The Nativity and Story Cards

I love retelling the story of the nativity to our kids.  It’s been a yearly tradition that we read so many books of different versions and would even at times watch nativity movies to understand the meaning of Christmas.  This year, with Vito old enough to understand, I added some story cards and activity sheets to go along with our book reading.

The Safari Ltd Ancient Rome

A few weeks ago, Safari Ltd (Safari Toobs) sent us these amazing Ancient Rome Supertoob which is composed of 12 historical figures and a perfect learning tool to go along with our Ancient History Learning Cards. Mavi loves history and he was over the moon when he saw these beautiful figures arrive.  The figures are big, and sturdy.  I specifically love that they included the Aqueduct and Pantheon, landmarks that are not included in their previous landmark toobs.


Anyway, we’ve been busy using these figures for weeks now.  Here are some of the ways we’ve been using them.

Ancient Egypt Learning Materials for Kids

This holy week, Mavi decided to revisit ancient Egypt after rereading the story of Ten Commandments.  We dug up our Egypt Picture Book materials so he can work on some readings and do some activities to go along with it.  In this post, I will share the contents of our Egypt Picture Book learning pack which you might want to try.  It contains: reading materials, activity pages, picture cards and outline cards for coloring.

Introducing the North American History

Based on my experience, the best way to teach kids about history is through famous landmarks.  I remember growing up with my father’s stories of Greece, Spain, Egypt and South America.  He has photos taken at the Great Pyramids of Giza, Sphinx, in Acropolis, Christ the Redeemer in Rio and more.  He’s telling me a bit about history through the landmarks in his photos and this fascinated me.  Since then, I’ve been very interested in traveling and learning about world history. I wanted to inspire Mavi in the same way.  I always start my history lessons with the famous landmarks using our travel photos and the Safari Toobs (Around the World, World Landmarks).  Recently, I purchased the Safari Supertoob USA (on sale) because Mavi wanted to know more about the US (inspired by our trip there last May).

So in this post, I’m sharing how we worked on understanding the history of North America, through famous landmarks figures and playsets that depicts the life of the early people of North America.

How to Study The Story of the Universe and The Origin of Life

It’s time for another 12 Months of Montessori Series and today I am sharing Mavi’s favourite book series.  We have been using these books for years now.  The books are all about the cosmic history to the evolution of man.  The stories are accompanied by stunning images and time-line to follow.  Everything in these books are just too magical and enlightening for him!  In this post you will also see the activities that the kids did in order to make the Study of the Universe and the Origin of Life a lot more interesting.

Small World Play: Ancient China

Gong Hi Fa Cai!  It’s the Chinese New Year tomorrow and Mavi and I are currently learning about Ancient China  (using STOW Vol 1 as read along book). With these, we set up another small world play which is inspired by the history of China.  Here’s what Mavi and I assembled.  Last month, we assembled an Australian Outback-inspired small world play and it was a total hit!  This month, the boys are enjoying their free play with our new small world tray!

Tried and Tested: Playmobil Native American Superset

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I was able to get some really great deals during the Black Friday sale. One of which is the Playmobil Native American Superset.  As I mentioned earlier this month, Playmobil is one of the open-ended toys that we love and consider “educational” due to its historical figures and environment.  This Playmobil set will be perfect for our American history study next year.

What’s inside?

History Timeline Cards: Ancient Times

Buy now

Up in the Sellfy Shop is our history timeline cards Ancient Times.  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.

Learn how we used it here and in how we study the European History.

Hope you like it, enjoy!

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Learning the Timeline of European History

I am so excited to share with you our approach on learning the timeline of the European history. As I mentioned earlier, my son is obsessed with world history, especially with the events in Europe and Asia (his home continents!) 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 contains bold pictures (because kids are attracted to pictures) and included a brief description for each of the event. I thoroughly researched this, and handpicked the major events to be 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.

Our timeline cards covers the 4 periods in history:  ancient times, medieval times, early modern times and modern times. 

Goals

• In each period, we will identify the fundamental needs of man:  Spiritual (love, religion, culture/community) and Material (shelter, transportation, food and clothing)
• Identify the locations in the map where the event occurred
• Historical figures that played a major role in that historical period
• Be able to arrange the timeline cards
• Compare the impact of each period to Mavi

Ancient Times (up to 500AD)

My Ancient Time Cards starts from the event that occurred in Mycenae to the end of Byzantine Empire. We talked about how Greece played a major role in the beginning of the European history, great conquerors like Alexander the Great, the rise and fall of Rome. It was obvious that aside from the material things, religion played a major role in the development of the European culture.

Medieval Times (500AD to 1500)

Major events include the wars in Europe after the fall of Rome, the Black Death, the crusades, the significance of the Vikings in forming what is now known as the Great Britain, Constantine and Charlemagne, the separation of Orthodox and Roman Christians.

Early Modern Times (1500-1900)

The Early Modern Times is all about Renaissance, and because of Industrial Revolution, people started to explore places. Inventions of steam train, and ships. But there were also civil wars like in France and between England and Scotland. Mavi and I identified the causes of these wars and yes it’s all because of the fundamental human needs.

Modern Times (1900 – present)

Modern Times was quite challenging because Mavi asked a lot of questions in this period. Most especially in the events of World War I and II, and the wars in the Baltic. There are just certain things that you can’t explain to a 7 year old. So I just told him stories of what I know (I have yet to purchase the Vol 4 of the Story of the World) and what I read in the web.

Using the Cards

Our aim is to arrange the cards according to the time of events. We set up a few craft strings in our shelf where we can pin the cards. This is an amazing technique for visualization of the entire events!

Seen below, Mavi is reviewing his work, making sure he’s arranging the time in order. I previously taught him how the BC and AD works, so this is a perfect opportunity to put that knowledge into action!

He loves the cards and enjoys reading the descriptions. I wanted the cards to be as attractive and engaging to Mavi so I made sure that I don’t put too much facts into the descriptions. Because of this, I created another set of cards for the “longer” description.

He was proud of his work and asked to take a photo of him with his work LOL.

So this is how I explained and presented the history of Europe to my 7 year old boy.

For the European History Learning Materials below is the list:

• Timeline of European History Cards
• Europe in a Nutshell

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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.

Learning about the Presidents with Montessori Activities (Free Printables) by Natural Beach Living

Montessori-Inspired History: Sense of Time {Free Printables} by The Natural Homeschool

How to Prepare Montessori 3-Part Family Cards and Family Tree Activity by Living Montessori Now

Linear Calendar for Kids by Planting Peas

Timeline of our Family -- Intro to Montessori History by The Kavanaugh Report

Montessori Calendar for Kids by Mama’s Happy Hive

How to Introduce Time to Kids by Study at Home Mama

5 Ways to Learn Asian History by Child Led Life

Learning the Timeline of European History by The Pinay Homeschooler

Our Montessori-inspired Timeline of Life by Every Star is Different

Exploring History Through the Great Lessons by Grace and Green Pastures

History of Ancient Europe

If you’ve been following us in Instagram, you should all by now know that Mavi is obsessed with world history.  It all started with his fascination with Horrible Histories and then he started to borrow books from the library.  That’s why I purchased the Story of the World books to feed his interest.  We’ve been reading it for awhile and almost done with Story of the World Book 1: Ancient History.

I wanted to share with you how we study world history at home.  Aside from our previous lessons of Ancient Egypt, Mavi wanted to learn about the history of Europe.  So this is where we are focusing as of the moment.  These cards are included in my Europe in a Nutshell file.

I just added the description cards for personal use, whenever we wanted to review the details.

The cards are currently displayed on top of my shelf so Mavi can work on them anytime.  This is the best way to learn the time periods as well, like what’s BC and AD

After I introduced him to the time periods, he arranged the cards by himself.  He was confused with the BC and AD at first but he later on grasp the concept.

Now, pictures and fact cards aren’t enough, we’ve got to locate these in the map!  Here Mavi is seen locating Crete, where Europe civilization started.  An understanding of  geography and location will make the child understand the history and culture of the ancient people.  We also located the Mediterranean Sea, the gateway of ancient Asians who entered Europe and where most of the battles occurred.  The map is from the activity book of the STOW Book 1 printable version.

As I mentioned earlier, we are reading STOW Book 1 to go along with the cards but doesn’t entirely equate to the details I put in out Ancient Europe Timeline cards.

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Fossils for Kids

Because Mavi is fascinated with dinosaurs and fossils, I always make it a habit to include it yearly in our homeschool activities.  If you are interested learning about our previous dinosaurs and fossils lessons here are the following links:

• Dinosaur and the Land Before Time
• Dinosaur Activity Sheets
• Dinosaur Math Activity
• Dinosaur Books
• Free Feathered Dinosaur Cards
• More Dinosaur Activities
• Dinosaur Cards and Worksheets
• Homemade Dinosaur Fossils
• Digging Up Dinosaurs

For this year, I focused on fossils alone as I wanted Mavi to understand how they became so relevant in defining history.

Fossils by definition are organisms or objects that indicates former presence of an organism which has been preserved in any natural deposit in or on the earth’s crust.  We examined the fossils we have on hand:  Safari Toob Fossil replicas, coral fossils and the animal impressions that we made.

There are different types of fossils.  One famous type of fossil is the preservation of insects found in resins, now known as amber.   Another are moulds of animals or plants; trails or tracks of animals and dinosaurs from thousands of years ago.

With this we made our own animal impressions using Safari Toob animal figures.  They all end up so pretty!   Making animal impressions in a clay is one of the easiest way to recreate a fossil.  Another is embedding an animal or object in an ice or clay similar to an amber.

These are coral fossils which we got from our latest trip to the Philippines.   Mavi described the difference between moulds and cast fossils like those of coral cavities that were filled with mineral substance. Then we examined each of our Safari Toob Ancient Fossils and identify them.  (Source: Safari Toob Fossils)

1. Eurypterid.  A sea scorpion called Mixopterus was discovered in Norway.  They ranged from 5 inches to over 7 feet long.
2. Fossilized Fish.  This is a Diplomystus specimen, typical of a surface feeding fish.  The Green River limestone deposits in Wyoming, USA have beautifully preserved all the fine details of these fossils.
3. Dinosaur Skin.  This is a famous fossil “mummies” of a duck-billed Hadrosaur which became entombed in a sandstone after its death.  The real one can be found in North Dakota, USA.
4. Tyrannosaurus Rex Tooth.  This tooth was found in Montana, USA. The T-Rex, one of the greatest predator possess the largest single teeth of any dinosaur.  They used these double edge, serrated blades to slice off huge pieces of flesh.
5. Dinosaur Foot.  The discoveries of dinosaur tracks and footprints are grouped into similar types and they are given generic names.  Anchisauripus prints were from a small plant-eater found in the state of Connecticut, USA.
6. Velociraptor Claw.  Velociraptor are very efficient hunter because of these large sickle-shaped claws that grow on each hind foot.  This claw was found in Mongolia in Central Asia.
7. Ammonite.  This is an ancient mollusc with a spiral shell.  These marine animals existed for more than 135 million years.  This species is known as Peltoceratoides  and was discovered in Russia.
8. Giant Crabs. Did you know that crabs evolved from lobsters during the Jurassic Period? This original specimens from Washington state, USA are among the finest preserved crab fossils having been buried in sand, soon after their deaths.
9. Trilobite.  They are one of the most important groups of early animals and their unusual appearance and age, make them appealing to fossil collectors worldwide.  They first appeared in the early Cambrian period and become extinct in the Permian, 320 million years ago.
10. Fossilized Frog.  This fossilized species of frog is fully articulated and possibly the ancestor of the modern spade foot toad.  This was collected in Wyoming, USA.

And the best part of a studying fossil is experiencing how these Palaeontologist dig and discover fossils!  Materials used in the tub:

• Learning Resources Fine Motor Tool Set
• Oatmeal
• Random magnifier glass
• Paint brush
• Safari Toob Ancient Fossils

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Book Review: Grandfather’s Journey

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From Amazon: “Lyrical, breathtaking, splendid—words used to describe Allen Say’s Grandfather’s Journey when it was first published. At once deeply personal yet expressing universally held emotions, this tale of one man’s love for two countries and his constant desire to be in both places captured readers’ attention and hearts. Winner of the 1994 Caldecott Medal, it remains as historically relevant and emotionally engaging as ever.” 

I was forced to read this book because this is the first book in the FIAR list that’s in our possession.  Forced in a sense that, it doesn’t look interesting at all. The cover is lousy, with dull colours and doesn’t look like a children’s book at all.

But oh boy, I was wrong. It is true indeed that you should not judge the book by its cover.  Once Mavi opened the book and started reading, we were glued!  The story is so simple, yet it touched our hearts.  Mavi and I immediately fell in love with story as we see ourselves in the character.  We are expats, and we both love two countries.  There’s depth and emotions in the story.  After reading this book, we were so overwhelmed with emotions that we began missing the Philippines.

A very good book for kids.  The book has large pictures with easy to read texts.  I love the simplicity of it and how easily a child can read this.  Now I understand why it received a Caldecott Medal :) 

This book can also be purchased at Book Depository (free shipping!).  Seen in the picture: Japan flag using LEGO, transport counters from Learning Resources and a bird origami. 

Now listen to my 6 years old son, narrating the story:

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!

The Study of Ancient Egypt

Here’s a collection of activities for Ancient Egypt Study.  We’ve been using the books The Story of the World Vol 1 and The Usborne Ancient World [aff.link] as our guide and references. This is the first time we’ve ever had an Egypt Study and I was very happy of how Mavi showed so much interest.

 

The Desert.  Learning all about the desert and the environment of Egypt.  We used oatmeal to represent the sand and the figures seen here are from Safari Toobs. 

Mummification.  We tried to apply what we’ve learned of how mummies are made.  Here we prepared a few spices and a tissue wrap to embalm our skeleton model (sorry we did not have any human model LOL). So after wrapping the body, we placed it in sarcophagus (box) and added jewels for the buried King to bring with him in the after life.Familiarization with the Egypt Map and the Nile River.  We used the worksheet from  The Story of the World Vol 1 to recreate the map in a painting.  This will familiarize the child of Egypt’s geography .  See how Mavi made his Nile Delta and the river met in the Mediterranean Sea.

                     

Ancient Egypt Toob.  These are fantastic!  The figures are so detailed and Mavi loved examining each one.  Here, we are learning about each figure (vocabulary) so he’s researching in the internet and the book what each means/represent.  The cards are from Memorizing the Moments.

Pyramids. Mavi recreated the pyramids using his LEGO. That’s supposed to be three pyramids, but Vito played and broke the smallest one.

Papyrus.  We also made this using parchment paper! See how we did it here!

And that’s how we study Ancient Egypt. Next year, when we revisit our World History lessons, we’ll dig a little bit deeper on this subject :)  Hope you like this post. Have fun!

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Decoding the Cuneiform Writings

 

Mavi loves this activity!  We’ve just finished Chapter 3:  The First Writing of SOTW and we’ve been doing this “decode the message” activity game the whole day.  Hopefully this will lead us to decode binary numbers and ASCII in the days to come LOL.

Picture below shows my son attempting to make his own code as well.  Oh I can’t wait to make another one tomorrow for him to work on!

The Nile River

Continuing our World History study, we read about the people of Egypt and the richness of the Nile River.  We pinpoint the location of the river in the map and how the civilization of the Egyptians started in this great river.

After reading Chapter 2 of the SOTW, we proceeded immediately with the mini-projects it suggested. One of which is creating a model of the Nile River.  We could have done this outside, but the weather has been really terrible this week so we made use of our art crafts at home and whatever we could find to make our model as close to the description of the river.

Below in the picture, Mavi using blue crepe paper for the river forming a delta going to the Mediterranean Sea.  Here we discussed what is a “delta”.  A good review of our landform lesson.

 

He added some playdough to plant our mini trees (from our front yard) and made pyramids out of LEGO bricks.

 

I added accent to his project by painting the base with green paint to represent some lush farmlands. And this completed his Nile River Project!

Next I will be sharing our map work and the first mummies :D

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