Art History: Renaissance Art | Leonardo da Vinci

Sharing with you our Leonardo da Vinco art projects.  Took us a while to finish this unit as we have tons of Leonardo works to explore.  Below, Vito offered to paint my portrait the Mona Lisa style.

Art History - Medieval Art

For Medieval Art, we made illuminated manuscript.  This art project was inspired by the Book of Kells (Ireland), a famous artefact on display in Dublin. Book of Kells is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin created around 800AD.

Beautiful Children's Biography Books

I lately discovered a beautiful biography picture book series that captured the interest of my 7 years old.  This is by far our favourite, the GENIUS series by Isabel Munoz. I am not a big fan of the Little People (too short and less info for my kids’ taste) so I continued looking for kid-friendly bio books and I came across this series.

The Best History Books for Early Childhood

If you are looking for child-friendly books in introducing history to little children, I highly recommend this Usborne Beginner's History book set. I bought this entire box set recently and it contains 10 books and it is absolutely worth it! 

Learning About the Philippines

Philippines is celebrating its Independence Day this week and in line with it, I'm publishing our Philippine Country Study Learning Pack.  We worked on this last year before we went home for a vacation but I didn't get to post this in the blog.  Just like in any of our country study packs, this set contains tons of reading and writing materials and extension activities for children eager to learn and explore the Philippines.  In this learning material, the child will learn about the geography, flag, symbols, and icons of the Philippines, famous foods, and its culture and traditions.

Learning about the History of Telephones for Kids

One of our favorite subjects is history! I suddenly had an urge to tackle the historical timeline of the common objects that we use in our daily lives like money, phones, computers, etc.  This came to my mind when my eldest and I were talking about the evolution of computers, from the gigantic machines to the tablets.  Though this is more of an elementary work, I designed this resource for preschoolers, kindergartens, and early childhood learners.

In this post, I will feature the history of telephones which we recently worked on (Vito asked to work on this set first).  All of the printable resources featured in this post are all available in our History of Telephones - Timeline and Ordering Activities.

World History: Ancient Times Learning Materials

I'm so excited to share with you our Ancient History Learning Pack.  I made this product 4 years ago but I didn't really have the time to explain how to use this or how we are using this at home.  Let me say that I finally updated the product and there are now 2 sets available to cater to the needs of other Montessori families and schools.  This post is not a tutorial but it will explain each set in the learning pack, how we use each them and how you may benefit from them.

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, which fascinated me.  Since then, I’ve been very interested in travelling 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 depict 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 Superset Native American Camp.  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 sets.  This Playmobil set will be perfect for our American history study next year.

What’s inside?

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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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.

Learning History of Ancient Europe for Kids

If you’ve been following us in Instagram, you should know by now 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 learning material.

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

Be sure to pin this post for future reference!

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!