Template Blog Test: January 2016

Alphabet Picture Booklets (DEXQYZVWJK)

Saturday 30 January 2016

The third and last set of My Alphabet Picture booklet is now published in my Sellfy Shop. This set contains the pictures of objects starting with DEXQYZVWJK.

A little introduction for this activity and the reason behind this booklets can be can be read here.

To download your copy click the image or here.

Click the images below to download Set 1 and Set 2.

Thank you and enjoy!

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Hands-on Learning: Biomes of Australia

Thursday 28 January 2016

A few weeks ago, while were doing an Australia Unit, Mavi and I talked about the animals in Australia and in which habitat they belong. We’ve done this years ago but it’s always nice to revisit and add a little depth in the topic.

Instead of using felt papers for demonstration, I printed out pictures (paid for this) of the different biomes in Australia: desert, temperate forest, tropical forest, wetland and grassland. We also used the map that we have here to see where each of these are located.

Looking at the pictures, we talked about the difference of each biome, the temperature, the plants that grows in there and the animals. After which, we sorted out our Safari Toob Down Under figures and identified which animal/s lives in the desert, forests, grassland and wetland. We used our Animals in Australia cards for reference.

I made him work on this activity sheet, he loves coloring so he’s happy to obliged Open-mouthed smile While doing this activity, he asked me “So Mom, where do the people live in this map?” I just have to explain that of course, they live everywhere in Australia (except in the desert), and mostly near the water!

I love this kind of activity, spontaneous and can be done while sitting down just like having an ordinary talk with your kid. The photos helped. I understand that you can also Google these images in mobile gadgets but I am trying to avoid using our tablets when the boys are around so I just printed the pictures.

Materials we used are from our Australia/ Oceania Adventure Book, Safari Toobs Down Under and Animals of Australia Cards.

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Learning Literature though Play-based Activities and {Learn & Play Link Up}

We love books and most of the time its easier to have your activities revolve around that book. Kids will have a better understanding of the story, and at the same time explore related subjects like what we did with my Grand Father’s Journey, The Glorious Flight and other Five in a Row Activities. I shared here how we explore and dig dipper into the stories and create engaging activities to go along with it.

So this week, I’ll feature posts that contains literature play based activities that we could also do at home!

Montessori Color Box #2

Sunday 24 January 2016

** contains affiliate links **

Mavi is 26 months.

I recently purchased the Montessori Color Box #2 for Vito. I have a few Montessori sensorial materials that Mavi didn’t really find interesting and I was expecting Vito to have the same reaction to the color tablets. But, I was wrong. The moment I took it out, it was an instant hit! I was thinking all along that he doesn’t know his colors, but surprisingly he knows them by heart already! He can match them perfectly but naming them is a hit or miss. He still calls them mostly “yellow” LOL.

As of the moment, I only introduced 4 colors to Vito: yellow, red, blue and green. Lately, he can identify orange, that’s because we kept on eating clementines and I refer to it as orange! So the color tablets are actually for “formal” presentation of secondary and tertiary colors (well, that’s my plan).

Activity 1: 3 Lesson Period of the Primary Colors plus Green.

I referenced our activity here. We only worked on four colors: red, blue, yellow and green. You can get this Montessori materials from Tower High Learning (UK) or Leader Joy USA

Activity 2: Matching colored buttons to tablets.

I took out our Miniland Color Buttons for color matching. It doesn’t matter if you own a color tablet or not, you can create colored cards like what I did and we still use them for matching. What I suggest though is you purchase a few color sorting materials if you can’t make your own. They’re worthit and saves you a lot of time! You can use them for color sorting and as counters. I listed below the materials we owned and used as counters and for color sorting.

Activity 3: Attempted to Introduce Secondary Colors (but failed!). He has other plans.

Now this is the part where I wanted to introduce the entire secondary colors using the 3 lesson period but failed. He was not just into it!

Instead, he took out all the tablets, ordered them according to pairs in this manner…

He ordered them in a domino position, in pairs and in matching colors! Well isn’t that great! Aside from learning how to match colors, it’s also a great practice of concentration and hand/eye coordination.

Imaginative Play: Australian Outback

Thursday 21 January 2016

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We are currently looking at the different biomes of Australia and Mavi wanted to recreate the Australian Outback at home. As you all know, I started putting up small world, sensory tub trays for imaginative play this year. It’s a favourite learning tool in the house and can engage both of my boys hours of play (and learning too!)! So to assemble our Australian Outback tub, I gathered some of our toys that have that “brownish” and “desert-ish” look. Mavi insisted that he should assemble it, and to my surprise it turned out so great!

Materials used:

brown kinetic sand

Playmobil Hyena

Playmobil Elixir Fairy

Desert Safari Toob

Safari Toob Down Under

Crafts tray (large)

I’m glad that Mavi can set this all up by himself. He loves putting together our small world trays (previously we made the Polar regions) for them to enjoy.

This is how it looks like when he was done. I had to assist him in placing the animals, to make sure that the platypus and crocodile belongs to the water, and that the koala should be in a tree not in the desert.

Vito loves this tree for some reason. He puts sand on it and enjoys watching it falling Open-mouthed smile

In the morning, Vito automatically goes here and would start playing with the tray by identifying the figures. If you set up something like this at home and have toddlers, make sure that they are always supervised. He would also scoop the sand with his hand Open-mouthed smile , good thing I’m using Kinetic Sand… so the the mess is pretty much controlable.

I added a picture booklet beside the tray for Mavi to read whenever he plays with our tray. This handy booklet contains information about Australia, a perfect reference while playing!

Benefits of small world play:

sensory

imaginative play

story telling

expanding vocabulary

learning about different habitats

discovering the animals that lives in Australia

You can also check out some of our Australia Unit and learning materials:

Math Resources and {Learn & Play Link Up}

Wednesday 20 January 2016

Math is one of my favourite subjects, and it always excites me to see math activities in homeschool blogs. Mavi and I are always having a great time working on this subject especially when he was in preschool. I collected all our favourite math preschool activities and you can check them out on the link or image below.

In line with that, I am going to feature math activities from our link up!

5 Activities to Learn about Australia

Tuesday 19 January 2016

In honor of Australia Day this January 26, we are having this week-long Australia Unit at home. I am sharing our activities which I prepared for both of my boys: Mavi 7yrs old and Vito 2yrs old. They are simple and easy to replicate so I hope you take inspiration on any of these!

1. Flag of Australia

2. Design your own boomerang

The boomerang was cut out from a Bookdepository cardboard. I made lots of these as both of the boys enjoyed designing their boomerangs!

And later on in one corner, he started practising his scissor skills! Yes, he can control the scissors but can’t cut papers yet (only playdough). By the way, he’s using a plastic scissors so you need not worry about it.

3. Aboriginal Art

The lizard is just a product of random Google search. We did a similar artwork years ago.

4. Make your own Pavlova

This is inspired by Planting Peas’ sushi crafts. We used cottons for the meringue and fruits toppers from Learning Resources.

5. Reading and coloring our picture booklet

I am creating these picture booklets as of the moment, you’ve seen this already in my Culture and Tradition post. This booklet is for reading, learning and coloring (make your own booklet) at the same time.

More about these booklets soon!