Montessori Inspired Continent 3 Part Cards and Booklet

Vito is 4 years and Mavi is 9 years old.

One thing that I love with making our own learning materials is that I get to customize them according to the kids’ liking.  One of these materials is the continent learning printables I made last year which we often use.  At first, Vito would match it according to colors, now that he’s older, he’s trying to know the names of the continents, especially the ones where he’s been to.

Montessori Inspired Animal Continents Activity Sheets

I am so happy to share our Animal Continents Activity Sheets.  Mavi helped me assemble this learning material for identifying the different animals that thrive in each continent.  We’ve used the Antarctica and Asia sheets already and I can’t wait to try the rest with Vito.

Montessori Inspired Penguin Unit for Preschoolers

We are exploring the world of penguins this month and Antarctica! Materials here are a mixture of old and new (some were Mavi’s).  There’s no timeline for this unit, we’ll do this spontaneously all throughout the month of January, in between Vito’s Montessori works and other activities.

Montessori Inspired Continent Activities for Preschoolers

Can’t believe that in a few days, it’ll be Christmas time!  Our days are now filled with random activities which I’d like to share after the holidays.  School break for Mavi will start this Friday and we’ll be able to finally start our holidays!

Anyway, in today’s post I’m sharing how I introduced the continents to Vito.

FREE European Countries Fact Cards

There are amazing shared printables this week! Before I go there, let me share with you my FREE European Countries Fact Cards that we used in our European Study Unit and The Study of Northern Europe. Mavi loved these cards, he keeps on reading them and learning about the currency, highest mountain, longest river etc. of 16 European countries.

Download your copy now!

The Study of Northern Europe

Mavi and I are looking into the different regions of Europe and we started with Northern Europe (of course, that’s our location!).  So as not to be overwhelmed, we only focused on 4 countries:  Denmark, United Kingdom, Ireland and Sweden.


So to learn about Northern Europe we have the following activities:

Europe Continent Study for Grade Schoolers

We are revisiting our Europe study, this time I’ve decided to take it by regions.  But before we dive into that, we reviewed some of the things we’ve learned in the past years.

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.

Continent Fact Cards Game and {Learn & Play Link Up}

Mavi can’t get enough of these facts cards from my Nutshell Geography series! He wants us to play this when in the car, or when we're walking home.  I would ask him a questions based on the facts and he’s going to tell me the continent or the country it’s connected to.  We developed a scheme of giving him 3 clues (mostly letters from the answers) and I am PROBIHIBITED to give the answer. It’s amazing how both Mavi and I enjoyed it.  So happy that we found a new way to use these cards!

These cards are from:

• Asia in a Nutshell
• Europe in a Nutshell
• Africa in a Nutshell
• South America in a Nutshell

EUROPE in a Nutshell

My son’s favorite continent (according to him)! is finally up in My SHOP! I am so excited and happy to announce that I’ve completed our Europe in a Nutshell learning material and is now cooking in the printer, to be laminated and will be used in a couple of weeks for our Europe study!  Mavi just loves my Nutshell Geography series and can’t wait to try it with Vito in the near future!

Continent Study of South America

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South America Continent Maps and Flags

Whenever we worked a geography lesson at home(for elementary only!), I always start with maps and flags because I wanted him to know the location and flags of certain cities from that continent.  We travel a lot, crossing countries and continents almost every year and so knowing all these will be useful. The Montessori Continent Puzzle that we are using is from Tower High Learning.

South America in a Nutshell

If you have been following my blog, you know that we love studying geography!  This month, I am happy to share my South America in a Nutshell learning material.  And just like its predecessors (Asia in a Nutshell and Africa in a Nutshell), this is packed with lots of information about South America, its flora and fauna, culture and people.  Here’s a walkthrough of the learning material.

A Continent Study of AFRICA for Kids

It’s a month of Africa Continent study in the house.  Mavi enjoyed learning about this beautiful continent, its geography, exploring the different places and landmarks, the wildlife and habitats and of course the different culture and traditions that make Africa unique!

Europe Study Part III (FREE Volcano Cards)

And this is the last part of our European Study series. You can read Part I and Part II here.

So first we had Major Rivers of Europe.  We used this printable Major Rivers of the World to look at the longest rivers in Europe, traced how long they are and how does it affect the economy of the people.

Here Mavi is plotting the location of the rivers.  We are also identifying the countries that some of these rivers flow through.  The map seen on the picture was randomly "googled".

 

We also talked about the active volcanoes in Europe.  My son was really really interested on this one as they were having lessons about it in school too.   To avail the FREE file of Volcanoes in Europe please click the image below.

 

We used a map again to plot the location of the volcanoes.  He discovered that were a number of active volcanoes in Italy and got a little bit scared that we used to live near it.

           

 

 

  

We also did a few math activities one of which is relating Euro to Montessori Golden Beads.  We talked about how each Euro bill corresponds to Golden Beads and using the currency we played pretend shopping :)  Of course the little guy was the cashier to practice simple mathematics like addition.

Here he is counting the total cost of Mommy's purchases.

                   

And lastly, the subject that I've been wanting to revisit for the longest time, Artist Study.  Using the books and cards that we have we talked about the famous painters in Europe.  We did a couple of Artist Study a few years back and worked on Van Gogh, Da Vinci, Picasso and Degas.

I've always wanted to try Monet.  My initial plan was to bring him to the park so we could paint the flowers there in the field, but lately the weather has been really really bad so I guess that has to wait.  Instead, we painted the Poppy Fields of Monet using a  picture card as a guide.

I told him that Monet is an impressionist, that his paintings look like blobs or blurry and that it doesn't give you an exact detail of the subject but just an impression.

And here's our first try of painting like Monet :)

 

And here's Mavi's rendition of Monet's The Poppy Field.  What do you think?

 

And that concludes our Europe Study series.  Hope all of the series of post I have for this lesson have given you enough idea to start your Europe Study as well.

For more FREEbies and learning aids, please check The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads.

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!
Natural Homeschool's Montessori Linky
History and Geography

Europe Study Part I

My son has specifically requested that we have Europe Study this month.  I guess the interest was brought about by the celebration of St. Patrick's Day this month in which they created the Irish flag in school and were plotting Ireland in the Europe map.

WARNING, this post is flooded with photos, as I would rather describe the activities we did in pictures rather than writing a novel about :)

Before anything else, if you are interested to read about our 2013 Europe Unit Study, please click this link.

For the resources and materials:

   - Flags of Europe (includes all materials used here except the puzzle flags)

   - European countries outline / solid black

Now for this years unit we started working with mapping and flags.  I printed the large flag from here.  The site allows you to print the maps in different sizes you.  I chose a bigger version so we can label the countries clearly.

 

Oh and Mavi has an audience while working :)

 

       

Next we work on the flags.  Here on the pictures below Mavi is identifying the countries and their flags. 

I also created these flag puzzles for Mavi to worked on.  I just printed these flags in big sizes and cut them to pieces for him to assemble.

         

Of course, the 3 part cards of the European flags is a must :)

 

Mavi also worked on these flag matching activity.  Here he's matching the flag to the name of the country and the capital city.

Identifying the country's flag was a breeze but he is still new to identifying the capital city (except for the countries we've visited and stayed).  We'll be working on this a little more.

            

And last activity for the flag works is assembling European flags using pre-cut craft papers.  Early on I selected a few flags that he will work with.  I cut out the pieces needed and mix them together.  The challenge here is for him to look for the pieces that goes together to assemble a certain flag.  So you can see in the picture below he was able to make the flag of Ireland and Spain, and about to assemble the flag of Germany.

          

More activities coming up next!

For more FREEbies and learning aids, please check The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads.

Linking to:

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

European Countries (Territory Outlines)

Greetings! 

We're revisiting our Europe Study this month and I've been a little bit busy adding more materials to our study.  Last year, I published these learning materials for a Europe Study Unit and now I came up with new ones that we can use to have a better understanding of this continent.

I have here the 43 European countries in their territorial map outlines/contours.  There are two files available:  map in outlines and map in solid black (click the image for the link).

 

 

 

These materials aim to help Mavi identify the countries of Europe by just looking at the contour of a specific country.  I remember when I was in high school we would do this in History class but of course, it only involves Asian countries.

My son definitely loves this.  He enjoys matching the cards to our Europe Puzzle Map.  I have to say though that some contours can really be challenging to match!

 

If you don't own a wooden puzzle map, you can still use the file as this is a 3-part card which means it includes picture cards and labels as well.

By the way, I printed out the ones with the outlines only as I am saving black ink :)  But I find the solid black ones so pretty!

I have a few more materials to publish in the next few days. I can't wait to share it with you!

Oh, for other references please read about our 2013 Europe Study here and here.

Thank you!

For more FREEbies and learning aids, please check The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads.

The Arctic and Antarctic Printable Pack

This month, my son and I will be doing a Polar Region theme.  And because of adrenalin rush and with much inspiration, I was able to create these printable for us to use.  My son loves it and I am so happy and proud of how it turned out!  And yes, it is suited for preschoolers as well.  When I created this, I made sure that the little brother can also use this in the future :) 

So what's included in the file? 

First, there are activities and printables for the the six penguins of Antarctica.  Activities include:

• Beginning sounds
• Matching cards
• Reading and Spelling cards

 

Second, the activities for the animals of the Arctic Region. Activities include:

• Beginning sounds
• Matching cards
• Match the silhouettes
• Reading and Spelling cards

I also pre pared Math activities to go along with the Polar Regions theme.  Expect:

• Counting cards
• Matching numbers with objects
• Patterning (templates and picture chips)

And lastly, there's the fact cards that most of us parents love! 

So in case you'll be doing some Antarctica Unit for geography or doing an Arctic theme... you know where to look!  The file is 30 about 30 pages with more than 10 activities for the price of 2.50USD.  How cool is that?

Just click any of the pictures for the file's link.

Thank you!