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Letter 'c' Sound Activities
Monday, May 25, 2015
Letter 'c' craft. I made Vito colour the letter c using our Do-a-Dot markers (which he really really loves by the way). Afterwhich, I made him watch Mavi cut the letter and turn it into a letter c carrot.
C for colours. This is again another colour matching activity I prepared for Vito. The cups were from the local store and the cubes were from Melissa & Doug Lacing Beads learning toy. We do this activity everyday for Vito to know his colours.
C for cottons. We tried this activity, painting using cotton balls but Vito was horrified of the cotton. So we proceeded with finger painting instead. We are using Giotto Bebe Fingerpaints at home.
Playing with pegs (pretend corns). We played around with favourite FantaColor pegs and Vito is getting better fitting those smaller pegs into the hold
Steamed carrots. Vito's snack for the entire week LOL.
C for cars. We played with cars every morning and matched them to our homemade colour cards. Read about it here.
Books this week:
Photos of Vito working.
More letter sound activities coming up in the next few weeks!
Our Letter ‘b’ Sound activities might interest you as well!
Measuring Mass of an Object
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Experimenting and predicting Mass (Weight)
- Balance scale or bucket balance from Learning Resources
- Items to weigh ( we have rugby ball, a small book and box of Jenga toys)
- Items to serve as measuring unit. I used transportation and fruit counters from Learning Resources (make sure they’re all similar) and crystal pebbles.
Objective:
- To develop skills in predicting and estimating the mass of the an object.
- To use knowledge in science and math to come up with a mathematical conclusion based on the experiment.
Objects
|
Prediction
|
Actual
|
Rugby ball | 17 pebbles | 35 pebbles |
Book | 20 pebbles | 33 pebbles |
Box | 10 pebbles | 11 pebbles |
Tried and Tested: Fraction Pies
Monday, May 11, 2015
Obviously, I love math materials. Through the years, I’ve been collecting a few, just to give my boys’ learning a boost because hands-on math is totally rocks! Now, I don’t usually give reviews because I have high standards LOL. I’m frugal that’s why every cent I spend means a lot to me. The cost must justify the quality of products.
Anyway, I have two sets of fractions pies. The first one is the soft foam fraction pies from Singapore’s Learning Store which my cousin gave to me a few years ago. I totally LOVE this. The pies are huge, it’s the size of my hand, magnetic, sturdy, has a label, with bright colours and it comes with tub (with handle!).
Now, this year, I ordered another set from Learning Resources via Amazon. I love Learning Resources! Most of my materials are from them, so I was expecting this fraction pies to be of equal with the ones I got from Singapore. BUT, I was tremendously disappointed. When I opened it, I wanted to throw it right away into the bin LOL. They are tiny plastic tiles and comes with a case that is sooo hard to open. When I checked the pies, they don’t have labels either so it is very difficult to identify each of them (unless you are so good in visual that you know that it’s 1/10 right away!). Because the are so tiny, slippery and sharp on the edges, I couldn’t fit them back in the tiny case. So I just packed them immediately, covered in newspaper (so no one will get hurt due to sharp edges) and kept them in the storage. I wonder when will it see the light of day.
See the size difference? And just look at the containers. I swear, the ones from Singapore are much more cheaper!
And here’s the side. The pieces are so thin! So hard to put back together
I couldn’t find the EXACT product our foam pies in Amazon but here are the ones I saw closest to it:
- Foam Fraction Pies Teacher Created Resources. A little bit small, but they are made of foam and affordable.
- Educational Insights Foam Magnetic Circles. The pies are big, according to Amazon, “Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 10.3 x 2.4 inches ; 2.5 pounds”
- Lakeshore Learning Giant Magnetic Fraction Circles and Bars. The circle is “5 3/4"
And that’s about it! Watch out for my fraction activity… will try to create learning materials and share it with you.
Have a good day everyone
Letter ‘a’ Sound Activities
Monday, April 27, 2015
We've started our letter sound of the week activities a few weeks ago. Vito is 18 months and based on my observation, he is ready to learn letter sounds as he started to say a few words and can mimic letter sounds as I say it to him.
This letter of the week curriculum is basically not new. There are a lot of variations out there on teaching one letter a week. However, I have come up with my own activities and method of implementing it. I have used this curriculum with Mavi and it has worked for us so I am using it again with Vito. The order of the letter sound that I am going to introduce to Vito by default is from a to z (with emphasis on the small letter) but of course it may change as we progress depending on his needs, interest and availability of materials.
For those who are new to this, the basic idea is to focus on only one letter sound at a time (a week or more). Instead of having a specific theme that corresponds to a letter sound, we will try to use all the objects in our Letter Sound Basket in our activities to add variety. I also added tray works that introduce basic concepts like colours, shapes and numbers.
Okay some of you might ask me how we do this? Well on a daily basis here’s our schedule we work most of these in the morning, after reading books. One to two activities a day for about 15 minutes in the morning and if he’s into it in the afternoon, then we do another one. Afternoon activities are sometimes skipped, as he prefers playing with big brother. What is mostly achieved in the afternoon is reading books as we do it all together, while cuddling in bed.
*** I added links to all the materials we are using here so you will have an idea where to get it. They are affiliate links, no extra cost on you if you decide to purchase them. ***
Letter ‘a’ sound basket. Contains the objects we used and the letters. In here you see an ambulance, alligator, apples, big letter A from Munchkins, magnetic letter A/a from Melissa & Doug (this was Mavi’s and an all time favourite!) and my homemade sandpaper letter.
Letter ‘a’ craft. I made a small letter a on a piece of cardstock and have Vito stamp it with Do-a-Dot markers. Once dry, I cut it out and form it into an apple. I pinned this in our learning wall. By the way, these markers are really really good! We’ve used them in so many ways and they were still Mavi’s! Can you believe that?? It lasted for so many years without drying!
Note: Vito enjoyed this activity so much. He can stamp more letter a’s than I could have imagine LOLApple 1:1 correspondence. Using the IKEA Ice Tray and Learning Resource Fruit Counters, this 1:1 correspondence teaches little ones basic math concept. I count as Vito places a green apple in the moulder.
Note: This is one activity that stayed in the shelf for two weeks. Vito loves putting the apples into the moulder and putting them back again in the container. Sometimes he would spill them and put them back again. We do this activity almost every day to introduce counting.
Alligator peg board. Because alligator have sharp teeth, we use this FantaColor peg board to practice fine motor skills and hand/eye coordination. Can Vito really insert the pegs in the hole? Well it is a hit or miss! And that’s what’s good about it, he keeps on trying :D Our version is the portable one that comes with a bag and with different peg sizes. I chose this so both Vito and Mavi can use it. The alligator is from Schleich (oh he loves this!).
Note: As mentioned, this activity is a hit or miss. There were times he loves doing this because he can easily pin the pegs… but he gets impatient and lose interest when he can’t pin them in the hole.
Circle shape sorter. The shape for this week is circle, since it is the closest shape to an apple. We used our Playskool Shape Sorter (this was Mavi’s) and we only use the circle shape. As I mentioned previously, one at a time. So here, just the circle shape so he can easily identify which hole and will not be overwhelmed.
Note: This technique has worked with Mavi and it worked with Vito as well.
Gluing circles. I’m hitting three birds in one stone here, sensorial activity while learning the circle and red colour. We did this a couple of times, first using liquid glue and the other glue stick. He doesn’t like both LOL But he loves putting the cut-out circle shapes in the big circle.
Note: While doing this activity, I would say “this is a circle”, “let’s stick the red circles in the big circle”. Mention the key words like “circle”, “red”, “stick” or “glue”. As mentioned, Vito doesn’t like the feel of blue or something sticky. But that’s okay, Mavi was like that too. It’s part of learning right?
Eating apples. Of course, snacks include apples!
Note: What could say? He loves eating!
Green and red colour. I’ve been introducing colours since Vito turned 1, and even though we still work on our red basket, I still include colour sorting in our weekly activities so he can differentiate the two colours. Here I used craft pompoms to be sorted out. He doesn’t sort, I do most of it. I’ll try first, showing what to do and let him try a few.
Note: Again, hit or miss here. There were times he’s doing it right, and sometimes he randomly puts them anywhere. He loves our green and red apples the best though :D
Ambulance prints. Vito loves paints and we do painting as much as possible. We are using Giotto Bebe fingerpaints, which I totally love because it doesn’t have a smell! And I love how creamy the paints are.
Note: Another favourite in the house! He can do this for around 30 minutes uninterrupted. But be sure to keep an eye on the kids. Even if the paints used is non-toxic and washable, these still are not edible!
Recommended books that will go along with it:
Now, see them all in action!
Don’t forget to pin this for later!
Montessori Landforms Cards
Monday, March 30, 2015
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Here’s my presentation of the landform cards. Although this was not the first time Mavi encountered the cards, he was more than excited to use our new Montessori materials because this time, it has textures! Plus, it helped that we have this Learning Resources Transportation counters to use with our cards! You can get this from any Montessori shop or from Amazon. (Mine is from Tower High learning)
If you want you want to see our introduction to landforms, read it here.I created the description cards that you see in the photo. I love doing this and let Mavi read :) It is my way of letting him practice reading, not just in books.
Now the transportation counters helped a LOT in my presentation. It helped me demonstrate where’s the land and water in the cards. Such a perfect tool for visual presentation!
And they are so cute! They’re really worth-it! So here are my additional materials to help me with the topic.
Here’s the 6 landform materials (out of 8). Aren’t they so beautiful?
We’ll do more of this in the coming weeks as we explore countries and continents via Five in a Row. Hope you like this post!
Pin this!
More geography activities from here: Follow Pinay Homeschooler's board Geography on Pinterest.Toddler Beginnings 06
Monday, March 9, 2015
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Aside from endlessly reading books, I added farm animal basket for him to explore as he is showing interest on them now (he just used to mouth them!). You can get these animals from Amazon, Schleich, Symths Toys or Safari Toob. Mine was from Amazon UK . The picture book (Baby’s First) on the other hand was from Book Depository, and again you can get them from Amazon. I love that these animals are big! They are easily to grasp and play with.
I’ve seen these animals at Marks and Spencers as well, and you can get them from Hamley’s too.
I am making use of our Learning Resources Critters Counters from Amazon. Since Vito loves putting small objects into small spaces, this is what I put up. Oh don’t worry, that empty tub of Pringles is mine!
See how I placed the tub in the floor and the counters on the table? That’s for Vito to bend, good practice for gross motor skills ey?
Oh those tiny fingers! He would complain whenever the counter will not fit. Oh, they do fit sweetheart, you just have to push it a little bit harder LOL. I’m showing him how to push it more… though at times he still couldn’t get the idea.
Scribbling, we do this mostly in the afternoon when I’m sitting down resting. I got him this My First Crayola Jumbo Pens from Amazon.
And this, Melissa and Doug jumbo puzzle from Amazon again (don’t well love Amazon). He loves taking away all the animal pieces, and putting them in the basket LOL.
Oh yes, don’t forget to check our St. Patricks’ Day activities!
No formal musical instruments here. Just more on singing songs, dancing and making music with our body!
We were blessed with a beautiful weather last Sunday. And you know me, I don’t love staying at home when Mr. Sun is out. So here we are… even if it is still a little bit cold.
More tot series here!