sat down and ready 5 Little Puppies Jumping on the Bed! 

A first in a series of touch-and-feel nursery rhymes, this board book is a playful twist on the famous "Five Little Monkeys" song. Every page had a unique and plush touch-and-feel as the text highlights the puppies on their special page, allowing children to sing along and explore each appealing texture!

Congratulations to this mom and baby, this is sure to be a popular read at your home!

And thank you to Scholastic for once again for your commitment to sponsoring 

momstown's commitment to early education! 

Come on out next week and join the fun! Membership is only $45 for a full year!

Not 100% sure yet, why not try out our FREE 3 week trial membership! 

momstown KW Makes Mommy and Me Handprints at Baby Basics

As Mother's Day has recently passed, here at momstown KW, we thought it would be an extra special touch to not celebrate again with a special Mommy & Me handprint. All the baby handprints you look for on the internet and on pinterest are certainly cute but none of them have offer a size comparison, something to show just how little that hand really is.

So in May, at momstown KW's Baby Basics program, both mom and baby got printed! Paint everywhere...on the table, the floor and of course on everyone's hands! There were big green hands and small red ones, big blue hands and small green ones too!

But in the end, each mom had a beautiful reminder to not only hold those tiny hands a little longer, but to remember just how tiny those hands were when they are "too old" to hold yours. 

momstown KW Moms and Babies Stomp Out Some Bugs at Baby Basics

With the coming of Summer comes the flutter of butterflies, the sweet smell of flowers and those darn pesky bugs. Well, momstown KW's moms and babies made their own cute Love Bugs!

Our weekly Baby Basics program is designed for moms with babies aged 0-12 months and is often a new mom's first introduction to momstown! This fun playgroup gives moms an opportunity to meet other new moms, learn about important topics and make cute baby crafts!

This week, after we read a story about heads and toes and sang Happy Birthday to our birthday girl, Stella, our moms let their inner craftsmen come out and using their babies footprint, created a bug they will want to keep forever!

momstown KW Celebrates Spring with Butterfly Footprints

The sun is out, the flowers are in bloom and the babies once again are getting their feet dirty!

Every month at Baby Basics, momstown KW members paint their baby's toes to make a special keepsake print! Our babies are so small for such a short amount of time that watching the print grow every month is such a fun and special way to preserve and remember their tininess!

This month, to celebrate Spring we made butterfly footprints!

This craft took a little more patience on both mommy and baby's part, 

because not only did both feet have to be painted, 

but both feet had to be painted identical to each other. 

First of all, have you ever tried to paint a baby's ticklish foot? Not always the easiest task! 

Now, try and paint no only both ticklish toes...but add a pattern on top of it. 

Sometimes a little distraction was needed...

Thankfully, we only had 1 or 2 screamers and only a handful of squigglers! 

After all the toes are painted, with the big toe pointed out (left foot on the right-hand side and vice versa) make your footprint, one foot at a time. 

After the paint has dried, draw in the butterfly's body and antennas and 

VOILA a beautiful, unique and very special butterfly! 

Join us every Thursday for Baby Basics in Kitchener-Waterloo and now in Cambridge!