To start our Shape Unit this week, I want to share with you Vito’s current favourite learning material! This amazing product is from Learning Resources and both of my boys has been using the activity sheets for days!
Learning about Geometric Shapes
Sunday, April 24, 2016
To start our Shape Unit this week, I want to share with you Vito’s current favourite learning material! This amazing product is from Learning Resources and both of my boys has been using the activity sheets for days!
Fun Sifting Activity for Kids
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Vito is 28 months old.
We were reading the Under the Ground book and chancing upon the page of mining, I decided that we should play pretend to look for jewels in a tub of sand! As you can see, this activity was intended for sifting the gravels and later on discover the jewels but I realized that sand is quite big so our sifter wouldn’t work. Thus, I added the scooper from Learning Resources, it has bigger holes in it so it can sift the sand effectively.
Goodnight Moon Storytelling Basket
Thursday, March 3, 2016
I read this book every night. It’s calming, relaxing… makes them ponder what’s out there in the night, letting them observe their room and the silence of the night. And may I just say, there is so much love in the story. The old lady as I would always say to the boys, is lovingly watching her little kid go to sleep, just like most Mommies do!
Australia/Oceania in a Nutshell
Monday, January 4, 2016
Letter ‘t’ Sound Activities for Toddlers
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Vito’s activities last week revolves around the letter ‘t’. As you all know, we’re working with letter sounds for a while and funny how he’s able to name alphabets using their sounds these days instead of their names LOL. The unit is not just actually a week’s work, but it took us 2 weeks TO get over with the materials and activities, because Vito kept using them! Let me share with you activities we did to explore and learn objects with the letter ‘t’ sound.
Lettet T Object Basket. Let’s start with our object basket. I filled it with 3-4 objects starting with letter t that Vito uses a lot at home like torch, telescope/binoculars, teeth and Titanic LEGO made by Mavi. Then added a few letters like this foam letter from Munchkins (Vito used to bite these!) and the all time favourite letters from Hape.
Train Shape Cards. I made these! I’m so happy on how it turned out. The train plus the DIY air dry clay shapes are currently Vito’s favourite activity. He loves matching the shapes to that in the train!
That’s his brother’s sleep mask (from Emirates), which is his favorite accessory as of the moment.
Color Sorting using Transport Counters. The counters are from Learning Resources and this is one of our favourites! The train cards are DIY: using a train coloring image, I printed it in different colors of cardstock and laminated it.
He worked on them but doesn’t stay long. As I previously said, color sorting is NOT his favourite thing as of the moment. But even so, I still would introduce different kinds of color activities just in case he might find his interest.
Counting. Vito loves to count, it’s like effortless in my part to make him count and identify numbers. He counts on his own and is always giddy whenever he sees numbers. So this turtle activity is his favourite. We just don’t have enough turtle figures to count up to 10 LOL. The turtle counters are from Safari Toob. We previously worked on trees as well for our letter t unit. Check it out here
Brushing of Teeth Teeth. Our model of mouth/teeth is just so awesome! Vito is fascinated with this and loves brushing it with his toothbrush LOL. This is a wonderful practical life activity, especially to those little ones who are hesitant to brush their teeth Know where you can get these teeth model here.
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Continent Study of South America
Sunday, August 30, 2015
*** Contains affiliate links
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.Letter 'c' Sound Activities
Monday, May 25, 2015
Letter 'c' craft. I made Vito colour the letter c using our Do-a-Dot markers (which he really really loves by the way). Afterwhich, I made him watch Mavi cut the letter and turn it into a letter c carrot.
C for colours. This is again another colour matching activity I prepared for Vito. The cups were from the local store and the cubes were from Melissa & Doug Lacing Beads learning toy. We do this activity everyday for Vito to know his colours.
C for cottons. We tried this activity, painting using cotton balls but Vito was horrified of the cotton. So we proceeded with finger painting instead. We are using Giotto Bebe Fingerpaints at home.
Playing with pegs (pretend corns). We played around with favourite FantaColor pegs and Vito is getting better fitting those smaller pegs into the hold
Steamed carrots. Vito's snack for the entire week LOL.
C for cars. We played with cars every morning and matched them to our homemade colour cards. Read about it here.
Books this week:
Photos of Vito working.
More letter sound activities coming up in the next few weeks!
Our Letter ‘b’ Sound activities might interest you as well!
Measuring Mass of an Object
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Experimenting and predicting Mass (Weight)
- Balance scale or bucket balance from Learning Resources
- Items to weigh ( we have rugby ball, a small book and box of Jenga toys)
- Items to serve as measuring unit. I used transportation and fruit counters from Learning Resources (make sure they’re all similar) and crystal pebbles.
Objective:
- To develop skills in predicting and estimating the mass of the an object.
- To use knowledge in science and math to come up with a mathematical conclusion based on the experiment.
Objects
|
Prediction
|
Actual
|
Rugby ball | 17 pebbles | 35 pebbles |
Book | 20 pebbles | 33 pebbles |
Box | 10 pebbles | 11 pebbles |
Tried and Tested: Fraction Pies
Monday, May 11, 2015
Obviously, I love math materials. Through the years, I’ve been collecting a few, just to give my boys’ learning a boost because hands-on math is totally rocks! Now, I don’t usually give reviews because I have high standards LOL. I’m frugal that’s why every cent I spend means a lot to me. The cost must justify the quality of products.
Anyway, I have two sets of fractions pies. The first one is the soft foam fraction pies from Singapore’s Learning Store which my cousin gave to me a few years ago. I totally LOVE this. The pies are huge, it’s the size of my hand, magnetic, sturdy, has a label, with bright colours and it comes with tub (with handle!).
Now, this year, I ordered another set from Learning Resources via Amazon. I love Learning Resources! Most of my materials are from them, so I was expecting this fraction pies to be of equal with the ones I got from Singapore. BUT, I was tremendously disappointed. When I opened it, I wanted to throw it right away into the bin LOL. They are tiny plastic tiles and comes with a case that is sooo hard to open. When I checked the pies, they don’t have labels either so it is very difficult to identify each of them (unless you are so good in visual that you know that it’s 1/10 right away!). Because the are so tiny, slippery and sharp on the edges, I couldn’t fit them back in the tiny case. So I just packed them immediately, covered in newspaper (so no one will get hurt due to sharp edges) and kept them in the storage. I wonder when will it see the light of day.
See the size difference? And just look at the containers. I swear, the ones from Singapore are much more cheaper!
And here’s the side. The pieces are so thin! So hard to put back together
I couldn’t find the EXACT product our foam pies in Amazon but here are the ones I saw closest to it:
- Foam Fraction Pies Teacher Created Resources. A little bit small, but they are made of foam and affordable.
- Educational Insights Foam Magnetic Circles. The pies are big, according to Amazon, “Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 10.3 x 2.4 inches ; 2.5 pounds”
- Lakeshore Learning Giant Magnetic Fraction Circles and Bars. The circle is “5 3/4"
And that’s about it! Watch out for my fraction activity… will try to create learning materials and share it with you.
Have a good day everyone
Letter ‘a’ Sound Activities
Monday, April 27, 2015
We've started our letter sound of the week activities a few weeks ago. Vito is 18 months and based on my observation, he is ready to learn letter sounds as he started to say a few words and can mimic letter sounds as I say it to him.
This letter of the week curriculum is basically not new. There are a lot of variations out there on teaching one letter a week. However, I have come up with my own activities and method of implementing it. I have used this curriculum with Mavi and it has worked for us so I am using it again with Vito. The order of the letter sound that I am going to introduce to Vito by default is from a to z (with emphasis on the small letter) but of course it may change as we progress depending on his needs, interest and availability of materials.
For those who are new to this, the basic idea is to focus on only one letter sound at a time (a week or more). Instead of having a specific theme that corresponds to a letter sound, we will try to use all the objects in our Letter Sound Basket in our activities to add variety. I also added tray works that introduce basic concepts like colours, shapes and numbers.
Okay some of you might ask me how we do this? Well on a daily basis here’s our schedule we work most of these in the morning, after reading books. One to two activities a day for about 15 minutes in the morning and if he’s into it in the afternoon, then we do another one. Afternoon activities are sometimes skipped, as he prefers playing with big brother. What is mostly achieved in the afternoon is reading books as we do it all together, while cuddling in bed.
*** I added links to all the materials we are using here so you will have an idea where to get it. They are affiliate links, no extra cost on you if you decide to purchase them. ***
Letter ‘a’ sound basket. Contains the objects we used and the letters. In here you see an ambulance, alligator, apples, big letter A from Munchkins, magnetic letter A/a from Melissa & Doug (this was Mavi’s and an all time favourite!) and my homemade sandpaper letter.
Letter ‘a’ craft. I made a small letter a on a piece of cardstock and have Vito stamp it with Do-a-Dot markers. Once dry, I cut it out and form it into an apple. I pinned this in our learning wall. By the way, these markers are really really good! We’ve used them in so many ways and they were still Mavi’s! Can you believe that?? It lasted for so many years without drying!
Note: Vito enjoyed this activity so much. He can stamp more letter a’s than I could have imagine LOLApple 1:1 correspondence. Using the IKEA Ice Tray and Learning Resource Fruit Counters, this 1:1 correspondence teaches little ones basic math concept. I count as Vito places a green apple in the moulder.
Note: This is one activity that stayed in the shelf for two weeks. Vito loves putting the apples into the moulder and putting them back again in the container. Sometimes he would spill them and put them back again. We do this activity almost every day to introduce counting.
Alligator peg board. Because alligator have sharp teeth, we use this FantaColor peg board to practice fine motor skills and hand/eye coordination. Can Vito really insert the pegs in the hole? Well it is a hit or miss! And that’s what’s good about it, he keeps on trying :D Our version is the portable one that comes with a bag and with different peg sizes. I chose this so both Vito and Mavi can use it. The alligator is from Schleich (oh he loves this!).
Note: As mentioned, this activity is a hit or miss. There were times he loves doing this because he can easily pin the pegs… but he gets impatient and lose interest when he can’t pin them in the hole.
Circle shape sorter. The shape for this week is circle, since it is the closest shape to an apple. We used our Playskool Shape Sorter (this was Mavi’s) and we only use the circle shape. As I mentioned previously, one at a time. So here, just the circle shape so he can easily identify which hole and will not be overwhelmed.
Note: This technique has worked with Mavi and it worked with Vito as well.
Gluing circles. I’m hitting three birds in one stone here, sensorial activity while learning the circle and red colour. We did this a couple of times, first using liquid glue and the other glue stick. He doesn’t like both LOL But he loves putting the cut-out circle shapes in the big circle.
Note: While doing this activity, I would say “this is a circle”, “let’s stick the red circles in the big circle”. Mention the key words like “circle”, “red”, “stick” or “glue”. As mentioned, Vito doesn’t like the feel of blue or something sticky. But that’s okay, Mavi was like that too. It’s part of learning right?
Eating apples. Of course, snacks include apples!
Note: What could say? He loves eating!
Green and red colour. I’ve been introducing colours since Vito turned 1, and even though we still work on our red basket, I still include colour sorting in our weekly activities so he can differentiate the two colours. Here I used craft pompoms to be sorted out. He doesn’t sort, I do most of it. I’ll try first, showing what to do and let him try a few.
Note: Again, hit or miss here. There were times he’s doing it right, and sometimes he randomly puts them anywhere. He loves our green and red apples the best though :D
Ambulance prints. Vito loves paints and we do painting as much as possible. We are using Giotto Bebe fingerpaints, which I totally love because it doesn’t have a smell! And I love how creamy the paints are.
Note: Another favourite in the house! He can do this for around 30 minutes uninterrupted. But be sure to keep an eye on the kids. Even if the paints used is non-toxic and washable, these still are not edible!
Recommended books that will go along with it:
Now, see them all in action!
Don’t forget to pin this for later!