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Arctic and Antarctica Activities for 2 Years Old

Wednesday, 13 January 2016

Vito is 26 months old.

Few days ago I shared Mavi’s activities for this month. Now it’s time I share Vito’s.

1. Counting activity using Penguin cards and water bottle lids. When I introduced this, Vito was more interested in rolling the bottle lids than counting. He identifies the number in he lid then would roll it around the house. Yes, tiring for Mommy!

2. Matching activity for visual discrimination using our polar animal cards from here. Vito loves matching but I would only give him a maximum of 6 cards to match everytime we do this.

3. Counting penguins using the Hape Puzzle Numbers and Safari Toob Penguins. Vito enjoys counting the penguins!

4. Gluing black and white circles in a paper for fine motor skills. I made him use the gluing stick this time so he’ll know how to use it (I did the same thing with Mavi).

5. Montessori parts of a penguin puzzle. I got this from a local store, but you can also purchase this Montessori material from Tower High Learning (UK) or Leader Joy USA (US) or in Amazon. Vito loooves working with puzzles, this is one of his favourites! He knows where to place the pieces but finds it hard to fit them all together as of the moment.

6. Matching Safari Toob Arctic figures to matching cards. Will share the cards once I fix the file.

7. Filling the buckets with blue colored rice. I made him use a scoop instead of a spoon, but he prefers using his hands. But of course, it’s the perfect tool for sensorial activity!

8. Painting using black and white Giotto Bebe fingerpaints. I am introducing black and white this month, the predominant colors in the Polar Regions. I also used our Polar Regions Invitation to Play tray for introducing the said colors.

It was also a great way to practice color matching, by matching the lids to the paint bottles.

9. Scooping dark brown (almost black) and white pompoms. Another activity for hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.

These are Vito;s activities for the entire month of January PLUS the reading of books (daily), and letter activities for literacy (we’re working on P and W this month). Watch out for Vito’s activities for the month of February. Till next time, thank you!

Culture and Traditions of People Around the World

Sunday, 10 January 2016

** contains affiliate links **

Welcome to another year and another series of the 12 Months of Montessori. For this month, my friends and I are going to showcases Montessori Cultural activities. If you are a reader of my blog, you know so well that we travel a lot, thus Mavi has grown into a lover of geography and enjoys learning about different places and different culture. Also, we’ve been doing a number of continent studies for years. You can check these out here.

To start with, I have been collecting Playmobil playsets and figures, they’re one of the best toys my kids have and greatest investment for me so far as we get to use them in our homeschool as well. We use these figures to represent a certain country in each continent, to have a better idea of the traditions and practices of the people.

The Figures

This has been a long time dream of mine, to have a collection of dolls that represent countries in the world. Those kinds of dolls are hard to find though and more expensive. Then I discovered Playmobil and realized that they produce historal figures and playsets with important icons like Samurai, Mongols, Vikings, Princess, Flamenco dancers etc! So I started collecting them! See the Amazon affiliate at the end of the post for some links.

So each of these figures signifies the tradition, culture and the people of a certain country.

The Cards

I love the figures that I wanted to have cards that will go along with them, so I made these traditional clothing cards to match my Playmobils. Here’s what I came up with!

South America and North America

Here are the “models”! Brazil – Carnaval dancer, Argentina – Gaucho, USA – Native American, Canada – Mounty

Asia and Australia

China – Mongol/Chinese warrior, Japan – Samurai, Saudi Arabia – Genie magician, Australia – Aboriginal

Europe

United Kingdom – Victorian lady, Italy – Gladiator, Norway – Viking lord, Germany – Bavarian lady

Africa

South Africa – South African lady, Kenya – Maasai tribe leader, Egypt – Ancient Egyptian

The People of the World

Mavi placing the Playmobil characters on the map Smile ! I’m using the Montessori Continent Puzzle Map, from Tower High Learning (UK). If you are in the US, you can get yours from Leader Joy USA.

Since I can’t get enough of my my little people, here are some close-up shots of my figures. They are adorable!

Now to learn more about each of the figures and the countries they represent, I created picture booklets for Egypt, Japan and United Kingdom (these are the ones I made as of the moment). Mavi loves our booklets, he enjoys reading / coloring them, learning about each country and working on his own DIY booklets! Now I just have to stop here, and talk about these booklets soon!

We used our fact cards of course, for the details of our figures.

This post is part of the 12 Months of Montessori Learning which is hosted by Natural Beach Living and The Natural Homeschool.

Visit my friends’ post as well, they have the most amazing ideas too!

Easy Ways to Teach Montessori Culture (Free Printables) | Natural Beach Living

Montessori Culture: Holidays & Observances during the Calendar Year {Free Printables} | The Natural Homeschool

Montessori Cultural Areas and Activities for Multi-Level Learning | Living Montessori Now

Exploring North America with my Preschooler | Planting Peas

DIY Montessori Flag Pin Map | The Kavanaugh Report

Children of the World Activities | Mama’s Happy Hive

Montessori Culture 3-6 Checklist | Study at Home Mama

Cultural Landmarks around the World (Free Printables) | Christian Montessori Network

Culture & Traditions of People Around the World | The Pinay Homeschooler

Culture Studies: Finding Topics | Grace and Green Pastures

The Polar Regions for Gradeschoolers

Saturday, 9 January 2016

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:

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

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

Landforms of the Arctic Circle and Antarctica

Thursday, 7 January 2016

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.

January Themed Activities and {Learn & Play Link Up}

Wednesday, 6 January 2016

I love seasonal themed activities and for this week’s linky, here are my favourite activities that you can do this January in line with the cold season!

Australia/Oceania in a Nutshell

Monday, 4 January 2016

Finally, my Australia in a Nutshell is finally up! It took me awhile to complete this set because of the holiday season. I’ve been receiving a lot of requests from readers to publish this set but I’ve been too preoccupied for the past weeks.

Buy now

I am currently printing and laminating this for our Australia Unit just in time for Australia day in January 26.

So here are the contents of the file:

1. Maps. I included two maps in this file: [1] map of Australia and [2] map of Oceania.

2. 3 Part Cards of the Australian States.

3. Country Fact Cards of Australia and Oceania. There are 27 fact cards provided to learn about the climate, currency, government, etc of the countries that composes Oceania.

4. Fact Cards. Everything you needed to know about Australia and other countries in Oceania is provided in these 56 fact cards. Mavi loves to read this and learn about the people and their culture in different continents. I bet your kids will love this too!

5. Platypus and Frilled Lizard Nomenclature Cards. I always include these in my Nutshell series as they are my kids favourite (when Mavi was younger). Kids love to learn about animals especially those that only thrives in a specific continent/country.

Other Nutshell files available:

Alphabet Picture Booklets (CUSNPOLH)

Saturday, 2 January 2016

The second set of my Alphabet Picture Booklet is finally up! This set contains the pictures of objects starting from letters CUSNPOLH. To know WHY I organised in this manner, read about it here.

Download the second set by clicking the image or here.

To download the first set of the booklets, click here. Don’t forget to share this to your friends as well. Thank you!