Montessori Books for Older Children: The Universe Story Trilogy

It’s time for another 12 Months of Montessori Series and today I am sharing Mavi’s favourite book series.  We have been using these books for years now.  The books are all about the cosmic history to the evolution of man.  The stories are accompanied by stunning images and time-line to follow.  Everything in these books are just too magical and enlightening for him!

About the books:

There are three books in the series and each tells a certain period in time.  Here are the details of the books which you can purchase from Amazon:

• BORN WITH A BANG.  Story of the universe from the Big Bang to the formation of the sun and solar system.
• FROM LAVA TO LIFE.  Story of Earth from the appearance of the first life forms to the extinction of the dinosaurs.
• MAMMALS WHO MORPH.  The story of the first mammals to the story of humans.

When I asked Mavi how we’re going to showcase his books in today’s post, he suggested that we should make some kind of “interpretation”, similar to a museum but only in a series of activities.    So I scanned and laminated  his favourite parts in each book so we can do our “interpretation” of the story.

BORN WITH A BANG:  how the universe was formed.  Seen here, we replicated the bursting of lights in the universe forming into galaxies, stars and planets via the milk/soap/food coloring science activity.  This was performed by Mavi and Vito.  The mixing and contrast of colours looked like the big bang!

BORN WITH A BANG:  the sun was formed.   We painted the sun using yellow and orange paints.  To make the flares as described in the book, we used plastic fork to create a dramatic effect on the sun.

FROM LAVA TO LIFE:  the first life forms.   We used the Safari Toob Cambrian Life to learn about the early life forms of mother Earth.  We explored this before so it was another round of learning for Mavi and something new for Vito LOL.

FROM LAVA TO LIFE:  the age of the dinosaurs.   This was the kids favourite part of the history.  Mavi relived the era of dinosaurs by setting up his Playmobil Dinosaur collections, which includes a gigantic volcano, some plants and dinosaurs. We’ve been using our dinosaur Playmobils for months now, they’re worth-it!  I stopped buying LEGOs and started investing in  Playmobils for more imaginative play (for both boys). Who couldn’t resist dinosaurs? Even Vito loves them to pieces!

MAMMALS WHO MORPH:  the first humans.   Next we moved on to the life of the first humans.  This Playmobil Caveman set (a gift) is another favourite! It has a fire that glows (battery operated), a mammoth, sabertooth and humans.  Mavi and I discussed what has changed after the dinosaurs left the planet.  We talked about the difference of the dinosaurs and the (new set) animals of the stoneage era,  how the first humans survived, how they produced food, clothings and homes. 

MAMMALS WHO MORPH:  the age of technology.  This is the part of the book wherein it mentions about the human inventions and discoveries, of how it helped the lives of many people but at the same time how advancement destroys mother Earth.  This is timely because  Mavi’s school is currently educating them about biodiversity, of what is “going green”, building insect hotels and recycling old materials.

For this part of the book,  we explored the house and identified machines and other technologies that have helped humans all throughout history.  The oven for cooking, washing machine for the clothes, toilet and bathroom for grooming, electricity, water system, networks and world wide web… etc.  We then discuss the ways humans destroy the planet and how we can help to rebuild it.

With just three books, were were able to learn history, science, math and all others in between!  Hope you are inspired by this post and hopefully, grab a copy of the books as well!  Happy reading and learning!

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This post is part of the 12 Months of Montessori Learning which is hosted by Natural Beach Living and The Natural Homeschool.  Let’s check what my fave Montessori Mom bloggers are featuring this month!”"

The Best Montessori Friendly Books: Babies, Toddlers, Preschoolers, Elementary | Natural Beach Living

Montessori-Friendly Living Books Library | The Natural Homeschool

Favorite Montessori-Friendly Books for a 2 Year Old | Living Montessori Now

10 Ways To Make Your Kids Crazy About Reading | Planting Peas

Montessori Friendly Books -- Birth to Six | The Kavanaugh Report

Engaging Books for Preschoolers | Mama’s Happy Hive

Montessori & Fiction: Balancing the Bookshelf | Sugar, Spice & Glitter

Montessori Books for Older Children:  The Universe Story Trilogy | The Pinay Homeschooler

Children’s Books About Birds | Every Star is Different

Favorite Montessori Resources | Grace and Green Pastures

Our Favorite Montessori Inspired Books for Babies to Preschoolers | Christian Montessori Network

 

The Use of Funnel for Toddlers

Vito is 28 months old.

I recently introduced the use of funnel to Vito and boy oh boy, it’s non stop play!

The addition of funnel in our beans and water transfer has added an extra spice in Vito’s daily activity. He’s been doing activities like pouring and scooping for quite sometime now and let’s say he’s getting tired of it.  So to explore the other capabilities of pouring, I added funnel in his activity tray. 

Benefits of using funnel or tubing:

• the difference between wide and small mouthed containers.  Make sure that the bottle is clear so the child can see the flow for the elements.
• from one step water transfer to pour-funnel-pour procedure (additional step)
• learn the concept of water flow

Children are fascinated with water and by making the flow. The use of funnel is one of these elements that can help children understand about small spaces and  how the flow of water works.  They will discover that to easily transfer water to a small mouthed container, they’ll be needing a tubing or funnel to successfully pour elements into it.

To demonstrate here’s a video of Vito transferring  lentils and water using a funnel. 

Your kids will definitely have fun with this one, mine can’t stop playing!  Hope that this will work on you!

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The Animal Kingdom Revisited

No school for Mavi means brainstorming for future activities. He opened up lately that he wanted to study about animals again, so I took out our cards on The Animal Kingdom and checked what else we missed and haven’t explored yet.  He reviewed the cards and sorted out the things that he wanted to learn this year.  He picked arthropods, starfish and jellyfish! Yay, something new!

Here are the animals we have studied so far: 

• annelids
• arthropods ( we haven’t worked crustaceans and centipedes yet) (Part One, Part Two)
• vertebrates (birds, fish, mammals, reptiles, amphibians) (Blog Post, Vertebrate Sorting Cards)
• mollusc (Part One, Part Two, Snail Nomenclature Card and Definition Booklet)

And the ones we have yet to explore…

• echinoderms (starfish)
• cnidaria (jellyfish)

We love using our animal kingdom chart  as our guide in our zoology activities at home. It’s easier much easier to identify animals and Mavi can easily memorize it through constant exposure.  If you are interested, you can check out our Animal Kingdom printable here or click the image below.

 

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Having Fun with London Playsets & Cards

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We are all in love with our wooden London Playset/s which we acquired recently.  It’s so precious and beautiful that I can’t seem to take it out the bag!  

Now how do we use these figures?

As LEGO would say it, “imagination is the limit!”, we use these wooden materials in so many ways!  We use it for imaginative play, setting up the London city with trains and cars and use our Playmobil figures to play pretend as tourists.

And to enhance its educational value,   I created a picture booklet with cards so we can learn more about the story behind the icons.  Another playset we’re using is the Playmobil where we’re using the Queen as an additional  character in our set.  The picture book that we have has this beautiful clip arts of United Kingdom’s landmarks (including Scotland and Wales).  Mavi reads the picture book as he identifies the figure. 

Vito is the one who mostly uses the cards (Mavi uses the outline pages for colouring) as he loves identifying and matching things.

Now a little bit of the London playset, the Big Ben and London Bridge are stackable, and is made up of little pieces.  It doesn’t bother me though. Mavi suggests we glue them but I don’t really want to do that.  The London Eye is impressive, Vito loves to spin it! 

Of course, it wouldn’t be London without those iconic “red” buses, guards, postal kiosk  and  telephone box.

I am so pleased with this toy, and when not in use as a toy, you can display it in your shelf to add colours to your sitting room.  I couldn’t recommend this enough!

If you are interested in our United Kingdom Picture Book (which includes the cards as well), click here or the image below to purchase.  It’s absolutely worth-it!

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Learning the Parts of the Human Eye

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It’s Mavi’s midterm break and we decided to look into the parts of the human eye!  We examined our model unit this morning which we bought last year from the local store.  It’s so perfect and goes along so well with our Human Eye Nomenclature Cards and Booklet. 

To start with, we disassemble our eye model and identify the parts using our nomenclature cards.   Mavi was surprised that his eye is actually shaped like a sphere and yes, a ball!  All the while he thought it was flat. So as we identify the parts using the model, he can’t stop himself from examining my eye as well LOL.

When the parts were completely taken apart, we read our booklet to know the purpose of each part.  Don’t you just love our eye model? Even the inside of the eyeball has drawings of blood vessels on it. So detailed! 

I’m so used of making these booklets that I was able assemble it in just a few minutes.  I laminated the pages as well for longevity.

These are the 3 part cards.  I decided to add the eyelid and eyelash in the parts as they are also essential in defining the human eye.

Our little man was also as excited and thrilled to examine the human eye.  He was observing his brother and was attentively listening to Mavi’s soliloquy LOL.

                                    

And finally! He got the chance to borrow the eyeball and started to emulate his brother.

For the eye model/s here are the links where you can get them:

UK/Ireland

• Easons or Hamely’s (where I found my model)
• Learning Resources Cross Section Eye in AmazonUK
• Giant Eye Model in AmazonUK

US

• Eastcolight Opthalmology Set

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Study of Ancient China

Few weeks ago, Mavi and I were learning about Ancient China.  I decided that this year, we’ll be focusing in country-based studies rather than continents.  Last month we worked on Australia, and because of Chinese New Year being celebrated during February, I guess this month is the best time to conduct Chinese-themed activities.

To start with, we created a small world play tray with Ancient China objects on it.  To know more about this, click the image below or here.

Then we worked on learning about the location, biomes, lifestyle and culture of the people of China.  We used our China Picture Book and Cards in these activities.  I printed the Asia Map from here and the fact cards were from our Asia in a Nutshell. Here you can learn about the way of life of the Chinese people and their religion. 

This picture book is Mavi’s current favourite obsession.  He reads it, enjoying his discoveries about China and love working on the coloring/writing pages.  So funny that Vito saw Mavi working on the cards that he couldn’t resist matching the cards to that of the outline pages!

My 2 year-old toddler loves the cards! He matched the control cards to the outline pages.

They’ve been practising how to write Chinese characters in school.  He’s good (But I coulnd’t understand what he wrote in the cards LOL)!

Lastly, we made Chinese lanterns on the eve of Chinese New Year.  The boys had fun making the lanterns and observing the lights.  We used this Hands-on HIstory Ancient Chinese book from the library for our arts and crafts. I highly recommend this book!

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Flower Cards (Limited Time)

This Valentines Day, we are having flower activities!  And with that I am giving away this Flower Cards set for FREE till February 15th, 11:00PM GMT. 

Vito has been using these cards already and he loves it! At first I gave him 8 set of cards to work on, but then he finished them breezily and still asked for more!

I didn’t know that at 2years old, Vito can work on this amount of matching cards in one sitting!

We also use the cards to match the flower replicas which I bought at Ikea.  But of course, nothing beats using real flowers! 

To download, click here.

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Small World Play: Ancient China

Gong Hi Fa Cai!  It’s the Chinese New Year tomorrow and Mavi and I are currently learning about the Ancient China  (using STOW Vol 1 as read along book). With these, we set up another small world play which is inspired by the history of China.  Here’s what Mavi and I assembled.   Last month, we assembled an Australian Outback-inspired small play and it was a total hit!  This month, the boys are enjoying their free play with our new small world tray!

First, Mavi and Vito painted the newspaper with green and brown. This will be the base of our Great Wall! Painting is one of those activities that kids love to do together!

We placed the newspaper (once the paint dried) at the bottom of our wooden tray then stuff it with small world figures and materials from our Safari Toob collections, LEGO and Playmobil.

What’s in the tray?

You will first  notice our country profile card with the dragon.  I made this card for Mavi to read whenever he plays, and I added a dragon, as this is one of China’s famous icon and symbol.   The dragon is part of the Playmobil Advent Calendar which I got Mavi last year.                      

Qin Shi Huang and Chinese Buddha. Qin Shi is the first emperor of China and the country was named after him (the figure is part of Playmobil Advent Calendar) and the Chinese Buddha is from Hong Kong. 

                                                 

Other objects we added were

 the dragons from Safari Toobs

 the Giant Buddha from Safari Toob Landmarks

a DIY flag of China

the Great Wall of China made of LEGO (Mavi made this)

the rest of the items from Playmobil Dragon Advent Calendar.

Here’s Mavi loving the dragon. We were discussing the role and meaning of the dragon in China’s culture and tradition.

Vito loves our tray too! The tray is good for one to two weeks.  It is placed on top of the shelf for the boys to easily access and play with the figures as long as they want to. 

What a successful collaboration from Mavi, Vito and I! They enjoyed playing the materials that we have in the tray, most especially our dragon!  History, geography and imaginative play all rolled into one!

If you are interested, we did several China-related activities before.  You can click this (part 1) and this (for part 2).

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