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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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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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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Hands-on Learning: Biomes of Australia

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   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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The Polar Regions for Gradeschoolers

January is usually the best time to have winter themed activities or do either Antarctica or Arctic activities.  It is the time when kids can envision these frozen part of the planet due to the cold/extreme weather.  To start with, I set up an invitation to play tray in our shelf and displayed books to go along with it.  These can be accessed by the boys whenever they want to and not age specific, big boys and little brothers can share and play with the tray!   

Our invitation to play tray contains the following:

• Safari Toob Penguins
• Safari Toob Arctic
• Schleich Arctic animals
• Playmobil Penguin Habitat Superset (the best!)

The books we used are:  (FREE shipping in Book Depository!)

• Usborne’s Antarctica
• Usborne’s Polar Bear
• Penguins

For Mavi’s activities, we started by doing a visual presentation of what Antarctica and the Arctic region looks like.  This was accomplished by recreating the landmarks of both polar regions.  You can read more about it here.

I also prepared some fact cards about the different animals that lives in both regions.  Here Mavi matched the animals to what the card is describing.  If you want to try this, have your kids read the description, in this way they can practice their reading skills and improve their vocabulary.

More fact cards from our Polar Region Pack.   These cards describes the regions with high quality images.

We watched March of the Penguins and Mavi and I feel sorry for the mommy Penguin.  A lovely documentary showing the hardships of the female penguin just to feed their chick.  I highly recommend it.  Here are some of our visual materials which I made years ago when Mavi was just in preschool.  These images were sourced out randomly in Google, printed and laminated.

Same thing with these pictures except that I printed them in a photo paper.  These shows the different transporation used in Antarctica (scientists and tourists), the different ice formations  and in general, the environment in Antarctica.

Benefits of these activities:

• Deeper understanding ont he environment of the polar regions
• Able to differentiate the Arctic to that of Antarctica
• Tell what animals inhabits the Arctic and Antarctica
• Learn about the life cycle of the penguins

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Landforms of the Arctic Circle and Antarctica

Both of the boys are learning about the Polar Regions this month.  I have shared our Polar Animals Sensory Bin last week, and today I’m sharing what Mavi has been working on.  While Vito is having tray works, Mavi on the otherhand is learning about the difference between the landforms of the Arctic Circle and the Antarctica.  This activity is vital in understanding the environmentin both regions.

So while Antartica is a huge land mass covered mostly in ice and located in the south pole, the Arctic Circle is mainly an area located in the north pole and includes several larger islands.  The islands in the Arctic region are comprised of Greenland, and borders of Canada, Russia and the Scandinavian countries.

Using plasticine (white for Antartica and green for Arctic) Mavi created the specific landforms for visual presentation.  We use these fact cards as  a guide.

Seen below is Mavi’s interpretation of the Arctic and Antartica.    He added landform cards that best describes the Polar regions.  The landform cards we used were from Tower High Learning in the UK.  But if you are in the US, you can purchase this at Leader Joy USA a Montessori shop that provides premium quality materials at affordable prices.  You should visit the site as it is having a sale as of the moment!

He’s checking his work by reading our fact cards which is included in Polar Activity Pack.

More Polar-themed activities in the coming days as we progress, I promise to share it with you! Hope this post helps in inspiring you with your homeschool activities.

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The Study of Northern Europe

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Mavi and I are looking into the different regions of Europe and we started with Northern Europe (of course, that’s our location!).  So as not to be overwhelmed, we only focused on 4 countries:  Denmark, United Kingdom, Ireland and Sweden (my bestfriend currently lives there and has been sending me lots of beautiful photos!).

So to learn about Northern Europe we have the following activities:

Naming of at least 4 Countries

We start off by identifying the countries in the Northern Europe. If you check my previous post, Mavi sorted out the countries in Europe according to regions.  So in this study we are focusing on four countries:  Denmark (for LEGO), Sweden (for IKEA), United Kingdom and Ireland.

I prepared this  country FACT CARDS for Mavi to read.  Things that you can learn from this fact cards:

• Capital and biggest city for each country
• Currency used
• Language
• Nationality
• Longest River of the country
• Highest Mountain of the country
• Climate
• Government

Mapping

I created this Europe Map 3 Part cards.  My intention here is for Mavi to easily identify the location of each country without using the puzzle.  The file also contains a blank sheet for him to do his own mapping.

Flag and Plotting Important Geographical Sites

For retention, I made Mavi create the flags of Denmark and Ireland using LEGOs.  He wanted it this way, rather than painting or drawing them on a cardstock.

I printed this map of Ireland from CIA site and laminated it.  The purpose of this activity is to locate the highest mountain of Ireland, the capital city and trace the longest river.  We did this with United Kingdom, Denmark and Sweden as well.  In order to reuse the map again, I laminated it and used dry erase pen to mark the map.

Famous Landmarks

For the landmarks, I printed this coloring sheet from Education.com.  Mavi wants to color them but later on decided to create a replica using his LEGO.

This is his interpretation of the Stonehenge and Big Ben tower using LEGOs.

Important Facts About Northern Europe

Expanding our knowledge, we took out some of the fact cards from our Europe in a Nutshell, identify those that belongs to Northern Europe and study them.  So here are the things Mavi learned:

• Puffins. We saw a few of them in Cliffs of Moher when we visited the site last summer.
• Vikings
• Shamrocks and Celtic cross in Ireland
• Fjords in Scandinavian countries.

 

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