Books for Toddlers: Baby Picture Books

NOTE:  The post contains affiliate links.

My books from Book Depository finally arrived! So happy to have these picture books again :)

 

Baby’s First Colours

Baby’s First Words

Baby’s First Farm

Baby’s First Food

Baby’s First Animals

I looove these baby books, I have them when Mavi was 8 months old and I knew I just have to have them again for Vito. I couldn't find this in our local bookstore so I needed to purchase them from Book Depository as I no longer have Mavi's. In the picture below is Mavi. At that time the book is a year older already and the pages are torn due to excessive use :)  There are 12 books in the series but I bought have 5 due to a  limited budget LOL.

 

Now here are the reasons why I love and recommend this book series:

1. These board books are sturdy. I like its cover the most. It's wrapped with plasticky material, padded and soft, reason why my son loves to bite them :D If its wet with saliva the cover doesn't come off and tear.

2.  The board pages are highly durable. They don't bend and my little boy can flip it easily.

           

 

3.  It has large real pictures thus it holds my son’s interest. He can easily discern on it because of the pictures' size and simplicity. We love looking at them everyday.

4.  The book uses bright colors as backgrounds. Vito is drawn to it especially those with red, yellow and blue backgrounds. There are 12 books in the series and I bought 5. These are tried and tested. I recommend them to babies as young as 4 months :)

  

These books would also be perfect as presents! 

Books for Artists Study

I miss our Artist Study.  Mavi enjoyed our Artist Study sessions.  This was when there was no Vito yet and when my hands are not full :)   Mavi is very much intrigued on the lives of some greatest artists, he loves to listen to their life stories and the paintings that they made.  I have attempted this a million times, to reboot this lessons but the baby is a big factor. We’ll just have to set this aside and revisit this once Vito can join us.

Now I made this post to introduce two sets of books that Mavi and I really really love and enjoyed reading.  I found these in our library… but of course they don’t have the complete set which I dream of owning someday.  They are for keeps :)

The first set of the books are from James Mayhew. The books are all about Katie, who loves to visit museums with her grandma and when no one is watching, the paintings come alive.  My son loves this idea of Katie going inside the painting and meeting the characters on it.    We’ve read some of it and here are our favourites arranged according to how much we like them.

 

• Katie’s Picture Show 
• Katie and the Waterlily Pond
• Katie and the Impressionist
• Katie and the Starry Night
• Katie and the Sunflowers
• Katie and the Spanish Princes
• Katie and Monalisa
• Katie and the Dinosaurs

The second set of books that we also love are from Laurence Anholt.  This time the stories are all about children meeting great artists.  The books are more focused on the artist’s life rather than the paintings they’re made.  Now these books are pretty popular in the library so they are seldom available.  I plan to purchase them as gifts later on.  As I said, these books are worth-it.

Books we’ve read from the series:

             

• Camille and the Sunflowers
• Degas and the Little Dancer
• Leonardo and the Flying Boy
• Picasso and the Girl with a Ponytail

And there you go, my picks for studying great artists.  Hope you checkout the books using my affiliates.  Don’t worry, you won’t be charge or there’s no additional cost.  I will just earn a teeny weeny commission if you order through my links (affiliates).  And don’t hesitate to get your books from Book Depository because it is FREE DELIVERY NATIONWIDE.

Thank you and hope that this post helps.

FREE Spelling Worksheets for Letter Sounds ‘s,a,t’

Hi!  I am so happy to share these files with you! We’ve been working on them for the past three days and Mavi is loving them.  As you all know, we’re having more math and spelling this summer and I try to customize the activity sheets according to the level of Mavi.

Here are the first three of the spelling worksheets I've created.  The sequence of the letters is based on how my son’s school is teaching them, the phonic sounds.

Each file is contains:

• word cards with pictures
• word and picture match using cut and paste
• rearranging letters to form the words (use the word cards here if needed)
• writing of the words and using the picture as a guide
• filling up the missing vowel –> Mavi’s always MISSING this out.  He tends to ignore writing the vowels so I have to add this in the activity sheet.

As you can see below, he’s trying to use the Montessori movable letters to sort out the scrambled letters. 

But he discovered that he can also use the word cards.  

It was a fruitful activity!

For Preschoolers, I also have the following language activities.  Here are the links:

Beginning, Middle and Ending Sounds

FREE Word Card Families and Rhymes

Word Card Families and Rhymes FULL PACK

So what are you waiting for… download your FREE copies of spelling sheets now :)

Would really appreciate if you leave me a feedback :)  Thank you!

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!

Ice Sensorial Play

Yesterday I gave Vito a few ice for a sensorial play.  I’ve always wanted to see how he would react once he touched the ice.

I placed the ice on the tray and he was a little bit hesitant at first but quite excited.  So he’s trying to use his pointer finger to test the material.

 

I love looking at those little hands working and trying to figure out the ice cubes.  Pardon those red cheeks. I was feeding him with bolognese at that time.

 

When he was sure that the ice wouldn’t hurt , he starts to pick them up.  But he failed in the beginning as the ice were very slippery.

And finally, with determination and focus, he was able to lift up a cube with both hands and mouthed it.

           

 

Oh yes, it is cold!!

          

Note:  Always supervise your baby when doing this activity.  Be careful as the ice are slippery and if they mouth it, there’s a tendency that they will swallow it and choke.

3D Shapes

A few weeks ago, we revisited 3D Shapes.  We previously had this activity using cards and our paper models.  They were a hit!

My son never showed interest on 3D shapes and neither was I.  All I could ever remember was those grueling memorization of formulas in my Engineering class. I never liked geometry LOL.

Because the papers are now gone, I bought wooden 3D shapes in Absorbent Minds.  I bought the small one as we don’t have enough storage here.  Well, he was quite into it this time.  I have to explain why there are called 3D. We made basic shapes (squares, rectangle, circle etc) by pressing the wooden 3Ds on a playdough.

          

Next we tried forming the shapes using craft sticks and plasticine. I’ve seen this activity multiple times in other blogs and thought it was easy to make. But I was wrong! LOL.  They were actually hard to form :) But nevertheless Mavi and I enjoyed it.  We laughed hard each time a shape is broken LOL.  The plasticine didn’t hold the stick that much. I wonder if marshmallows would be a better alternative?

          

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!

A Weekend at the Mountain Park

A few weeks ago, we took a break from our busy lives and went to an outdoor adventure park.  We had fun!  The place was beautiful, everything there is like a huge nature playground for the family and kids.  Mavi enjoyed the trip the most.  He’s everywhere!

Mavi and I did some boating activity as well. Oh he was so ecstatic!  The boating experience for him was a lesson 101 on paddling as well. 

There were zipline for kids, tree houses and just about anything!

          

          

And while big brother is busy with his “big boy” activities, Vito our little one is all happy and contented riding the baby swing.  Oh look at that smile!

And yet the best part of the trip is when we were just sitting down on the grass, relaxing, admiring our view and thanking God for the gift of family and having happy healthy kids.

  

Happy Monday!

Introducing Landforms

I’ve been wanting to introduce this topic for the longest time but I couldn’t find the right timing. You see I don’t follow any curriculum.  I based my lessons and activities on Mavi’s interest and he hasn’t shown any interest in landforms ever since.  (We previously had Island and Lake in our lesson but that was it)

Now when we went to the mountain fun park last weekend, the view during our hour-long drive was breathtaking! We saw beautiful hills, lakes, meadows, rivers and waterfalls! Since then Mavi has been asking me a lot of questions about certain things like what’s the difference between rivers and streams? What is a bay? How does volcano loon like?

So after the trip I decided to create materials to discuss his concerns while his memories and excitement are still fresh.

Now first thing, the landform cards.  You can get these for free from here.  Aside from these, Mavi and I made another version using a blue cardstock and a brown paper bag.  He enjoyed shaping the lands by tearing the brown paper instead of using scissors.   In effect, the tearing was more appealing than having a straight cut. This is an enjoyable activity you can do with your little ones.  They would love tearing the papers and at the same time talking about the landforms they’re making!

Can you see my little baby’s hand?  He’s trying to reach out as I take a photo! Someone other than Mavi is interested in landforms as well!

The picture above is Mavi working on the cards.  He’s matching them while memorizing the names of the landforms.  Now this time, it’s not Vito’s hand appearing in the picture. It’s his foot! Now this baby is truly present in every activity of his big brother LOL.

Next, I have to show Mavi what does these landforms really looks like in the map.  And the best material for this is the Philippine map wherein our home country is made of thousands of islands and rich in different landforms.

So as you can see below, we’re looking at the cards and search the actual landform in the map.  We were able to identify a number of bays, islands, lakes… we spot an archipelago, isthmus, gulf and peninsula.

And the last activity we did was to create our very own landscape with landforms.  What I did here was create a map using craft papers (blue and green), then laminate it.  From there, we covered the green area with green playdough and identify the landforms present.  I let Mavi add some details like his animal figures and Lego.

The laminated the craft paper so the dough won’t stick.   wish we had a much bigger laminate so we can have a bigger landscape.

 

Can you name the landforms in the landscape?

We’re supposed to look photos of land and water features but we decided to go out of the house again.

For more Geography activities: Follow Pinay Homeschooler's board Geography on Pinterest.

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!

Number Bonds Activity Sheets (with FREE version)

Sharing with you the activity sheets I created for our lesson, Teaching Number Bonds.  Click the image below for the free version.

Toddler Toys (Vito is 8 Months)

 

Sharing with you toys that Vito has been using for the past months for sensorial play and fine motor skills.

[1] Classic Pop Up Toy.  Mavi enjoys this toy as much as Vito.  For now I am teaching him how to push those faces to introduce cause and effect.

[2] Manhattan Skwish.  He loves to use this as a lollipop.  But eventually discovered that he can create sounds by shaking it.  I love this toy for he’s able to practice his grasp and how he can easily transfer the object from one hand to another. 

[3]  Jumbo Puzzle from Melissa and Doug.  Vito used this occasionally. He can already lift up puzzles using his left and right hands and would shake it in the air. 

[4] Homemade shakers/rattles.  These are old plastic toobs (travel kits).  I added mung beans, beads and pasta inside.  Another version of these shakers I saw on Pinterest are the sensory bottles.  Similar to these shakers but with water or any liquid inside.  I might try that one of these days.

[5]  Sensory balls.  Oh he loves these! He loves to roll them around, mouth them, emptying the basket (he doesn’t fill them yet) and make sounds by rattling them.  I have yet to find cheaper textured balls in Amazon.  I guess that would be a lovely addition to our sensory ball family :)

[6] Mini Piano.  We have this since he was 3 months old but he only showed interest on them now.

[7] Stacking Rings.  Ok so this one, he only gets to play with the rings.  I don’t give the entire toy. 

[8] Wooden Blocks. These are Mavi’s old toys.

[9] Kitchen utensils.  Surprisingly these are his favourites! He loves the whisk and look at his face below.  It’s his first time to encounter a brush.  He was so terrified when I brushed it his hands and feet :)

   

Oh and another thing that he loves the most are his big brother’s toys.  I didn’t include those on the list as they are not suitable for babies but I guess can be safe to play with with adult supervision.  Take for example this plastic crane.  I considered this one as safe for it doesn’t come with small parts and doesn’t have sharp edges.

    

I wonder what toys does your little ones have.

 

How to Teach Addition to Preschoolers Using Number Bonds

We’ve been practicing and learning addition using "Number Bonds" for the past days.  We are taking a break from our Golden Beads Addition and exploring another approach to spice up our math lessons.  It’s a surprise that after these activities, Mavi was able to memorize most of the "number combinations", the concept introduced through "Number Bonds", thus the ease of performing addition for him.  We’ve done a couple of math activities before and I was surprised that these activities accelerated his math skills.