DIY BAHAY KUBO (TODDLER-FRIENDLY WORK)

We got a copy of Tahanan’s Bahay Kubo book last week, and since then, my son just got hooked to the song (listen to our song here) and the book.

I thought it was the perfect opportunity to display a miniature bahay kubo at home (we have a farm-themed one, so I wanted one with trees and miniature fruits), so we visited Balikbayan Handicrafts and Tesoro’s but came home empty-handed. They don’t have bahay kubos except for really small ones in a bottle! And they did not look sturdy enough to survive my toddler’s curious hands.

It’s okay, they inspired me to just make my own.

Here’s what we did: a very quick DIY using materials we already have, so it cost us nothing! Yey! (video version HERE)

NOTE: I love minimalism and the concept of keeping only the things you use, but seriously, it’s so challenging to declutter for me at my stage right now – I’m always thinking, “what if we need this someday?”, and you know what? That ‘someday’ always happens. And while i’m happy we have less stuff, just right now, I want to kick myself for throwing that useless eraser that’s shaped like a peanut. It really was useless as an eraser, but it could be such a wonderful miniature for our bahay kubo. Grrr. And the thing is, I really don’t know where to buy it again. Moving on…our quick DIY..

I started with a small wooden house as base. I got the house from Daiso about a year ago. And then, I got out the square samples of woven materials sent to me a looong time ago. I attended one of those home expos and inquired about these for I forgot what, and they sent me samples. As I was decluttering, I kept thinking I might have use for them one day, so they stayed…and I’m glad they did. Anyway, if you don’t have samples like these, worry not — you can also use parts of an old woven mat or woven bag. See, now I also want to kick myself for throwing the woven mat that my rabbit ate parts of. LOL. That woven mat’s design was colorful and intricate. Le sigh.

The woven materials serve as the cover of the sides of the house as well as the roof, and some serve as the ground and farmlands.

I set up the following on our work table: mod podge (or any glue will do, I suppose), sponges for the glue, scissors to cut the woven materials, and the wooden house.

My son helped us out with the glue. I should have put a work mat (one of those silicone mats/ chopping boards), though. A note for next time.

After putting glue on the roof and the sides of the house, my husband did the sticking of the cut woven materials.

the roof
the sides

We didn’t bother to stick one on the front anymore, since that would entail more intricate cutting. We left them to dry overnight.

The day after, we just set up the whole theme using materials we already have!

Bahay Kubo the book – which my son loves beside a painting of Bahay Kubo by Teodoro Buenaventura, I think – correct me if I’m wrong (printed from the internet only for personal use, painted 1913)
Bahay Kubo setup

BREAKDOWN OF MY SOURCES:

1) Wooden Trees – Seed Studio Toys
2) Wooden House – Daiso
3) Woven Materials – samples
4) Baskets – found from a night market in Luang Prabang, Laos
5) Wooden Water Buffalos – given to me by my sister, available in Filipiniana stores like Tesoros, Balikbayan Handicrafts, and Kultura
6) Filipiniana Doll – one of the dolls my niece had when she was still living in the Philippines. Not sure where she got it, but glad I decided against putting it in our declutter box.
8) Chicken – from Educational Toys Philippines (you can also get miniature fruits with a banana here, too!)
9) Bahay Kubo Book – I highly suggest the one published by Tahanan Books. We also have the one from Adarna, but the one from Tahanan is a loooot nicer. We got our copy from Fully Booked BGC, and the small one is only PHP 100.

PS: I also made a graphic of all the vegetables found in the Bahay Kubo song. I wish I could share a larger file size with you, but I just downloaded some graphics from the internet, did some photoshop tweaking, and printed it for our own personal use. This is how it looks like — hope it encourage you to also make your own. 🙂 Please do not use this graphic.

So there. Quick, easy, fun, and best of all – something you can ask your toddler to work on with you!:)

If you decide to make your own DIY Bahay Kubo, I hope you can tell me about it, too!

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1 Comment

  1. My bub, now 7 months, settles when we sing bahay kubo. I have been looking at charts for the veggies in the song when we went back to PH last month but I can’t find any. Would love to do this activity with him when he gets older.

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