An Arctic Theme

A few weeks ago, I prepared an Arctic Theme for our little homeschooling.  It was a hit! My son became obsessed with polar bears and caribous for while.  And even with the books which I borrowed from our library, it took him awhile to get over them.  

Here are the activities we had based on our theme:

Matching game.  The animals were from Safari Toobs and I just made classification cards.  He enjoys matching but once he get used to it, he easily gets bored.  So what I do is to add a little excitement with the matching game.  Sometimes as we match an animal to the card, I would show him a video of that animal via our iPad (helpful because it is portable).  I would ask him for the different parts of the animals and what does it do or how does the animal behave.  It’s even more exciting if I would ask him of what sounds does that certain animal make according to the video. This activities and tactics help instill those animals in his heart and mind :)

Penguin puzzle.  I made this by myself.  Searched  a random image from google, printed it twice... with the other one as an outline.  Using the outline I use foam sheets for the puzzle and the remaining printout is for his guide. He was so excited to do this puzzle! 

His Ninong John and Tita Meyms gave him this toy camera.  He loves it to death!  Since he got his very own camera, he loves to pretend taking pictures of his accomplishments hehe.

Then for math, although this is not related to “arctic”, I just make use of our existing snowman number cards which I printed out from a website (sorry I can’t remember the link) two years ago. On the left is counting cards and the on the left is arranging size from smallest to biggest.

And that’s it for our arctic theme! I was hoping to do more activities on the “arts and crafts” side but we went on a vacation. Maybe in the future as I’m planning to revisit this theme again.

Parts of a Plant

While we were on a vacation at my parent’s house I grab the opportunity to teach Mavi all about plants and its different parts.  It was the best place to explore different types of plans as we are free to “pick” all parts necessary for our lesson.

Thus, we ended up having this.  The nomenclature card was from Montessori Print Shop.  I didn’t use the picture and label cards as of the moment as I was just introducing this to him.  Later, when the right time comes I’ll be giving him the full set of nomenclature cards so we can go to details as matching the labels to pictures and etc.  As of now, we just matched the actual parts to that on the control cards.

But what my son really enjoyed was how we collected all the parts.  He was very excited about it as he LOVES to pick flowers and plants! It’s a good thing they were my mother’s hehehe.

First stop, we picked some flowers.  That heart-shaped basket was borrowed from his cousin. It’s like were doing “groceries”!.

 

Then we went on to search some stems and buds. My Mom has a wide collection of plants in her garden, so we moved on from one plant to another after he has “touch and feel” the stems, buds and leaf/leaves.

 

And look! We saw this little thingy.  I don’t know how it is called in other language, but in our dialect, we called it “intsik intisk”.  Mavi was so amazed to see such a thing!

Then I have to show him the roots. This one is pretty hard because I have to pick a whole plant.  Luckily there was some grasses, I pulled them off the ground and showed him the roots.  He was so giddy when he saw them... but doesn’t want to hold it.  He was telling me it’s dirty!   He haven’t seen actual roots anyway so I can feel his excitement. (Shown on below are some roots and buds)

    

He truly enjoyed our activity! And I love it that we did this together.  He cooperated and very attentive.  I hope we could do more of this in the future.  This is one of the reason why I always dreamed of having a back (or front) yard so Mavi and I can do lots and lots of outdoor activities together.  The joy in teaching and learning!

Alpha Phonics Boxes: ‘CUSNPOLH’

Here’s the second batch of my Alpha Phonics collection as promised.  I’ve posted the first part over here.  You can read all about it there and how I use it to teach language lessons for my kiddo.

C|c:  cowry shell, crab, cake, corals, cactus, camel, chair, cow, cooking pot, can

U|u:  universe, ukulele

S|s:  scuba diver, star, six, scorpion, sardines, spider, slippers, sheep, sun, spoon, squirrel, snake

N|n:  note (musical), numbers, net, nine, newspaper, needles, nut

P|p:  police, pyramid, plate, pail, pink, plastic, platypus, praying mantis, pisa, pizza, pumpkin

O|o:  ostrich, ox, octopus, oval, one, onion

    

L|l:  leaf, lion, laddle, lamp, limousine, lobster, lego, ladybug, legume

H|h:  hot air balloon, hyena, heart, horse, hippopotamus, helicopter, hairbrush

My last post for this series would be the letters DEXQYJKVWZ

Pink Reading Scheme: Object Boxes

Aside from the Alpha Phonics Boxes, I also made my son Montessori’s Pink Scheme as part of our materials for language lesson.  Since my son has a thorough knowledge of the alphabets and knows each sound by heart, I decided to put this “knowledge” to a test.  He’s into letters for the past months and pretending to read words.  So it is just timely that I should introduce him to the basic step of reading... the cvc words (consonant-vowel-consonant).

My Pink series are composed of the following:

1. Object Box (as shown on this post) and the reinforcement exercises.
2. Picture Box
3. Word List
4. Sigh Words
5. Phrase Strips
6. Sentence Strips

This is how we use my pink series:

1. I would lay out all the objects on the table and would name each object.  At first I would make Mavi repeat after me, but since he knew the objects already I would make him name it as I take each object from the box.
2. I would take out a word card from the box and read it aloud.  I would emphasize the beginning and ending sounds of each letter on the cvc word.  Then I would as my son to make the first sound of the word, followed by the vowel and the end sound.
3. When done I would give him the card and he would match it to the object on the table.  Then again, I would make him read the word before I proceed to the next word on the box.
4. To make sure that these words and objects are indeed instilled in his memory, aside from the Montessorish way of teaching it, I also tend to take it out and just use each object to tell a story.  I just make sure that whenever I call out an object in the story I would also present the word card during the story telling.

SET 1:  pot, tag, bug, man, pin, red

SET 2:  cup, ram, car, pig, dog, hen

 SET 3:  log, yak, box, pen, bus, six

SET 4:  cow, hay, nut, lid, web, can

SET 5:  hog, bin, cat, pan, bun, key

SET 6:  bow, fan, peg, cap, sun, zip

SET 7:  van, net, wax, mop, fin, bud 

SET 8:  hat, gum, fox, ten, jug, cab

This is how the re-enforcement page looks like.  Each set of the pink scheme has one of this.  The aim here is for the little kiddo to match the word on the left side to the picture on the right side by drawing a line.

Alpha Phonics Boxes: Letters ‘ramfbitg’

Hello there! I’d like to share the contents of my Alphabet Phonics Box.  First set, the letters RAMFBITG... I organized it this way to match so as to match with my RED SERIES letter sound cards and writing learning set which I will later share as well. 

For those who’s been aware of homeschooling blogs, this is NOT an original idea.  This technique has been used by most homeschooling mothers for it’s effectiveness and at the same time, quite an enjoyable way of learning new things with their beginning sounds.

Unlike some Mommies who store these on a cabinet, mine I kept it on a microwavable containers.  As you can see, most of the objects I have doesn’t fit in a small cabinet/storage.  Besides, mine is a work in progress.  Although the point here is to have objects in miniature sizes... mine still consist of large ones though I plan to replace them once a small size is available.

I use my Alpha Phonics Box(es) in three ways:

1. To learn the beginning sounds, I would pick a letter for us to play and pick each object from the letter box and say the name of the object emphasizing the beginning letter sound.  I would make my son repeat the words as I hand him the object for inspection (or he would place it on the mat).
2. Sort objects according to beginning letter.  I would combine objects from two letter boxes and my son and I would sort the objects according to their beginning letter sound.  I presented my objects here the way I mix them during our homeschool.
3. Telling a story.  My son love this method very much. It’s either I tell a story from one letter object box or at times, on the combination of two letters.

We haven’t gotten through all the letters yet... so I am just focusing on the three methods that I use.  So far, everything’s fine... he loves it and enjoys working with our boxes.  I am open to some ideas or room for improvement in case my boy would get bored with the way I use our alpha phonic boxes.

Here are my ramfbitg alpha phonics objects:

 

R|r:  red, rhino, rock, rope, rooster, rubberband, ram, rabbit

A|a:  ambulance, airplane, apron, ant, arch of triumph, alligator, apple, aboriginal

M|m:  macaw, musher, magnet, marble, moon, motorcycle, milk, moose, monkey

F|f:  fence, fork, feather, fish, frog, fly, fox, firetruck, flamingo

B|b:  barn, button, biscuit, banana, beads, bell, baboon, bike, bear, basket

I|i:  igloo, iguana, ice cream, intestine, temple of inscriptions, insect

T|t:  turtle, treasure chest, tiger, tree, turner, tray, tractor, tasmanian devil, taj mahal

G|g:  giraffe, grapes, guitar, gem, goat, gum, gorilla, garter, grasshopper

It took me awhile to collect these objects.  Most of them I got from Safari Toobs, erasers, others were from my son’s old toys, and anything that I can find around the house.  I also plan to replace these objects after sometime... so as introduce new ones, which means new vocabularies for him as well.  By the way, the letters are wooden magnetic letters of Melissa and Doug.

Next post would be objects from my CUSNPOLH phonic boxes.

Welcome!

Hello! This blog is a continuation of what I have started here.  My boy is growing up so fast and it's not appropriate to call him "little" anymore.  This site will still contain all the things we do for homeschooling, family adventures and educational trips for our little one, our discoveries, love letters, motherhood and anything worth sharing :)

Also, I will be sharing my homemade educational materials, most of which are Montessori inspired. I will try my very best to add links to where I resourced some of my materials too.  Forgive me at times if I forget all about this for I don't keep records of my resources. 

So I hope you'll enjoy ready this blog, take inspiration and pick ideas for your little ones.  

PS. I don't read-proof my post. So forgive me for typo and grammatical errors for I think as I type.