Reader’s Choice Top 10 Posts of 2017

Happy New Year everyone! I Can’t believe that we’re celebrating New Year once again.  It’s not so long ago when I was just starting to present some of our January activities, and here I am again, packing up remnants of our Christmas holiday decors and turning our sitting room into a homeschool room again.

First of all, I wanted to thank you all for reading and spending time in our blog.  Thank you all for the kind words, for leaving messages that you have been inspired and that you enjoy our activities, I truly appreciate that.  I wish for this coming year to come up with more great ideas so you and your kids can learn together, connect through fun activities and most of all help them in their learning needs.  Speaking of which, I also plan to do more of elementary posts.  I still do “afterschool” activities with Mavi about arts and crafts or extension lessons on subjects that he wanted to explore more.

Anyway, to start the year, I want to share the TOP 10 reader’s favourites of 2017 (not in order).  Enjoy!

Winter Printables: Ten Frames Counting Activities

I am so happy to share Vito’s favourite counting activities and materials, our Ten Frames Winter printables!!!  This printable was created out of  pinetree counting sheets which I created last autumn.  It was so popular that I wanted to recreate it and at the same time, include ten frames seen in our dinosaur post which was Vito’s favourite too.  So combining these together, plus a tracing activity of numbers has led me to produce these products!

Learning The Square of a Number Using Montessori Short Bead Chain with Square

We find ourselves working on the Short Bead Chain once again as Mavi reviews his multiplication table.  If you skim through my posts, you will find that we’ve been doing this since Mavi was 5 years old.  Now that he’s older (and wiser!) he finds a deeper meaning in learning the square of a number.

Yes folks, in mathematical terms, the short bead chain materials (and the squares) are used to present the precise squares of a number (2 squared, 4 squared).  Using manipulatives, children can easily grasp the concept and eventually memorize the squares.

The Nativity and Story Cards

It brings me joy to recount the story of the nativity to our children. We have made it a yearly tradition to read various books of different versions, and sometimes we even watch nativity movies to fully grasp the meaning of Christmas. Now that Vito is old enough to comprehend, I incorporated story cards and activity sheets to accompany our book reading this year.

FREE 12 Days of Christmas Counting Cards

We love the 12 Days of Christmas song!  The kids love it so much that we kept on singing it over and over again and always speeding up as we approach the 12th day.  So as part of the kids’ interest, I decided to create these counting cards to go along with the song.  Vito enjoys setting up the counting cards as we sing each of the day.  To share our love for the song, we are sharing the counting cards to you so you can do this activity at home with your kids too! Enjoy!

Hands-on Activity on Comparing Numbers

We are moving on with our math by introducing new math concepts, one of which is the more or less activity and using the greater than or less than symbol.  To do this, I made use of the holiday season’s symbols so Vito can easily relate and used manipulatives like some Christmas erasers and Montessori beads.

Christmas Themed Tray Activities for Preschoolers

Happy first day of December!!!  I’ve been away for awhile, busy with life and other extra curricular things… because you know, “it’s that time of the year”.  Anyway, despite of  all the happenings, I was able to assemble these simple Christmas-themed activities for my 4 years old.  My aim here is to simply introduce the meaning of Christmas, the symbols, learning Christmas songs and a little bit of  arts and crafts.  Hope you like these activities!