Vito is starting “preschool” math this school year and we are not using any curriculum. I guess it’s not necessary in our case. I will be using my experience with Mavi and with the thousand ideas online on setting up “play-based” and Montessori-inspired activities for Vito this school year. So in order for me to be able to organize and prepare materials ahead of time, I decided to come up with seasonal-themes for the upcoming months.
Rocks and Minerals Learning Activities for Kids (with Free Cards)
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
FREE Musical Hand Bell Cards
Saturday, July 30, 2016
Sharing our beautiful musical hand bell cards for everyone to use!
Collection of Transportation Activities for Toddlers
Saturday, June 4, 2016
FREE Types of Clouds 3 Part Cards
Thursday, June 2, 2016
Learning the Different Types of Clouds
Sunday, May 29, 2016
Anyway, the first book he read was the Clouds Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 1 (AmazonUS) (Book Depository). This is by far the best book I’ve encountered that illustrated the different types of clouds in a simple way, and the explanations are so basic and easy to grasp for kids. So after reading the book, we sat down the next day and worked on some hands-on activities for retention.
FREE Safari Toob Backyard Birds Matching Cards
Monday, April 11, 2016
These cards were used in our bird themed toddler learning matching activity using Safari TOOB backyard birds as shown in the picture. Enjoy!
FREE Alphabet Cards
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Having Fun with London Playsets & Cards
Friday, February 26, 2016
*** contains affiliate links ***
We are all in love with our wooden London Playset/s which we acquired recently. It’s so precious and beautiful that I can’t seem to take it out the bag!
Now how do we use these figures?
Learning the Parts of the Human Eye
Saturday, February 20, 2016
It’s Mavi’s midterm break and we decided to look into the parts of the human eye! We examined our model unit this morning which we bought last year from the local store. It’s so perfect and goes along so well with our Human Eye Nomenclature Cards and Booklet.
Study of Ancient China
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Few weeks ago, Mavi and I were learning about Ancient China. I decided that this year, we’ll be focusing in country-based studies rather than continents. Last month we worked on Australia, and because of Chinese New Year being celebrated during February, I guess this month is the best time to conduct Chinese-themed activities.
Australia/Oceania in a Nutshell
Monday, January 4, 2016
History Timeline Cards: Ancient Times
Monday, November 30, 2015
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 can be connected to form as a guide. The pages are in A4 paper size.
Hope you like it, enjoy!
FREE European Countries Fact Cards
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Download your copy now!
FREE Safari Toob Tree Matching Cards
Friday, November 13, 2015
Vito uses these cards a lot in my post on TREE ACTIVITIES and even in random days, he would pick this up from shelf and work on it.
You can get the Safari Toob Tree miniature objects from here.
How to Teach a Toddler About Trees
Monday, November 9, 2015
During the midterm break I’ve been taking the boys out because of the glorious weather. And since whenever we’re out, Mavi would climb the trees (and Vito would do the same), I took the chance to formally introduce Vito to trees. Since he’s able to say words straight and could grasp simple concept, it’s about time I show him the wonders of trees!
The BEST way to learn about trees is to have a personal encounter with it. And since we’re surround by them, we explored trees’ by climbing, touching and feeling their barks, observing the leaves colors, compare sizes and more.
For Vito though, trees are something that he can climb on. Whenever he sees a tree, he would just insist to climb onto it, like the picture below. He was just in that position for about 30 minutes, not complaining and enjoying every single moment of it.
With these, I can conclude that Vito can somehow understand now that trees :
- have leaves
- have rough barks
- comes in big and small sizes
- are something we can play with
Now, for extensions, I also prepared simple tree-themed activities for Vito at home for indoor play and learning. Here are the trays I prepared for him:
Counting Trees. Vito loves this! I stamped four dots in the paper with a number symbol and we count as we place a tree on each dot. I used a do-a-dot marker for this.
Matching Trees (Abstract-Abstract). Remember when we worked on leaves and he’s not interested in matching cards at all? Well, that changed now as he was able to work on our matching tree cards without hesitation! And yes he completed the four pairs with much concentration. I love it! You can get these beautiful cards from here or click the image below.
Tree Puzzle. He loves working on tree puzzle but somehow, our tree puzzle is still too complicated for his age. He knows where to place the roots and trunk as of the moment, but finds it hard to fit them in the puzzle board. So what I do is just ask him where the piece is supposed to go, he points and I do the fitting.
Tree Matching. Similar matching activity as above, but in this case we are using a tree figure and matching it to cards. We are doing lots of matching activities as this introduces early math concepts and object discrimination. Tree figures are from Safari Toobs.
Books. These are the books that we focused on during the week of our tree themed activities: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and The Acorn’s Story, both of which are so enjoyable to read!
And how long do we have this for a theme? Mostly for 7-10 days! Of course, these are just some of the thing he does, he also plays with his toy and read book, learn letters and numbers. It’s just that I love introducing new concept/s each week and in a way its easier for me to focus on just one or two things.
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Learning History of Ancient Europe for Kids
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Pre-K Problem Solving Cards
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Mavi didn’t like math. When he was around 5yrs old, he would rather read books than work with math. He’s excuse would always be “I’m tired” or “it’s difficult”. I can truly understand him though. I didn’t enjoy math when I was younger. Until I stepped into secondary school and discovered why we need math.
So instead of forcing him to solve arithmetic problems and giving him number activities, I exposed him to real life problems so he can appreciate math. I made him understand WHY WE NEED TO LEARN NUMBERS AND MATH. We would go to the groceries and count our items all together, doing addition and subtraction in between. Of course, he’s not aware we’re doing math, all he knows is that he’s helping Mommy do some groceries. At home, I secretly incorporate addition and subtraction by counting his missing pens, his toys and how many books he has read.
He loves the real life math! He can’t stand arithmetic problems but he enjoys real life problems. So what I did was create a bunch of colorful cards for us to work on, making sure there’s pictures (and we mostly use counters as well) to make it attractive. In the problems, I used his friends’ name so he’ll like it, and of course he finds it funny! He kept asking for more, more questions as he liked solving the problems. And that was the game changer.
Through these problem solving cards, he was able to appreciate math, and could now understand why he needs to practice arithmetic. He loves to solve math problems these days on his own and still loves solving problems.
So I created these problem solving cards for Pre-K students. It contains:
- 1 step problem solving for addition and subtraction
- 12 unique questions for addition within 10 (with pictures)
- 12 unique questions for subtraction within 10 (with pictures)
- 12 fill-in questions for addition to let the parents change the numbers for more practice (for advanced students, based on the questions with pictures). You can use counters for this.
- 12 fill-in questions for subtraction to let the parents change the numbers for more practice (for advanced students, based on the questions with pictures). You can use counters for this.
Mavi worked on these cards when he was 5-6yrs old. Though this is intended for 5-6yrs old children, older or younger kids can still use the cards as a practice material. Hope you like it and find it useful like we do. Thanks!