Revisiting The Seven Continents

I love the fact that my son’s school is sending newsletter each month to parents regarding the things that the children will be exploring and the activities that comes with it.  For this month, they’re learning about the solar system and the continents, must be the reason why my son was so eager to do some geo-related works a few days ago.  Though we’ve done this a few times its always nice to revisit and review what he has learned so far.  

As usual, he always forgets to name “North America”. He knows the location but finds it difficult to name it.

         

It helps a lot of your kids learn how to read early on. Here he pins the labels of each continent to the map.  I used to read the labels to him before, but now he’s doing it by himself.

           

Then he wanted to place the animals to their “homes” based on the map.  So I reused a paper bag, sketched the continents and he started sorting his animal figures according to the continents in which they inhabit.  So timely since we will be exploring Africa soon.

           

In addition we started identifying the oceans for familiarization.  This is what we end up later on.  I wanted to make something like this but I realized that it would eat up all my time and energy so I might probably look for a more easy way to make a world map inspired by Montessori.  But Leptir’s work is such an inspiration!

More Geography units to come!

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Asia ~ Philippines

During the holiday break, my son had been learning all about our home country.  He had this sudden interest of learning the language and eager to learn our local songs.  So I had been playing Christmas songs in Filipino and been exposing him to our local shows as well.  As of now he has learned 5 Filipino songs, and can speak a few Tagalog words.

Learning about a country starts with the familiarity of its location on the map and how it looks like.

Hands on learning of the Philippine flag together with some play money (Peso).  Had to show him a miniature of our local fishing boat as most of our people are fishermen and a jeepney which is our country’s mode of public transportation.

And a bunch of cards and books about fruits, landmarks etc. I purchased these books during our vacation and they were mostly folktales and stories I have read during my primary years. My son loves to listen to these stories and insist that I should read them in Tagalog (our national language).

At home, I mostly cook Filipino dishes.  Among my son’s favorite are Adobo, Sinigang and Crispy Fried Dilis (Anchovy).

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Hello 2013!

Happy happy new year dear readers! 

How’s everyone’s vacation?  Hope you and your family had a lovely time during the holiday break :)  I know most of you are anticipating a new post, but unfortunately, the Mommy (that’s me!) is still on vacation mode (LOL) and we only had a few random activities that aren’t post worthy.  And there’s still some work to be at home, like putting down our tree (not my favorite thing to do!), and some workers are coming here tomorrow to fix our water heater and tank (argh). 

But despite the fact that there’s a lot of things to be done in the next few weeks, I still long to start home “schooling” again.  It’s what I love to do and there’s never a day that I don’t think  about it.

For a head start, here’s what we’re having this JANUARY

• Science: Space and the Solar System
• Geography:  Africa
• Artist Study:  Michaelangelo
• Math:  Clock and Fractions
• Language:  Finish Green Series of Montessori Language, Spelling

There are just the MAJOR topics I want to accomplish this month.  In conjunction, we’re also doing worksheets (Singapore Math and the ones I bought locally), get lots of outdoor activities/ free play when the weather permits, and do random arts and crafts.

We’re gradually settling back to our old routine, and will definitely share some stuff the soonest :)

Thank you dear readers for a good 2012 and cheers to a much fruitful and enjoyable 2013! 

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From our little family to yours....

Animal Classifications

Last week Mavi learned about animal classes.  He’s been playing with his animal figures for weeks and I thought that maybe I could have a little activity that would make use of these animals and learn at the same time.   And it hit me that we haven’t talked about animal classes yet.  All we ever do is sort animals whether they live on land or water, or whether they’re farm or zoo animals. So the thought of having a new activity got me really excited.

So per usual, I went to the library to get some books relating to animal classifications.

I started telling a story about the animal world wherein they are grouped according to their characteristics.  I used the images here to describe each of the class and then we sorted each of the figures whether they are mammals, reptiles, fish, birds or amphibians.

MAMMALS.  (Fur, mommies nurse their young with their milk, four legged and warm blooded)

REPTILES. (Scaly and dry skin, 4 legs or no legs at all, usually lay eggs, cold-blooded)

 

BIRDS. (Feather, 2 legs, lays eggs, warm-blooded)

FISH. (Scales and fins, lay many eggs, live in the water, cold-blooded)

AMPHIBIANS. (Moist smooth skin, live in land and water, lay eggs,webbed feet)

My son had a wonderful time with this activity.  For two days, this is just what we did, he loves sorting his animals.  Then one day, while he was doing free play in his room, I peeked and saw him sorting his animals all by himself :)

 

It felt good to see your son loving the things that you teach him.  So note to self, that the next time we’ll visit the zoo, we’ll play a game of telling what the animal class a certain animal belongs :)

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On Sick Leave

Dear readers,

I am currently nursing a flu.  And because of the Advent season I have my hands full as well.  I still have a few more updates that I needed to post once my online sick leave is over :) 

We did animal classification last week, and currently enjoying our Advent activities that goes along with our Advent calendar. 

For now feel free to browse through my blog and feel free to use whatever idea that interests you :)

Happy holidays everyone!

 

Best regards,

Jae