Landmarks Around the World

Vito had a sudden interest in naming landmarks.  He was fascinated with the pyramids after watching a show about kids exploring ancient sites like pyramids in Egypt and  great walls of China.  I immediately showed a couple of our photos from our travels featuring some of these landmarks in the background.  He was totally surprised that I have been to some of those places.  With this, I introduced him to some other places around the world.

Animals of Antarctica Printable with Safari Toob Antarctica Set

Have you seen Safari Toob Antarctic toob yet?  To me it’s one of the best toob they ever had!  I mean aside from penguins, can you name other animals that live in Antarctica?  Quite difficult right?  That’s why we are so happy that Safari Ltd finally came up with these figures so we can introduce our kids to other animals thriving in Antarctica other than penguins!  So if you have kids or students who love animals and learning about places, Safari Antarctica Toob is one good learning toy you can invest in.

Safari Ltd Mammal Skulls Discovery Play

The boys are loving these mammal skulls which Safari Ltd has sent us!  They specifically love to bury these in the kinetic sand and play scavenger hunt or play-pretend to be scientists.  This is one of the afterschool activities the boys enjoy playing together and working independently.

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.

Montessori Inspired Life Cycle of a Green Bean Plant

This is a follow-up activity on our Montessori Inspired Parts of a Plant.

After learning about the parts of a plant, Vito and I talked about how plants grow.  We walked around the estate and identified baby plants, some of them were just actually sprouting off the ground and this amazed Vito.  We also read the book How A Seed Grows to go along with our activity, this is a really good book!  The book illustrates the different stages of a plant’s (bean plant) life, from the preparations to planting up to the the part where the grown plant needs to be moved into a ground soil.  We have a few of these Read and Find Out books and Mavi loves to use them as reference.  Anyway, aside from the book, I also used the very beautiful Life Cycle of a Green Bean Plant from Safari Toob and a homemade life cycle cards (this are now available in my shop, Early Childhood Life Cycle Mats).

What are Insects?

Here’s a simple way of telling whether an animal is an insect:  has 6 legs (with or without wings).  This is something new to Vito, the word “insect”.  He usually calls them with their real names like flies, bees, dragonflies, etc. but is not familiar with their category.  Now, this is the first time that I introduced this concept, so he struggled a little bit until we started counting the legs!

Montessori Inspired Life Cycle of Insects

Vito and I have been talking about insects in the past few days.  I mentioned in my previous post, the current interest on insects was brought about by their sudden appearance.  So far he has encountered quite a few already like garden ants, flies, wasps and bees, and bugs. It’s a shame we haven’t seen grasshoppers and dragonflies here, I used to catch and collect them as a child (back in Asia). Anyway, since our last activity on Farm Families, Vito still loves to learn about mommies, daddies, and babies, thus I introduced the life cycle of insects early on in our activities.  Unlike my past activities with Mavi, this one is very simple and straight forward.

Seen here are the life cycles figures of:  butterfly, bee, ant, and ladybird.

FREE Land Water and Air Sorting Mats

Many of my blog followers are requesting for these sorting mats and I’m so happy to finally get to share them with you!!  You can now download a copy of our land, water and air sorting mats which Vito and I would use in sorting different animal figures (Safari Toobs and Schleich) whether they thrive in land, water or in the sky.  See how we used the sorting mats in this post, Introducing Toddlers to Animals in Land, Water and Air. 

Introducing the Solar System to Preschoolers

In line with our Days of Creation activities, the boys and I talked about how the universe came to be.  Mavi used his Usborne Fact Cards once again to review some solar system concepts and this made Vito get into the mood of exploring the planets as well.  

Animal Habitats Sorting and Activity Sheets

Vito is 40 months old.

If you read my post on the 12 Months More of Montessori for Earth Science, Vito and I will be working on animal habitats.  We tried this before, in its simplest form when Vito was still a toddler and I decided to move forward into a more abstract approach (with some sensorial activity) now that Vito is older.  In this post, I’m going to share the learning materials which the boys are using and the books to go along with our activities.

Animals Around the World Activity

Vito is 39 months old.

There is nothing more precious in this world than seeing your kids work together peacefully LOL.  During the midterm break, I prepared some activities which both of them can participate in.  It’s not just about the academics, but my main purpose is for them to learn how to work together as a team and bond as brothers.  So aside from learning about flowers, the boys also explored the animals of the world using our Montessori Inspired Animal Continents Activity Sheets.  Mavi was so ecstatic to do this with Vito as he loves animals (he said he’s an expert) and geography.

Montessori Inspired ASIA Continent for Preschoolers

Vito is 39 months old.

This month, I’m helping Vito explore the Asia continent .  We’ve started continent study last year, which was followed by an exploration of the penguins in Antarctica.  We occasionally look at Maps and work on the continent puzzle, and based on my observation, Vito is ready to learn about Asia.

Montessori Inspired February Activities for Preschoolers

Vito is 39 months old.

Thank goodness January is almost over!  I really don’t like January, it’s that time of the year where we get to experience the worst weather condition.  Fortunately, we have fair weather this year, it’s actually warm!  But, I am so looking forward to spring now, and I can’t wait for all these gloomy days to be over.  And speaking of spring, this month, I’ll start adding “spring” activities into our homeschool activities.  We will be using traditional Montessori materials for most part and in some, we’ll have themed activities.  Hope you like what I prepared for Vito for this month.

Introducing Toddlers to Animals in Land, Water and Air

I had two presentations for the land, water, and air animals.  I first showed Vito what’s land, water, and air animals.  We worked with action songs to demonstrate how animals move in land, water, and air.  After I presented the pictures and the trays, Vito sorted out the animal figures I prepared for him.

Animals and their Covers

My boys love animal covers!  We used this whenever we want to play around with or beautiful animals from Schleich or whenever Mavi wants to replicate them through drawing.

Montessori Inspired Activity: Musical Instruments

As we continue our Sound and Music Unit, I also introduced the different musical instruments.  Of course, it would be best if we have all of these (LOL) or least own one, but since we don’t these beautiful musical figures from Safari Toob will do.

Montessori-Inspired Activity: The Life of a Honey Bee

Vito is 32 months old.

The appearance of the honey bees in our front and backyard has led us to look into the lives of these beautiful creatures who are the main source of honey.  Vito is terrified of them but not Mavi.  We were out the other day catching a few of them, observing how they produce the buzzing sound and freed them up again.

Montessori Inspired Insects Activity

I am reintroducing some Montessori-inspired activities once again to Vito.  We’ve been doing lots of free play for the past few days that I miss giving him “prepared” activities.  As he will turn three in the next few months, I’m planning to have a more “structured” schedule and curriculum for him this school year. I’ll share that later on once I figure out how to do that. 

Anyway, so in our Insects Unit, I borrowed these cards from my friends at The Wise Owl.  They’re Philippine based online shop that provides Montessori cards and Safari Toob figures locally.  Their cards are lovely and the images are so beautiful!

Dinosaur Small World Play Tray

Here’s what a mother can  do to her dinosaur-obsessed kids. 

Collection of Transportation Activities for Toddlers

Vito is 30 months old.

We’ve just concluded our week long transportation-themed activities and I would like to share with you the activities and materials Vito loved and enjoyed using!  Hope you find these helpful!