La Vida Parent's Resource Centre & Toy Library

La Vida is a parent's resource centre and toy library, where I volunteer about two Fridays a month. The center's mission is to care and give compassion to the community. The resources are available for loans to children with special needs and/or those who are financial needy. It is a non-profit company and the funds come from sponsorships.

The centre is opened on Fridays and Saturdays from 9.30am to 12.30pm and from 2.30pm to 5.30pm. It is located at #11, 1st Floor, Block D, Melabau Complex, K.g Serusop. The complex is a maroon-tiled building located at the roundabout along the street connecting Jln Serusop and Jln Berakas, not far from the mosque in Kg Serusop. The centre can be contacted at 2336391.

The resources come in the form of books, cds and toys. The toys on loan are all specially chosen for the child's mental, emotional and physical development. They have toys for gross motor skills, eye-hand coordination, speech and language, early mathematics, matching and sorting, imaginary play and also includes puzzles and jigsaws.

On a particular week, I was assigned to make the toys more educational for the children. Besides the lending services, the centre also think of more ways to play these toys. Here are some stacking toys which I was asked to design some activities on sheets of paper. After discussing with another volunteer, we came up with all sorts of grids on the paper for stacking, matching of colours, shapes and sizes and for learning counting. Each has varying levels of difficulty. Only one side of the blocks has nozzle to fit into the holes of the other blocks to hold them together. The colours of the grids are not filled in at the time these pictures are taken.

Stacks of coloured blocks


Grids still incomplete


Building blocks to match the shapes of the grids


List of activities with decorative symbols to make it more attractive


There are a combination of activities here. Matching of shapes and sizes (same blocks in different sizes and lengths)


Learning counting; how many blocks would make up the height of each bar.


This grid is for colour matching.


For stacking and matching colours