Letter D: Dinosaur Unit Activities and {Learn & Play Link Up}

The boys are crazy about dinosaurs so this is what we had last week for our letter D sound of the week. I think this is the very first animal Vito recognized because he’s been seeing these dinosaur figures since he was born.

I made use of all Mavi’s dino toys and used it for Vito’s unit. The activities here are so simple and easy to prepare especially if you have dinosaur figures already.

Cleaning dinosaur toy.  This was the first activity I could ever think of. Knowing the boys like to play with water, surely they will like this. And they did!  They washed and brushed their dinosaurs together outside. Vito mostly played with the water but Mavi was seriously doing the work.  So even if Vito didn’t get to really “brush” the dinosaurs, it was a perfect way to expose him to such kind of activity.


Playdough Dino Prints.  I wanted Vito to improve his “pressing” skills so I got out our playdough so we can make impressions.
As you can see, he doesn’t really press the dinos in the dough.  He would just place them on it.  At times he would push them into the playdough using his pointer fingers, not much of the entire hand yet.

Letter D.  We started sounding the letter D around the house as we talked about dinosaurs. Aside from my foam letters, which I posted on the wall for Vito to see everyday, I also made him put dots on a letter D.   He had fun sticking the dots on the letter.  Vito is using more of his left hand these days. Hmmm… I think I might have a leftie!
               
Now Vito realized he can stick the dots to his face as well. And he had fun doing it!


Matching Dinosaurs.  Vito can identify objects now, so I was wondering if he can match objects as well. This activity is more of a presentation rather than Vito matching the dinosaurs.  I placed one piece of the dinosaur in the palette tray and the other on the basket.  Then I take one dinosaur from the basket and say “let’s look for a match”.  So basically, the child will learn objects that match. 


Dino Prints using Paints.  Another activity that I have to take picture before we do the actual thing.  As much as possible I try to involve paints in our unit activities to introduce Vito to arts.  This dino prints was not really appreciated by Vito. He couldn’t make a print out of a dinosaur yet, do he was quite frustrated, so he resorted to hand painting instead.

Discovering Dinosaurs in Ice. This was a total hit! I made these ahead of time and once they were ready both boys were so excited to touch and taste the ice!   
Integrating learning with sensory activities is so much fun!


Dinosaur Free Play. And of course, how can we not have a free play.  I let Vito play with the dinosaurs most of the time.   Vito and Mavi played the dino figures indoors (Mavi making stories)….. 
… and they also played with it outdoors!


More dinosaur activities!!
Over the years, we’ve done a number of wonderful dinosaur activities.  Click on the links below for more ideas!

Dinosaur and the land before time
Dinosaur activities
Digging Dinosaurs
Dinosaur and Worksheets
Preschool Dinosaur Activities
Homemade Dinosaur Fossils

Welcome to the Learn & Play Link Party!

For this week, I’d like to feature simple and easy to prepare activities. These would be best for busy moms like me!

FREE Yoga Poses Nomenclature Cards by Eager Ed
Spell Your Name Busy Bag by Spark and Pook
Beach Crafts for Kids to Make Dinnerware by Hands On As We Grow
A Week in the Life of Unschoolers by Nourishing My Scholar

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!

Everyone, please meet our link party hosts:

Christian Montessori Blog ~ Please visit our CMN FB group ~ Pinterest

Vanessa from Mama’s Happy Hive~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Jennifer from Study at Home Mama~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Marie from Child Led Life~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Jae from Pinay Homeschooler~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Heather from Golden Reflections Blog~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Renae from Every Star is Different~FB~Pinterest

GUIDELINES FOR LINKING

• Please link up 1-3 posts
• Follow each of the hosts on social media
• When you link up, please add our button and place it at the bottom of your shared posts or link back with text link.
• By entering a link, you’re giving us permission to feature an image on our blogs. Proper credit & links will ALWAYS be given.
• Please visit a couple of shared posts and leave a comment for them
• Remember that you must link back in order to be featured

Grab This Button:

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An InLinkz Link-up

DIY Letter Puzzle

Here’s how I made our alphabet puzzle when we’re still in Serbia.  Using Melissa and Doug Magnetic Letters, I traced the pieces into a cardstock using a Sharpie.

And there you have it! An instant, so easy to prepare letter puzzle! Mavi looooves it to pieces! He plays with it every single day.

I believe you can do this to any other magnetic letters.  So go ahead make your own!

Star Unit Activities and {Learn & Play Link UP}

Welcome to another series of Letter Sound of the Week!  Today, I’m going to share our ‘star’ themed activities for learning the letter s sound. Vito really really like seeing stars around the house, and it’s the first shape that he can identify.  So while he’s at it, we jumped from letter c to learning letter s!

Letter Sound Basket. None this week. All we ever did was look at stars!

Painting the letter S.  We are exploring different mediums in painting and currently, the boys love the roller paint brushes I got for them last month.  So here is Vito painting the letter with a roller brush which he loves to use.  As we do the stroke, I would emphasize the word “up” and “down”.   I would exaggerate the hand stroke a little bit to demonstrate what does up and down means. And yes, this is also an activity for colour recognition: yellow.

Playdough & Star Cookie Cutter.  Playdough is a great activity for fine motor skills.  Vito is enjoying playdough so far.  He likes squeezing and grasping the dough already.  We used our star cookie cutter for this.   
                                           

Counting & Gluing.  An activity that’s like hitting two birds with one stone.  Practise gluing and counting at the same time.  What I did here was punch the star shapes and made Vito apply glue on the paper.  Then we place the stars according to their number.  We then count the stars over and over.  These days, Vito loves to count than reciting the letters LOL. He’s like, 2, 2, ,2!

An activity that’s like hitting two birds with one stone.  Practise gluing and counting at the same time.  What I did here was punch the star shapes and made Vito apply glue on the paper.  Then we place the stars according to their number                  
                  

Colour Matching.  This is a DIY.  I printed stars in coloured cardstock papers, laminate then glue them on the popsicle sticks. The bead cubes were from Melissa & Doug Lacing Beads. We matched the stars to the cube by placing them into the hole.   I showed Vito how to do it first and then he mimicked my actions.  The matching of colours is still a hit or miss, so I’m guessing he couldn’t recognize them yet.
  

Big and Small.  A random activity while playing the cookie cutter.  I was showed Vito the big star and small star.  He wasn't interested at all with this.

Now, for this week's feature!  Here are my favourites this week, something that we would like to try this summer!
FREE Summer Songs and Rhymes for Circle Time by Living Montessori Now
Parts of a Fruit Lesson with Printables by The Natural Homeschool
Shark Unit Study by Gypsy Road
Accordion Critters by Little Fingers Big Art

Welcome to the Learn & Play Link Party!

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!

Everyone, please meet our link party hosts:

Christian Montessori Blog ~ Please visit our CMN FB group ~ Pinterest

Vanessa from Mama’s Happy Hive~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Jennifer from Study at Home Mama~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Marie from Child Led Life~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Jae from Pinay Homeschooler~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Heather from Golden Reflections Blog~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Renae from Every Star is Different~FB~Pinterest

GUIDELINES FOR LINKING

• Please link up 1-3 posts
• Follow each of the hosts on social media
• When you link up, please add our button and place it at the bottom of your shared posts or link back with text link.
• By entering a link, you’re giving us permission to feature an image on our blogs. Proper credit & links will ALWAYS be given.
• Please visit a couple of shared posts and leave a comment for them
• Remember that you must link back in order to be featured

Grab This Button:

<div align="center"><a href="http://christianmontessorinetwork.com/category/learn-and-play" title="Christian Montessori Network"><img src="http://www.christianmontessorinetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/learn-and-play-link-up-150-150.png" alt="Christian Montessori Network" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

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An InLinkz Link-up

Letter 'c' Sound Activities

This was a fun and quick set activities.  We basically finished all of these in a week.

Letter 'c' sound basket.  Our object basket was composed of a carrot, a toy red car and a cow animal figure.  The foam letter is from Munchkins Foam Bath.

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:

• Caps for Sale
• The Carrot Seed
• BigCats Phonics From Cow to Carton Milk
• That's not my Car

You can also purchase these books from Book Depository, shipping is free!

Photos of Vito working.

More letter sound activities coming up in the next few weeks!

Thank you for taking time to read this post! Don’t forget to pin it for later.

Why not try reading our Letter ‘a’ Sound activities?

 Our Letter ‘b’ Sound activities might interest you as well!

Letter ‘b’ Sound Activities

Sorry, this has been a late post. I was busy for the past few days and could not find the time to share this. 

So this is a continuation of our Letter Sound of the Week activities.  Right after letter a, we moved on to letter b, just in time to feed Vito’s obsession of balls. It took us two weeks to finish this. And note that we don’t do this the whole day! It would only take about 10-15 minutes for each activity, excluding my preparation time of course.  Sometimes, preparation times takes like forever, while the actual activity would last only a minute. That is, if my Vito doesn’t feel like doing it at all. So what I do is put the tray back in the shelf and try again the next day, when he’s in the mood.

Letter ‘b’ basket sound.  Our basket contains a mini book of Dr. Seuss, given to us by Emirates, a block (soft block), and banana.  What we do with this basket is that everyday, I would present it to him and mention all the name of the objects.  We play it over and over so he will remember the words.

Note:  The basket is really really helpful.  I suggest that you should do this as well. Objects shouldn’t be fancy, just look around your house and see what you can find.

I later on added animal figures: bird and butterfly, our Playskool barrel , DIY sandpaper letter and Melissa and Doug Magnetic Letter.

       

Letter ‘b’ craft.  This was a collaborative work for both Vito and Mavi.  Xavi did all the scribbling in our letter, Mavi designed Vito’s hand prints for the butterfly’s wings.

Note:  Since Vito can’t participate in this one yet, I love asking Mavi to show his brother how to do this.  I think this is the best way of showing his little brother how to do things, like gluing and cutting.  This is also a great activity for both brothers to bond.

 

Balls! This was Vito’s favourite object as of the moment and we’ve been playing balls whenever we can (both indoor and outdoors).

Note:  Oh yeah, this has been a favourite toy and activity so far.

Eating and playing bananas. Again, I always use familiar objects for Vito whenever we do our letter sound of the week. Vito eats banana during breakfast so this wasn’t new to him. I let him eat on his own and give him fork so he can practise picking up the banana slices using a utensil. For the other tray, those are banana counters from Learning Resources.  The object of this activity is 1:1 correspondence, that is putting a piece of banana in each hole (this is an ordinary ice tray).  We count as we put the banana in place.

Note:  Vito loves eating, and it is best to incorporate letter sound activities with food as this will help them familiarize with the sounds more easily.

Soft blocks play.  We love these blocks!! These are soft blocks I got from Amazon last year.  Vito loves to stack and squeeze them.

Note:  I highly recommend these soft blocks.  The colours are vibrant and aside from the ones I mentioned, Vito loves touching and feeling all those moulds on the sides.

Bird crafts.  I realized that kids as young as 18 months, can now be exposed to crafts.  This was an assisted activity.  I placed glue on the bird’s wings and made Vito put the feathers on it.  He loves touching the glue more than feeling the feathers.

Creating sound with bells. We started using my Vilac Rhythm Bells.  At first he couldn’t make a sound, but finally created a soft tone when I showed him how to ring it.  I also used this activity to introduce loud and soft sounds.

Bear colour sorting.  Bear counters for colour sorting.  I continually give Vito this kind of sorting activities to expose him to colours. He can identify objects, but it is still a hit or miss with colours. 

 

The bear counters are from Learning Resources.  You can also use buttons.

Books for letter ‘b’.

• BigCat Phonics “Birds”
• Mr. Brown Can Moo.
• Brown Bear Brown Bear
• Baby’s First Animals.

You can all these books from Book Depository as well.  They ship for free anywhere!

We read the books every morning. Not all.  Mostly we can read as much as three books but mostly two books in the morning and two books in the afternoon.

See these in action!

And that’s about it! I hope you enjoy this post as I love sharing these.  Stay tuned for our letter ‘c’ in the next few weeks! Don’t forget to check our letter ‘a’ sound as well.

Oh and don’t forget to pin this activity, so you won’t forget it!

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