History Timeline Cards: Ancient Times

Up in the Shop is our World History: Ancient Times Timeline Cards and Booklet.  The file includes the following:

• 40 timeline cards of the ancient times (occurred between the period of 5000BC to 500BC). The timeline cards has
• 40 definition cards for each timeline card
• 3 pages of timeline sheets that can be connected to form as a guide. The pages are in A4 paper size.

Check out how we used it here (History of Ancient Europe Study) and here (Study of the Timeline of European History).

Hope you like it, enjoy!

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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:

Learning the Timeline of European History

I am so excited to share with you our approach on learning the timeline of European history. As I mentioned earlier, my son is obsessed with world history, especially with the events in Europe and Asia (his home continent!) so while he is at it I grabbed the opportunity to discuss the great history of Europe. To achieve this, I created these beautiful timeline cards which contain bold pictures (because kids are attracted to pictures) and include a brief description of each event in history.  I thoroughly researched these and handpicked the major events that were included in the cards.  We were always reading the books of the Story of the World series, but most of the events in the cards were not included in the book.

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.

Hands-on Learning on the European Regions

Mavi is into geography once again and we are revisiting the Continent of Europe.  My approach for this year’s study is to look at Europe through the different regions.  It’s easier to understand and internalize facts when they’re into smaller groups than attacking them as a whole.

So I created these label cards for northern (blue), western (red), southern (orange) and eastern (green) Europe.  The color coding is based on our map in Europe in a Nutshell.  The mini flags seen in the photo is from Flags of Europe printable.

Investigating Animal Tracks and {Learn & Play Link Up}

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We are continuing on our study of animal identification and learning more about their characteristics.  After watching Deadly 60 series of Steve Backshall, we discovered that you can also identify animals by the tracks they make!   So we used our favourite Schleich animal figures to test this.  We randomly dipped the animals in the black paint and freely made tracks. Vito’s helping as well!

The tracks and trails an animal leaves can tell us the type of animals it is and whether it was walking or running, and you can also tell if it was by itself or with a group of other animals.

Footprints of animals are very tricky to identify unlike that of humans! But by thorough investigation, you can tell if the animal is hoofed or with paws or toes.  To learn about the footprints of these animals, one must have a proper observation for these unique characteristics.

Animal tracks to note:

• Did the animals walk on 2 or 4 feet?
• Does the animal left a large or small track?
• Was it walking or running?
• Was it just one animal or followed by another?

Using our printable and the actual tracks, Mavi grouped the animals according to the characteristics of their footprints:

• Raccoon and bear have 4 toes front and 5 toes rear, they have claws.
• Dog, fox and wolf have 4 toes front, 5 toes rear and produces an egg shaped track
• Lion, lynx produces a round track with claws, 4 toes front and 5 toes rear
• Deer, elk have heart shaped tracks and has 4 toes front and 5 toes rear

And the highlight of this lesson is for them to see how their footprints look like!

Materials Used: 

Thank you for taking time to read this post!  You might as well visit our Zoo Animal Tracks post for another activity that involves playdough. It’s a not as messy as black paint

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Welcome to the Learn & Play Link Party!

Here are the featured animal-themed activities for this week!

 

 

Learning About Caves from Natural Beach Living

H is for Hibernate from In Our Pond

Squirrel Activities for Tots from Every Star Is Different

DIY Montessori-Inspired Sensory Habitats from Mama’s Happy Hive

 

Now it’s time for this week’s link party! This is a BRAND new link up for all blog posts that include learn and play activities and hands-on education for kids. We are excited to read your blog posts and to see what you have to share! Please link up below and grab our button to display on your blog.

If you are a blogger, share your family friendly posts here. We are looking for things which include:

• Montessori Education
• Homeschool
• Sensory Play
• Tot and Preschool Trays
• Fine and Gross Motor Activities
• Kids in the Kitchen
• Healthy Recipes for Kids
• Arts and Crafts
• Natural Living
• Free Educational Printables
• Family-Oriented Activities
• Healthy Living

Your post will be featured on each of our blogs where we will pick our favourite posts every other week. That means there is more of a chance that you will be featured!

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Science Experiments: Solubility of Different Substances

Mavi and I got the chance to work on some experiments last weekend due to bad weather.  First we started off with a simple test of which substance dissolves in water. 

Objectives:

• Discovering which substance dissolves in water
• Why the said substance dissolves faster in water

Materials needed:

• salt, sugar, flour, chalk powder
• 4 bottles of water
• teaspoon
• stirrer

Procedure:

Findings:

1. Salt and sugar easily dissolved in water after stirring.  They have grainy texture and are crystalline thus making it more soluble in water.
2. Flour and chalk powder partially dissolved, most of the powdered portion resided at the bottom of the bottles.  They have powdery and dry texture, thus making it hard to dissolve in water.

FOR OLDER KIDS
Now, for older children who can grasp complex explanation… I prepared a visual and hands-on demonstration for Mavi to understand how the substance are more soluble, partially soluble and insoluble.  Make sure though that when you try to discuss this with your kids, he/she is already familiar with the elements in the periodic table and can understand what “attraction” means, similar to the concept of magnetism.  The link I provided is the one where I introduced the Periodic Table to Mavi in a fun and interesting way.

Anyway, here’s how the chemicals of the substance interact to water when mixed.

SOLUBLE SUBSTANCE
I used plasticine to demonstrate the chemical composition of salt and water to Mavi. 
Salt is composed of: sodium (Na+) in green  and chloride (Cl-) in purple.
Water is made up of H2O, hydrogen (H+) in white and oxygen (O-) in red.
When mixed with water, the salt molecules are easily “attracted” to the water molecules.   It’s like the positive and negative attraction in magnetism (polarity).  Thus, sodium (Na+) is attracted to oxygen (O-), while chloride (Cl-) is heavily attracted to the two positively charged hydrogen (H+).
Because of the strong attraction between molecules in the two substances, salt is easily dissolved in water.


PARTIALLY SOLUBLE
For partially soluble substances, the molecules that made up the flour or chalk have weak attractions with the molecules of the water.  Thus some have dissolved but most of it didn’t and the result are the residues found at the bottom of the bottles.

INSOLUBLE SUBSTANCE
For insoluble substances (don’t dissolve in water) like oil, the molecular contents are NOT attracted to water.  This means they do not mix with water and if you combine them, you will definitely see the separation.

Though some advanced students can explain that this is because oil is a non-polar substance and can only be dissolved with another non-polar substance, the way I explained it to Mavi is that oil molecules are just so heavy that water molecules can’t “bond” with it.

This was a fantastic activity for both Mavi and I.  More experiments coming up!
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Classifying Vertebrate Animals

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I love unplanned activities.  Mavi would always resort to this activity whenever he’s bored on Fridays (swimming lessons were moved to Saturdays).  I like that he can do this activity independently, while learning the important characters of animals that belong in each group.

I believe that it is important for the child to have a clear and defined idea of the classes in the animal kingdom and its division.  What’s important to me is to have him gain the knowledge through this activity rather than reading and memorizing the difference in the books.

The Study of the Circulatory System for Kids

It’s another 12 Months of Montessori Series and today I’m going to share with you some simple and easy to prepare lessons and activities for learning the circulatory system of the human body.  I mentioned earlier how Mavi was asking me a lot of things about the human heart and the diseases of the heart that causes death in some famous people.  Bombarding me with so many questions and that eagerness to learn, we worked on this unit study to:

• Learn about the human heart and how it functions
• What causes heart diseases
• A better understanding of blood vessels: vein and artery
• How to prevent heart diseases
• What’s the role of the blood in the human body

In this unit study, we focused on the three major elements that comprises the circulatory system:

• the human heart
• blood vessels
• human blood

As a bonus, I also added a few pointers on how to have a healthy heart!

The Human Heart
Last month, we learned about the human heart, the different parts and how it functions. You can learn more about it in this post, How to Teach the Anatomy of the Human Heart to Kids.


Blood Vessels
First we plotted the network of  blood vessels in our body using our Cardiovascular Information Diagrams sheet as a guide and a printed outline of the human body.  We used PlayDoh (red and blue) to represent the vein and artery.

This activity will introduce the child to the basic concept of how blood is distributed in our body.  By plotting the veins and arteries, they will understand how the organs in the body receives oxygen and nutrients.


Working diligently to replicate our guide


And he realized that even the head have blood vessels!


We went a little farther by inspecting the network of blood vessels, learning the difference between the veins and arteries and capillaries.   Below is a demonstration of the direction of the blood flow in the body through the blood vessels, of how oxygen rich blood enters the artery (except pulmonary arteries) to the capillaries (where oxygen is distributed to the organs) and passes through the vein to enter the human heart.


Here Mavi’s creating an artery, vein and capillary.



He even made his network and labelled the parts.


The Human Blood
This is to demonstrate the composition of blood.  45% red blood cells (red coloured water), 54% plasma (cooking oil) and 1% platelets (bubbles in between).  


Care of our Heart
These cards are included in our heart model.  It identifies 10 foods that are essential for a healthy heart.  Mavi was seriously reading all through the 10 cards and checking if he’s consuming them.  Well of course, he eats almost everything in the list except for the broccoli and wine


And that ends our circulatory system unit.  For more biology related posts see the following:

• Dental Unit for Kids
• Tooth Cross Section
• Skeletal System
• Study of Internal Organs

For more details on the Circulatory System learning materials you can check this post, Circulatory System Learning Materials.

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This post is part of the 12 Months of Montessori Learning which is hosted by Natural Beach Living and The Natural Homeschool.

 

Natural Beach Living ~ The Natural Homeschool ~ Living Montessori Now ~ Planting Peas

The Kavanaugh Report ~ Mama’s Happy Hive ~ Study at Home Mama ~ Child Led Life

The Pinay Homeschooler ~ Every Star Is Different ~ Grace and Green Pastures

How to Teach the Anatomy of the Human Heart to Kids

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Mavi was so excited about this.  He has always been so curious of the human heart and how it works. Because he reads some biographies, he would encounter terms like “died of heart attack” LOL and most probably triggered his curiosity and enthusiasm in learning about the heart.  So I worked hard to create learning materials for our study and I’m so happy that they turned out pretty good, and Mavi loves them!

Objectives on why we study the human heart:

Learn how the heart works

Learn why it is one of the most important organs in the body

Learn its functions

Learn how to avoid getting heart diseases

Learn how to maintain a healthy heart

Learning about the human heart might be too advanced for a 7 years old.  But Mavi was persistent, and because I created the materials suitable for his age (lots of graphic presentation) he was so engaged the entire time we talked about this important internal organ.  Another advantage of learning this at home is that I get to filter “complex” concepts.  This means, I set aside information that he can’t absorb yet and save it once he’s old enough to understand complex functions of the heart.

So let me share with you how we worked on our human heart.  Links to the materials used are provided at the end of this post, including where to buy heart models.

The Human Heart and its Parts

It’s always been a practice that we always start learning about different parts of our subject.  And in Mavi’s case, he learns and absorbs everything with the use of The Human Heart 3-part cards.  We’ve been using this technique since he was 3 years old and so far he’s used to learning this way.  The retention is great, he can remember the parts by working on these cards over and over again. 

Of course, having a heart model adds up to the fun in learning. It’s the closest we can get to visualize what the heart really looks like, unless we dissect a pig’s heart

Aside from the 3 part cards, we also used the definition booklet included in The Human Heart learning pack. It was so handy whenever I needed to describe each part, its function and how it works. We took turns in reading and discussing the parts. 

Afterwhich, Mavi worked on the activity sheets, also included the The Human Heart learning pack.  It’s basically making his own heart anatomy booklet (less the description).

How the Human Heart Works

This part was for Mavi to understand how the blood flows in and out of the heart.  To demonstrate how this works, we used our materials mentioned below, plus pipe cleaners to trace the flow of blood.

In this part, we used the materials The Human Heart learning pack and Cardiovascular System Information Diagrams to learn how the heart works.  I created the information diagrams to see how the blood flows in and out of the heart and the blood distribution to the rest of the body.

As you can see, we used pipe cleaners to demonstrate the blood flow in the left ventricle (blue pipe cleaners) and the red pipe cleaners for the right ventricle. 

So now, Mavi knows which part of the heart is responsible for distributing deoxygenated blood to the lungs and the part which distributes oxygenated blood to the rest of the body.

Heart Diseases

I just have to include this to answer Mavi’s question about “heart attack”. Included in my Cardiovascular System Information Diagrams, is a presentation of the different heart diseases. One of the main focus of our study is the coronary heart disease which is the main cause of a heart attack. Here, I pointed out which part of the heart is affected and how it is causing the problem.

Our model comes with arteries showing the progression of fatty residue that limits the flow of blood flow.  See how Mavi discovered that there’s not enough space for the blood to flow when the walls of the artery is covered with fats.

Now his question is, can he still eat fatty foods? Now that’s another story and will be included in my Circulatory System post next month.

By the way, if you wish to demonstrate this with your kids, you can either use a straw or a hose, tissue rolls can also be used, and for the fatty residue Playdoh would be best.

And that’s about it, our human heart study.  I hope you find this post helpful!

Materials Used:

• Cardiovascular System Bundle Pack, this is the bundle that includes Cardiovascular System Information Diagrams, The Human Heart learning pack, and The Cardiovascular System
• Cardiovascular System Information Diagrams
• The Human Heart
• The Cardiovascular System

Where to buy Heart Model (US):

• Tedco Human Heart Anatomy
• Learning Resources Human Heart Model
• Heart Conditions Model

Where to buy Heart Model (UK/Europe):

• Eason’s  (if not available online, visit the store)
• Hamley’s  (if not available online, visit the store)
• 4D Human Heart Anatomy
• Learning Resources Human Heart

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