Unzipping exercise

I like to see Xue engaged and motivated in an activity and this will only happen if the difficulty level of the activity is just appropriate for him. Like this unzipping exercise, it is a little challenging, but not too difficult that will make him frustrated and give up. He has been dying to get the contents out of my wallet and that's when I thought that it's probably time to teach him this practical skill.

This $2 purse from Diaso has a very smooth zip and firm purse that is good for him to practise unzipping. It's semi see-through so Xue can see what's in the purse. Since it's dinosaur week, I put in some cork circles (from Diaso too!) with dinosaur stickers on them and I call them his Dino-coins. 

You can see Xue is very interested in them! This is great incentive for him to unzip the purse and get them out. Hehe my impatient boy gets frustrated some times and I will help him along by unzipping midway and encouraging him to unzip the purse fully himself. 

This simple exercise had his attention for a good 15 minutes, totally beating a lot of expensive and elaborated toys hands down. When he got bored with the activity, I will keep the purse away for two to three days and re-introduced it to him with some new contents like unwanted name cards or paper with some cute stickers on them. This purse can be quite a life-saver to keep Xue occupied during train rides. So light and small and easy to bring along. Not a good idea to put any coin like stuffs if you are bringing them out though, since these round stuffs will roll away if your kid start throwing them on the floor. Put 2 to 3 unwanted cards instead. One month on, Xue is still at this and he is getting pretty good with unzipping my wallet now!