Learning About Farm Families

I shared in my Instagram last week that Vito is obsessed with the concept of “mommy, baby, and daddy” thing.  He would always pair our animal figures into families and do play pretend.  This made me decided to introduce Vito to the farm animal families which I introduced to Mavi a long time ago (Farm Families - FREE Sorting Cards).  There’s a deeper explanation why we teach kids about animal families.  We teach kids to distinguish and describe objects to form them into bigger groups.   Commonly, we group inanimate objects according to their size, shape and color which is an easy task for the child.  But when it comes to real organisms with no definite shape, size and color, it is more difficult to recognize similar characteristics. 

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Montessori Inspired Layers of the Ocean for Preschoolers

Vito is 40 months old.

Moving on to learning about the ocean for Earth Day, I’ve set up this activity tray to demonstrate to the boys that the ocean has many layers and that it is mostly represented by the darkness and lightness of the color blue. In the set-up, the layers are represented by the bottles, from the layer where there is sunlight to the part where there’s none at all.  We are using the book About the Ocean by Cathryn Sill to help us explore the different animals in the ocean.  Since this activity is intended for Vito (but Mavi was also participating), I didn’t focus much on the names of each layer since he can’t read yet, our activity was more on introducing the concept and for familiarity.

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.

Montessori Inspired Parts of a Flower Activities

This midterm break (for Mavi), I’m trying to setup activities that both of the boys (3 and 8 years old) can participate in.  One of which is learning about flowers and what they are made of.  Now, even though Mavi has done this a lot of times already (when he was 4, when he was 6) , he’s still eager to do this activity with his little brother.  This is something new for me though, doing the activity with two boys, making sure that it is engaging to the little one, but at the same time able to relay information to my 8 years old.  Anyway, you can skim through the post to see how I made the boys work together in the activities I prepared for them.

Learning about the Weather for Preschoolers

Drastic changes in weather can be experience around January when you are in Ireland.  Thus, I decided to introduce the concept of weather to Vito around this time.  I will do this in the simplest form I can think of and that’s by using a weather chart. 

Learning About the Phases of the Moon for Preschoolers

The boys had a blast learning about the phases of the moon last week.  We worked on this during our Goodnight Moon Unit and even though this was mainly for Vito, I decided to include Mavi as well.  With this, I prepared two sets of learning materials:  one for a preschooler and the other is for older kids (elementary).  This post is on how you can introduce the moon and its phases to kids from 3years and older.

Introducing the Human Skeleton to Preschoolers

Vito is 34 months old.

It’s that time of the year when my kids get to see a lot of human skeletons hanging everywhere!  No wonder October is the best time to introduce the human skeleton to your kids.  Vito is in the “what’s that” stage and he’s been asking me a lot of questions lately about these “funny” costumes and the hanging bones.  So I gathered a few old and new learning materials for him so I can introduce these amazing body system.

Preschool Animal Habitats using Sensorial Materials

We were reading a lot of animal books lately that I decided to introduce Vito to animal habitats.  I have no idea how to do it first, but then I realised that I have kinetic sand, some synthetic grass and unused ice in the fridge… enough materials to present three animal habitats of the world.  Take note that there was no serious “lesson” in here.  Everything was spontaneous, like a storytelling of animal homes.  The concept was introduced as Vito and I played along.  Much of the time was spent playing pretend, feeling and touching the grass, sand and ice!

Autumn Nature Finds and How We Use Them

We’ve been blessed with a beautiful weather last week. It’s actually pretty warm and sunny for September in Ireland which is quite unusual.  So I grabbed the opportunity to walk the boys everyday and collect nature objects.  We placed them in a basket and displayed it on the shelf for exploration and learning.

Life Cycle of an Apple Preschool Unit

Vito is 34 months old.

I am so excited to share this with you! Last week, I set up an apple life cycle to Vito (and Mavi on the background) for a little science exploration.  Apple is his favourite fruit and he was so delighted to see these materials in our shelf!  Now if you take a look at our activity and materials, they’re pretty simple and easy to follow by a young preschooler. I assembled it in such a way that it’s not too overwhelming for him, yet enjoying and engaging. 

Rocks and Minerals Learning Activities for Kids (with Free Cards)

The summer break gave us an opportunity to explore sciences that Mavi loved to learn but couldn’t because of school.  After our trip to the Wicklow Mountains last month, he’s been asking  if we could learn about rocks and minerals.  He plays Minecraft so he wanted to understand the building blocks he’s using.  I started making the materials last month and it was just a few weeks ago that I finished the entire set and we were able to use it together with our rock collections!

Activity Using Our Water Cycle Learning Pack

We finally concluded our Water Cycle Unit (for Mavi) and he had a blast!  It was timely because it rained for the past few days so we spent most of our days outdoors, observing the nature for the process of water cycle.  Now I’m sharing here the materials that we used and the extension activities that we did.

Understanding the Water Cycle

Last week I decided that Mavi and I should do a water cycle activity with Vito.  I prepared some materials and simple experiments to demonstrate this amazing science!

Sound Waves Experiment: The String Phone

I think is one of the best example of explaining to a 7 year old that sound travels.  I enjoyed playing with this as a young child. But instead of using styro cups, we were used tin cans which I think is more effective.

Introducing Simple Machines to Kids (with Free Printable)

This summer, Mavi requested that we do some science lessons that we haven’t touched before (math’s a different story though).  Thus previously, we had types of fossils and a review of clouds.  Last week, he was watching the story of the caveman on how they were able to build tools that helped them build houses, kill animals for food and clothing and for protection.  As you can see, in his spare time, he loves to spend time in the yard and looks for ways to create an axe using a stick and a stone.  With this interest, I introduced him to simple machines.

Kingdoms of Life: Animal Kingdom

Mavi borrowed this book from the library so we can revisit the Animal Kingdom and he wanted to explore more of the other kingdoms of life.  We’ve done a couple of times before (here and here) and he loves revisiting this over and over.

Fun Rain Cloud Experiment for Kids

Vito is 31 months old.

Still part of our study of the bodies of water, we tried the rain cloud experiment at home and it was a total hit!

Land and Water Forms Learning Materials

We are loving our new land and water forms learning materials! After using the cards in our Bodies of Water Unit, Mavi insisted that he should keep the cards in his room so he can read them everyday and use them as guide for his landform drawings!  The materials that we used in our activity are  available in my shop, Land and Water Forms Learning Pack and Montessori Land and Water Features.

Hands-On Learning: Land and Water Forms

We started our Bodies of Water Unit last week and Mavi wants to do some more activities again and look what he made for his little brother!

Indoor and Outdoor Light Activities for Kids

Vito is 31 months old.
I decided that for our Light and Shadow Unit, we’ll explore indoor and outdoor lights.