Our Spring Season Picture Cards

Spring is just around the corner and I’ve been thinking about the activities that the boys and I can do. I was very much inspired by Deb’s post on Spring Season Cards, so I borrowed the idea of printing pictures that relates to spring and we will be using them for the follwing:

• introducing the season of spring to Vito
• creating stories using the picture cards
• inspiration for crafts
• inspiration for outdoor activities
• St. Patrick and Easter activities
• farm animals and their babies
• animal life cycles

Like for example, we’ll be doing cherry blossoms crafts and paint eggs during Easter.  We’ve got dandelions in the backyard and we’ll disect them too!  St. Patrick’s Day is next week, and we’re still contemplating how are we going to celebrate it with the rest of the locals.

We’ll be planting seeds in the coming weeks as well. I already prepared some pots for the boys.  We can’t go out in the rain yet because honestly, it’s still freezing here.  And hopefully, once the weather gets warmer we’ll take a short trip to the farm to see and feed some real live farm animals and explore the forest to observe insects!

So as you see, these cards will be our guide… and as Mavi would say it, it’s the ultimate checklist!

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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FREE Valentines Day Resources & Activities

If you enjoy having themed and seasonal activities, you will definitely love what I have for you!  I’ve got tons of wonderful ideas for Valentines Day, activities that you and your kids will love PLUS, amazing FREE resources!

First, download your copy of our FREE Valentines Day Pack for your preschoolers! They will definitely love this!

Click here to download your copy.

Second, here are my features for this week’s link up!

Featured posts:

Fine Motor Heart Art from Our Whimsical Days

Valentine Heart Colander Fine Motor Skills from Living Montessori Now

FREE Valentines Day Printables for Kids from Sights and Sound Reading

Valentines Day Pre-K Printable from Embark On A Journey

Valentine’s Game from Kids Minds

Valentines Day Fine Motor Skills from Something 2 Offer

 

Welcome to the Learn & Play Link Party!

Now it’s time for this week’s link party! This is a BRAND new link up for all blog posts that include learn and play activities and hands-on education for kids. We are excited to read your blog posts and to see what you have to share! Please link up below and grab our button to display on your blog.

If you are a blogger, share your family friendly posts here. We are looking for things which include:

Montessori Education

Homeschool

Sensory Play

Tot and Preschool Trays

Fine and Gross Motor Activities

Kids in the Kitchen

Healthy Recipes for Kids

Arts and Crafts

Natural Living

Free Educational Printables

Family-Oriented Activities

Healthy LivingYour post will be featured on each of our blogs where we will pick our favourite posts every other week. That means there is more of a chance that you will be featured!

 

Everyone, please meet our link party hosts:

Christian Montessori Blog ~ Please visit our CMN FB group ~ Pinterest

Vanessa from Mama’s Happy Hive~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Jennifer from Study at Home Mama~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Marie from Child Led Life~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Jae from Pinay Homeschooler~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Heather from Golden Reflections Blog~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Renae from Every Star is Different~FB~Pinterest

 

GUIDELINES FOR LINKING

Please link up 1-3 posts

Follow each of the hosts on social media

When you link up, please add our button and place it at the bottom of your shared posts or link back with text link.

By entering a link, you’re giving us permission to feature an image on our blogs. Proper credit & links will ALWAYS be given.

Please visit a couple of shared posts and leave a comment for them

Remember that you must link back in order to be featured

 Grab This Button:

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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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Alphabet Picture Booklets (DEXQYZVWJK)

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

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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