My Favorite Montessori Books
Thursday, July 20, 2017
Food Preparations That A 3 Year Old Can Do
Friday, May 19, 2017
Montessori Sensorial Activities: Stereognostic Mystery Bag
Thursday, March 30, 2017
I finally introduced the Montessori Stereognostic Bag to Vito. The Montessori Stereognostic Bag is often composed of 10 matching pairs of wooden shapes that is drawn in a bag to feel and match. This activity develops the stereognostic sense of the child, using touch to create a mental image of the object. Stereognostic sense is defined as the ability to perceive and recognize the form of objects in the absence of visual and auditory information. Other version of this is called “the mystery bag”, wherein most homeschool moms customized the content of their bags by putting nature objects or just about anything from around the house.
Montessori Sensorial The Brown Stairs
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
So I gave in to my desire and bought Vito the brown stairs, and boy oh boy, I didn’t regret it! Similar to the way he responded to the pink tower, Vito loves and enjoy using our Montessori brown stairs! I realized that there’s so much more we can do when he used both of the materials, the extension activities are limitless and pattern making is even more challenging!
The Montessori Number Rods
Monday, March 6, 2017
I love Montessori math materials. They are so engaging and well thought of that the child can easily absorb concepts and retain what is learned. Take for example this Number Rods which I recently introduced to Vito. We are mostly using counters in our math activities, it’s more abstract and quantitative. With Number Rods, counting here is more linear and sequential. My goal was for Vito to learn:
- how to sequence ‘one’ to ‘ten’ (they form a staircase)
- to understand the value of each number
Montessori Inspired March Activities for Preschoolers
Sunday, February 26, 2017
Montessori Inspired Animal Continents Activity Sheets
Sunday, February 12, 2017
Montessori Sensorial Activity The Pink Tower
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
We fell in love with the Montessori Sensorial Pink Tower right after we unboxed it! I observed that Vito has a liking in blocks and patterns, so we’ve been using the Pink Tower almost everyday recently. And just when I thought that this is just an ordinary material of stacking and building a tower, I was totally wrong. This is one of the Montessori materials I should have bought early on when Mavi was just a toddler/preschooler. I thought of exhausting the use of the Pink Tower with Vito so he will fully obtain the benefits out of this amazing material.
Sorting Game Using Alphabet Sound Cards
Friday, January 27, 2017
I am so excited that I finally found a way to keep Vito engaged in the alphabet sorting activity. You see we always sort out objects according to their letter sound (see it here), but my problem is that Vito is more interested with the objects rather than participating in the activity. The moment I opened the box for us to sort, he would take away one object at a time and he refuses to do the activity and would play instead. Now this is fine, I have no problems with it. In fact, this happened to Mavi too. I let them play with the objects first but then would ask them to participate in the activity right after. It was temporary for Mavi, he loved sorting objects according to beginning letters rather than playing with them. As for Vito, it’s different. He is still in a stage of being “playful” so our sorting activities are sometimes a struggle. He knows how to do it, but refuses because of the object.
My solution: I tried using a printed image instead of the objects and tada, he finished everything in a matter of seconds! With this, we are going to work on printed materials for now, and maybe mix them with objects occasionally just to test whether he has overcome his obsession with tiny figures.
Montessori Knobless Cylinders Sequencing
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Vito is 39 months old.
Vito and I have been working on Knobless Cylinders a lot lately and many have asked what this Montessori sensorial materials can basically do and how can they use it at home. Though I’ve talked about this before, I realized that I didn’t really explained the method that I’m using, how to use it in the beginning and how to extend the use of the materials once the child has mastered the basics. So I’m starting a series of post on Montessori Knobless Cylinders , from the basics to the extension activities.
Montessori Inspired February Activities for Preschoolers
Friday, January 20, 2017
Thank goodness January is almost over! I really don’t like January, it’s that time of the year where we get to experience the worst weather condition. Fortunately, we have fair weather this year, it’s actually warm! But, I am so looking forward to spring now, and I can’t wait for all these gloomy days to be over. And speaking of spring, this month, I’ll start adding “spring” activities into our homeschool activities. We will be using traditional Montessori materials for most part and in some, we’ll have themed activities. Hope you like what I prepared for Vito for this month.
DIY Montessori Smelling Bottles
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
I kept so many spices in our kitchen that I decided to make smelling bottles for the boys. I can’t believe that it is so easy to make! Read through the blog and learn where you can purchase the Montessori smelling bottles and materials for the DIY.
Montessori January Activities for Preschoolers
Friday, December 30, 2016
Vito is 38 months.
Starting 2017 by sharing what’s on our shelves for the month of January! For this month, we will be working on penguins (preschool style), along with other Montessori traditional work. I’ve been wanting to introduce penguins since December but we were so busy with all the holiday preparations that I decided to postpone it a little bit and introduce it at the time when “all is calm and all is bright” (more sun in January!). Feel free to skim through Vito’s activities and you can leave comments if you have queries.
I post photos in my Instagram everyday for the activities. You can check them or follow me to see how these materials are put into action!
Montessori Botany Learning Materials
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Highly Recommended Montessori Materials
Monday, November 7, 2016
Montessori Shelves Organization for Small Spaces
Monday, August 8, 2016
For this month of 12 Months of Montessori Series, I’m sharing our simple shelves organization at home. I’m sharing our set-up at home and what works for us.
Montessori Sensorial Activities using the Knobless Cylinders
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
Our Favourite Toys for 2 to 7 Years Old
Thursday, November 26, 2015
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“As parents and grandparents, we think that we are showing children we love them by giving them things. In fact such practice, in and out of itself, may send them the wrong message. Children may conclude that if people give you things, they love you. If receiving things tells you that you are loved, the next logical step is to measure self-worth by what you have, not by what you are. The reality is that very young children can only truly love one doll, one stuffed animal, and a few toys at a time. This experience provides a basis for adult life where one must learn to cherish one spouse, one family, one life, instead of fantasizing that it is possible to ‘have it all’.” - MONTESSORI FROM THE START
We don’t have a lot of toys at home. Mavi just like two kinds of toys: LEGO and dinosaur/animal figures, that’s just it. All through the years, I don’t splurge nor buy toys as we don’t have the budget for it. I consider them as luxury so I just gave toys to Mavi as presents on his birthday and Christmas. But because we “home” school, I purchase learning materials that my kids see as “toys” but in reality they are NOT really toys. And because I am frugal, I buy toys that they can grow with, MULTIPURPOSE and something that they can play together. So let me share with you the kids’ favourite things in the house. These are the toys that we have in the house, except for the ones in my “wishlist and basket”. These toys are being played day in and day out by the boys.
NOTE: ALWAYS SUPERVISE YOUNGER CHILDREN WHEN USING ANY OF THESE TOYS. Do not leave them unattended.
FAVOURITE TOYS
LEGO, DUPLO and PLAYMOBIL. Need I say more? These are the favourite in the house. We have plenty of LEGOs as this is Santa’s favourite present EVERY Christmas for 4 years! And Vito’s Duplo and Playmobil were brought from the local store when they were on 50% off. I would never get them for a whole price! Vito is now snapping bricks together and loves the Playmobil people. Both of my boys spend hours and hours playing with these toys. They never get tired of them. Perfect toy for creativity, concentration and developing fine motor skills!
For Playmobils, we have castles and pirates. They’re Mavi’s favourite toy and can play with them for hours!
My son loves the LEGO CLASSIC Bricks. He doesn’t really like those with premade designs as he always wanted to design his own thing. So I highly recommend that you buy the basic LEGO BRICKS especially if you are getting your first Lego. Having a plate is also good.
miniLUK and BambiniLUK. Mavi and I looooves this! We can’t get enough of answering all the booklets, especially those tricky ones! I bought the Starter Pack and bought the advanced booklets separately. There’s a version for younger kids, the BambiniLUK and some friend in Instagram said that they like it. Mavi is like “Mom, its making my brain tired LOL”
Montessori Botany and Zoology/Insect Puzzles, Montessori Puzzle Maps. I invested on these this year and it was worth it! I have puzzle loving kids, and Vito is currently addicted to them. Aside from educational, these puzzles are also perfect for pincer grasp practice. Mavi on the other hand is obsessed with my Asia and Europe puzzles. He loves geography, loves to learn about countries and their locations. Tower High Learning is my favourite Montessori shop as of the moment and this is where I purchase my materials.
Schliech Animal Figures and Safari Toobs are also an all time favourite in the house. The uses of these figures include imaginative play, learning about animals, habitat play, exploring landmarks and just about anything! You see these mostly in my post! When Vito was younger, I made him use Schleich animal figures because they are bigger but now that he has overcome his mouthing, he uses both Schleich and Safari Toob. Mavi is obsessed with dinosaurs, and he uses them now as characters for his homemade videos LOL. Now he uses both types for play and learning.
Hape Uppercase, Lowercase and Number Puzzles. With Mavi, I used the Melissa and Doug Magnetic letters (I still have them) and they were really really loved. Now the problem is Vito mouths things and I made Vito use it, the sticker of the letters were removed. So I looked for an alternative alphabet toys for us to use and I discovered these amazing puzzles from Hape. They are WORTH-IT! We love using them in anything, from learning letters, puzzles to stacking! Yes, Vito loves to stack these together! We also use it to sort out colors! Multi-purpose indeed! But if you have older kids, Melissa and Doug Magnetic Letters are as good as well.
Because I love to cook (Asian and Italian), the boys also love to pretend cooking with me using these Melissa and Doug cooking toys. They can play for hours with these!
M-cro Maxi Scooter. And I just have to include this!! Because they play with this scooter in and out of the house! Mavi uses this to school and Vito uses this indoor for scooting practice. I love that it is sturdy and kids can easily balance!
And of course, nothing beats classic toys like balls, cars and PlayDoh! My boys wouldn’t complain if they receive any of these this Christmas.
WISHLIST
Magnatiles. Rave reviews everywhere but I just couldn’t bring myself to purchase these tiles or can’t even justify it Maybe when they’re 50% off I would probably get one for the boys!
Unit Block. I know that the boys will love this as well. They can build and create so many things with this but the price is just too much for me. I still have to think about this a million times.
Beleduc Puzzles. My puzzle loving kids will love these puzzle series, especially the Your Body Layer puzzles!
Europe Continent Study for Grade Schoolers
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Europe Continent Study: European Regions
Here’s a new study for this year, learning Europe through its regions. Here I was showing Mavi the divisions and the boundaries in the map. I bought this map years ago at Montessori Print Shop. So we’re doing a color code here based on our map in Europe in a Nutshell. Blue for northern Europe, red for western Europe, green for eastern Europe and orange for southern Europe.Montessori Decimal System (Base 10) with Golden Beads
Thursday, September 17, 2015
So without further ado, here’s Mavi’s presentation of how we use the golden beads in learning the decimal system.
Units, Tens, Hundreds, Thousands
Here’s a short presentation which Mavi and I created on how to use the materials in introducing units, tens, hundreds and thousands.
Amazing blogs involved in the 12 Months of Montessori Learning