All About Trees

Mavi is 37 months old.

Want to share with you our themed activity this week which is all about trees!

I was really inspired to do this because we’ve got lots of wonderful and huge trees in our backyard.  So we just have to make use of its presence and I need to instill on Mavi the importance of trees in our life :)  Although we’ve done this before, we didn’t get the chance to do outdoor and nature trips.  And as I mentioned in that post that we will probably do this theme again, and I was glad that we did because the boy had so much fun learning about trees.

First we started discussing sizes of trees.  We went to a nearby park and showed the little guy what’s it like to be in a forest full of trees.

Then we ate ice cream on the field.  As we do, I discussed all about the shade that the tree behind us produced.

Back at home, play the matching game of tree shapes and sizes.  This is a homemade printable and the graphics where taken randomly from the internet.

 

I love that he loves matching games! And the sight of him concentrating while working is precious.

                     

We made use of our 3-part nomenclature card for Parts of the Tress.  Again this is homemade. I was saving ink so I just colored it using our crayons.The book was given to him by his godfather on his 3rd birthday and it was very very useful.

 

And of course, we have to draw a tree!  As I was doing mine, I kept on discussing to him the color that I use in making a trunk, roots, grass, leaves etc.  He followed, and was doing his own version of a tree right beside me.

He’s making a trunk with branches.

Followed by green leaves. Later I told him we should add orange leaves to represent Fall.

And this is what he came up later on.  He added grass with red and pink flowers (he dictated the color), added yellow sun and blue skies.

  

Our felt Tree puzzle. 

Practice writing trees.  The first two he needed to trace (I wrote the tree word using a pencil), then later  he had to write the word tree on his own (no guide).

We made our outdoor tree using some twigs and braches and punched fallen leaves.  He enjoyed this.

                   

And we explored more of the trees in our area.  I told him that trees are very important for they provide us fresh air, a place to rest and play, cool surroundings and lots lots more.  That we have to thank God for trees, for their existence.

My favorite favorite shot of him. He loves climbing tress!

Oh and that’s him playing underneath the tree.  It is such a gigantic tree that my son looked so little with it.

 

Till next time!

Counting Numbers 0 to 9

Mavi is 36 months old.

(September 26, 2011)

We’re back in practicing serious counting and number identification. 

The activity let the child learns numerals, amounts and how to match amounts with numerals (1:1 correspondence).

I am using the “identification-recognition-recall” mechanics of Montessori which is known as the 3-lesson period.  This site gives a clear explanation of how this 3-lesson period works.

Working with Numbers 0 to 4.

We started with play coins. 

I let him identify the numerals first, and I would say “let’s put the x(representing the numeral) number of coins in the grid”.  As I place the coin/s in the grid, I let my son count with me.

After I have placed the coins from 1 to 4, I would ask him “where is 3? where is the 0?” .  Then to end our 3-lesson period, we recalled each number of coins in the activity. 

My son participated well in this activity.  I was surprise that he’s beginning to have longer attention span.  After my presentation I let him do the activity by himself:  he placed the correct number of coins according to the number it represented.

Since he wanted to do more, we did other variations by using two more objects:  the beads and the popsicle sticks.

Basically, we just performed the same 3-lesson period as we did previously with the coins.

He’s always in deep concentration when he works.  I grabbed the opportunity to take photos while he’s busy.

This is how it looks using colored popsicle sticks.

 

Working with Numbers 5 to 9

 

Similar procedure on what we did with numbers 0 to 4, we practiced counting 5 to 9 as well.

That’s Mavi placing the appropriate number of coins to the grid.

He did very well with the beads :)  (Our 8 aka brown beads is a little shorter because it is made of smaller beads.  I didn’t find any brown beads of the same size as the rest)

Counting popsicle sticks. It came to a point where the sticks won’t fit on the space allotted to number six so he placed the rest below number 7 hehe. 

You can vary different objects or counters for this activity. Lakeshore Learning has a wide variety of math counters, but I find them quite pricey.  My playmoney is around 60PHP which I got from a thrift shop in Singapore as well as the craft popsicle sticks.  You can also you use erasers, cupcake topping designs, pebbles, flat marbles and much much more!

Phonics Search and Sort

We did Alpha Phonics Object box this week.  And for this activity, I just dumped everything (objects) on a box and had my son search for the objects that starts with letters R-A-M-F-B-I-T-G and sort them.

I love how he concentrates on this.

Here’s our object box.  I like it that I made it this way, mix everything and allow him to search.  It’s like playing a treasure hunt!

 

For the sorting, I placed four different colored construction papers on the table and made him arrange the uppercase and lowercase “ramf” letters.

The result of his work: 

      

After “ramf”, he asked if we could do more.  So I made him search for objects starting with letters “bitg”.

      

This is what my son came up with letters “bitg”.

      

B4FIAR: We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen

Mavi is 36 months old.

My son picked We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen as our next unit for B4FIAR.  And since I realized that the subject here is on bears, I find it wise to row Blueberries for Sal at the same time.  So we’ve been reading these books everyday, and singing Rosen’s bear hunt song at the same time.  But the focus of this week’s activities is on We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.

STORY SEQUENCING.

A wonderful activity that we truly enjoyed.  Read about it here.

Then we further explored the book by doing our very own bear hunt activity.  I posted it here.

 

MATH.  We did two versions of bear counting. The first was inspired by this post.  I love how they practiced counting and color sorting at the same time.

Then we also had our version of cards and counters (bears) but instead of using a number symbol, I used a hand symbol to indicate the number of bears to be counted.  Surprisingly, my son can recognize what number the hand signifies by just looking at it :)

 

I also made some pattern matching printables to go with our unit study.  Here, Mavi has to matched the patterns.

We studied animal tracks and played the matching game.  I got the file that I printed out from here.

I wanted to demonstrate what is animal track and how they differ from one another so I made use of our playdough and some of his animal figures for this.   Happily, each animal figures produced different tracks.

He enjoyed making tracks and this animal track activities.  He keeps asking for it for several days.

LANGUAGE.

Using the B4FIAR packs I downloaded from Homeschool Creations, we build, spell and read words

He easily build the word “mud”.

But with words with composed of more than 5 letters, he would at times miss the correct order of the letters.

Then there’s the clipcards for practicing beginning letter sounds.

 

SCIENCE.

The subject for this unit is bear, so I was happy to get hold of the brown bear book from our library.  It basically consist of everything that you need to know about this massive creature.  This book was very informative.  It first started describing the different parts of the bear, then goes to describe the bear habitat and youngs, how they search for their food, how they sleep and how they play. 

I looovee this book.  It has wonderful pictures that my son can clearly visualize what a real bear looks like.  I hope I own the whole series.

I downloaded worksheets from Kidzone and First School for our bear study and writing practice.

PRACTICAL LIFE.

We did a bunch of cutting activities.  I made use of our old magazines instead of printing a cutting strip. 

First, I made a guide for him to cut that is by marking the borders of the picture in the magazine as shown above.  Then he has to cut the picture using that guide.  So far, he liked this idea of cutting magazines and with lines.

Then he asked to cut more.  And told me that he wants to make the guide this time.

Mavi tracing the brown the bear.  He didn’t color it though.

The worksheet from First School.

Working on the pre-writing sheets that comes with the pack.

          

PLAY PRETEND.

He wanted to experience being  a bear. So I made him claws which he really really love!  Then he looked at the picture of the brown bear from this book and told me he should also have a brown face, so I made him a brown mask as well.

Well I just thought that these pictures were so funny.  He tried to growl like the bear and keep roaming around the house scaring me and his Dad :) Precious.

And that’s what we did for our We’re Going on a Bear Hunt unit.  Hope it inspire and entertained you :)