Another extension to our continent unity study is learning about the natural resources that are mined or abundant in certain parts of the world. This is a new topic that I introduced to Mavi and he definitely loved it. He was very interested in learning about the products of each continent, what they look like as raw materials and how these materials are processed so the people can use them.
Fun Under the Sun
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
If you are wondering what we're doing when the sun is up, here's a glimpse.
First I would take the boys in our backyard and do some little picnic. The little one stays on his Mamas & Papas Baby Snug (Green) and plays with me.
Now for the big brother it's a little bit different. Here you see him playing with his "fossil collections". These are actually rocks in the yard that he gathered. The Dinosaur Train inspired him to collect "fossils". So these rocks are now piled in the yard.
After he checks his collection, I made him do some splatter painting. A few days ago, I was telling him the story of Pollack, of how he paints using splatters. After that we watched this video of a little girl who's famous of her painting.
Now that he is inspired, it's time to put his artistic side to action :)
Oh boy, how he love it!! We just have to move to the grass though because it's getting messier.
Go out and enjoy nature!
Monday, May 5, 2014
The weather was really really good this holiday weekend so we spent most of our time in the park. We're so thankful that we have this wonderful park just 10 minutes away from our place. The park is HUGE and lots of areas to explore.
If you skim through my blog... this is where we usually go when the weather is good. I am an outdoor person and was an adventurous kid growing up. I grow up in a tropical country and our house is near the beach so imagine all the adventures I have there. And my boys experience this as well. But living in a cold country has a lot of limitations especially here that we seldom have Mr Sun.
So in a time like this we just have to go out...
.... and check the pond for tadpoles and other insects breeding!
.... and see how the clear water flows in the creek.
PH Math for May
Saturday, May 3, 2014
I've been assessing my Mavi's progress in mathematics for the past days. Math is the least of his interest as of the moment. So during our Math hiatus, I was checking my list and so far he knows and understands everything on it. In fact he is way beyond his years according to his teacher.
Now as summer vacation is approaching I'm thinking that we should be a little bit more serious with Math this time by being religious to our schedule :)
So for May here's what we're going to have for Math:
Skip counting. We started with 2's and next will be of 5's and 10's.
Here we are using the beads in our Decanomial Bead Bars with Box and the number tiles from our Hundred Boards for the label. He pointed out "Mom, it's just a pattern!". Of course, he's referring to the 0,2,4,6,8 :) And that's what I wanted to instill in him... that in Math some concepts is all about patterns!
After the beads and label activity, I made him skip count all the way through 100 and counting it backwards as well.
Number Symbol and Quantity (Tens)
Here we're using the same materials. My objective here is for Mavi to master the identification of number symbols and its equivalence in quantity.
Activity 1: Place the correct number of beads, given the number symbols.
Activity 2: Identify the number symbols, given the quantity.
Activity 3. Writing the number symbols. Mavi has no problem writing the numbers from 1 to 100. But it's a different story when it comes to hundreds and thousands :)
Number Symbol and Quantity (Hundreds)
The same activities with the tens but here we are using our Bead Material and Wooden Small Place Value Cards 1-9999 .
Activity 1:
Activity 2:
Activity 3. Mavi is still confused writing the hundreds and thousands. When he wants to write 321, he writes it like 300 21, similar with 1100... he writes it 1000 100. Now this is pretty normal but I just think that we needed to practice more on this during our spare time.
Hundred Board with Control Chart. I am still on the process of exploring hundred board games. I have collected a few ideas from fellow homeschool Moms and I can't wait to try it with Mavi.
PS. This post includes affiliated links
Animal Life Cycles (FREE Learning Material)
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Introducing Vertebrate Animals to Kids
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Springtime is Flower-time! (part deux)
Friday, April 25, 2014
To continue my previous post on flowers... here are the other activities we tried:
Flower Addition and Equation Matching. In this activity, I printed out addition cards using flower heads. The purpose of this activity is to match the addition cards with the proper equation in addition.
Flower Pattern Matching. I made some tricky patterns and printed it twice for Mavi to match. This can be also be played as a memory game.
Math Addition. Using the flowers we created in my previous post, we played a game of guess the total number of flowers using the flower equation cards that I made. I showed him an equation and he had to "stick" the correct number of flowers in the playdough for the answer.
Parts of a Plant. We made a model of a plant using the flowers and popsicle sticks. I made him identify the parts. I took out our Parts of a Plant Nomenclature and Booklet material for him to read and check his work. The plant version you see below is my work.
You can the Plant Nomenclature and Booklet by clicking the image below.
And here is Mavi's version. He wrote the labels on his own.
Springtime is Flower-time!
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Hi everyone! There are lots of daffodils growing in the yard and Mavi has been constantly picking them up for his "collection". So to make use of the flowers I pulled out our flower nomenclature cards and told him that he will need to dissect the daffodils to learn about its part.
Since we did this activity a few years ago, he was so excited to do it again. Kids love to do this! I know how dreadful it is to learn about the parts of a flower (with all those weird names). But if you get to this activity with your kids, with a tactile activity, they will definitely learn faster and the retention is much better.
As we dissect the daffodil, I would ask him questions like "how does the petals feel like?", "why do you think that some flowers are yellow some are red?". As we go along, I also discuss the functions of each parts. He mentioned that his favorite parts are the petals and the stamens because according to him, these makes the flower look beautiful.
If you are interested, you can this Parts of the Flower and Definition booklet by clicking the image below:
Afterwhich we read our book How Flowers Grow and look at the pictures of the different kinds of flowers around the world.
I was also inspired to make flowers in popsicle sticks. I love how these flowers turned out! You can place them in a vase and stick them using a playdough or clay :)
In our case, we found a purpose for these flowers in our math activity which I will talk about in my next post, so stay tuned!
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Exploring the Animal Kingdom for Kids
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
PS. I was a little bit hesitant to introduce this subject to Mavi. But I was surprised that he was attentive all throughout our lesson. He even patiently read all the description cards for me. I am happy that he was able to grasp the concept immediately, that not all animals are the same, that they are grouped so we can easily identify their features and understand their characteristics and uniqueness.
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