FREE Skip Counting Learning Materials

Here’s our homemade learning materials for skip counting.  You can avail a FREE copy by clicking on the image below.  We’ll use this next week so keep visiting my sight if you want to see how we use it at home. Enjoy! 

Montessori Inspired Skip Counting

I wonder how you teach kids to skip count?  When I was younger this was one of the thing that I despise the most. Why? Because basically they just want us to memorise it.  With the available resources now, I want my boys to love skip counting…. as I always tell Mavi, you will use this technique all the time for the rest of your life :)

We had a few practice on this but I never had a the chance to come up with a serious unit or lesson for this.  Now he’s a bit older to understand and appreciate, I decided to come up with sheets to get him into the skip counting thingy.

First I created the hundred sheets, and discuss the concept about skip counting (by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s).  I cross-out the count in our sheets and made him mark it using our Do-a-Dot markers.

“Look Mom! It has a pattern!”

Now using these visuals, we put it into action using our decanomial beads and hundred board number tiles (both Montessori Math materials from Absorbent Minds UK).

Here we have the counting by 5’s. 

 

And I compared it to the counting by 10’s. 

And his least favourite skip counting is by 2’s (because it takes a long time to read 10, he said LOL).

Now well be practicing this for the entire week.  I’m coming up with materials so we can use the concept using non-Montessori materials.  I’ll be sharing it with you so watch out for it.

 

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Water Cycle: All about Water

Last week we worked on the first part of our Water Cycle study which is all about water.  The objectives of this study are the following:

• Define the states of matter using water
• Discover the properties of water
• Analyze the water cycle

WATER

Water illustrates the three states of matter:  solid (ice), liquid (water) and gas (steam).  The presentation includes a glass of water, a bowl of ice and a cup of hot water (steam is not visible in the picture).  Mavi explored the three states, touching feeling and tasting (we waited for the hot water to cool down). 

“Mom, they don’t have a taste!”

Yes, because water is tasteless, odourless and transparent. 

EXPLORING THE PROPERTIES OF WATER

Then we discuss what makes the water liquid, solid and gas.  I pointed out that temperature affects the state of the water. If the temperature is low (and freezing), the water turns into ice (solid) because the molecules that in the water does not move around as much.  Thus they form into crystalline (rigid) structure which turns it into ice.   As seen on the photos below, we made ice… and  took a photo of before and after exposing the water to low temperature.

                              

I asked Mavi to look for a spot in his body that can melt the ice easily.  One, he ate some ice…. and then another he put some in his underarm LOL. Try this with your kids!

For water turning into gas, that’s because it is exposed to a hot or high temperature with molecules moving very fast with large spaces between molecules.  Here I showed Mavi how to produce steam.

WATER CYCLE

I conducted a simple demonstration of how water cycle works.  You can read about it here.

 WATER PHASES SORTING CARDS

You can download our free water form cards which we used to sort out whether the water form is in solid, liquid or gas state.

Thank you and enjoy!

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The Water Cycle Experiment

 

Objective:  Analyze the water cycle.

Materials:

• clear crystal container or jar
• lid cover or plate (crystal in our case).
• ice
• boiled water

Procedure:

Heat water until it produces steam or boiling.   Pour the hot water in the bowl/jar until it is about 1/3 filled.

 

Cover the bowl/jar, with a lid.  Wait for a few minutes, then add some ice cubes on top of the cover.

 

And now observe what happens.  Streaks of water starts to form at the bottom of the cover. When it gets too heavy it starts to fall down just like the rain!

 

So easy and fun!  You can read the scientific explanation here.  Mavi was like “Mom it’s raining inside the bowl!”

Static Addition

My son has been doing a lot of addition exercises (static) using both the stamp game and bead frames.  I created equation cards, place value mat and stamp game booklet for the exercises.  I’m sharing how we do static addition using both materials.

Static Addition using the Stamp Game. 

1.  Take out an equation card and copy the equation in the booklet.

2.  Using the equation, select the stamps for both numerals placing them on the place value mat.  

3.  Now say “Let’s add the amounts together.” Push the rows of stamps together (combine them), starting with the units.  Count and record the number.  Do the same thing for the tens, hundreds and thousands.

4.  The four rows of the bead frame represents the decimal.  The upper green beads is for the units, the blue for tens, red for hundreds and the lower green beads for thousands.  Now using the same concept as the stamp game, count and move the appropriate beads from the left to right side. Once you’re done counting, record the numbers.  In this case, Mavi used it to check his work.

Here’s Mavi working several times. Can’t believe he’s glued.

 

For a PRINTABLE STAMP GAME, visit MONTESSORI PRINT SHOP for the free download. Follow Pinay Homeschooler's board Montessori on Pinterest.

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Mastering the Decimal System

I decided to shift back our Montessori materials to review our decimal system, skip counting, addition and subtraction using Montessori Materials. We’re almost done with our Singapore Workbooks so we’re taking a break from all the paper works and shift back to tactile activities :)

THE DECIMAL SYSTEM

We used the Montessori golden beads for presentation and the stamp game and bead frame for the activities.  My main goal here is for Mavi to really understand how the system works, to refine his knowledge of reading and  number formation.

 

QUANTITY AND SYMBOLS

The beginning of the lesson I presented to Mavi how to write the 4 digit numbers. This has always been a difficult subject for him, for he cannot understand why some units must take the place of 0's in tens, hundreds and thousands. We practiced forming the numbers using number cards and in writing as well.

He compared the digits to the body parts LOL.

For the exercises, I created a number checklist table.  Given the number, Mavi will give me the correct number tiles and bead frame counts . This activity is similar to Bank Game, but we’re not using the number cards and golden beads.  As you can see in the pictures below, he has to show me the correct quantity using the stamp tiles and bead frame.

                                  

 

FORMATION OF NUMBERS

This exercises is for Mavi to master how to write the correct number forms.  Given the quantity in number tiles, Mavi has to write the correct amount in our activity sheet.  I liked this activity, as he was able to understand the relationship of decimals.  This also enhances his skills in reading and writing large number units.

Our next step would be static and dynamic addition using the stamp game and bead frame.

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Life Cycle: Natural Environment I

The last part of the Life Cycle series is the study of the natural environment, distinguishing land and water environments and its living organisms.  The study of the natural environment is broken into two parts:  habitats and food chains.  This post is all about the organism’s habitats.

The two major environments that we talked about are those organisms that live on land and those that live in the marine environment (water). To illustrate this, I took out two containers, the first one is filled with water and the other with oatmeal that represents land.  Here Mavi sorts out the animal figures, for water and land animals.

Points to discuss here:

• difference between land and water animals ex: animals with feet and fins
• land have trees and grasses while marine animals enjoy seaweeds
• land is dry with extreme temperatures while marine environment does not have extreme temperatures

As we talked about the land environments, we revisit our study of habitats.  The land environment have forests, deserts and grasslands.

You can get the Animal Habitat Cards here.  Using our definition cards, we talked about the weather conditions of each habitat, how the animals survive or cope up with their environment, what they eat and also discuss plants that grows on each habitat.

Mavi also tried to recreate the habitats, inspired by sensory bins.

 

 

The marine environment on the other hand can be shallow and deep salt water.

Download your FREE Marine Animals and Ecosystem here.

Though we cannot recreate the marine environment, we will have a few trips in the seaside for this next for a hands-on learning (since we’re going to a tropical country!). 

During the course of the lesson, I emphasized the meaning of the following words for vocabulary and let Mavi to practice writing it on a paper:

• marine
• environment
• habitat
• organisms
• natural

Next week, we’ll talk about food chains.  This would be the first time I’ll introduce the subject to Mavi so this would be interesting as well. We’ll be using our animal figures to illustrate chains and food webs :D Can’t wait!

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