Toddler Beginnings 07

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I can barely take photos of Vito doing activities these days as my hands are also too busy being involved with it.  So one technique that most blogger Moms do is to take photos ahead of their materials for presentation.  I’d like to borrow this technique, but I will try to do my best to take snap shots of Vito doing these activities in action since I still find it cute to post some photos of him LOL. 

UPPER PHOTOS

• Montessori Letter Work book and Bible Stories (for Lent)
• Yellow Colour Basket
• Hape Counting stackers (a favourite!)

MIDDLE PHOTOS

• Mini unit block toys (he is enjoying stacking this blocks!)
• Melissa and Doug Jumbo Zoo Puzzle

BOTTOM PHOTOS

• Easter egg 1:1 correspondence activity
• Melissa and Doug Latches
• Easter Egg matching colour tray

We’ve been using the Montessori Letter work for weeks now and Vito loves tracing the letters.  We’re also reading the Bible Stories (this was Mavi’s) for Lent.  The rest of our reading/language materials can be found here.

Because Easter is just around the corner, we’re doing a few Easter themed activities. This one is a colour matching activity. I got the pail from a local book store and the yellow mini baskets from Dunnes.  I am sure that there’s plenty of these at Amazon.

Another activity is the 1:1 correspondence. Vito loves transferring objects and I am sure he’s going to enjoy this one!

   

New activity this week is the building of blocks!  This is an old toy  and I got it out for Vito to use.  Vito is starting to enjoy stacking the blocks.  I torn between getting the pink tower and brown stairs or Melissa and Doug Unit Blocks.

                    

We love our Giotto Bebe finger paints! It has NO SMELL AT ALL and SO EASY TO WASH!  I came across this brand when we were staying in Belgrade and I fell in love with it instantly. Their finger paints are so creamy and Vito loves its vivid colours! And it is sooo easy to remove (and non toxic too!). 

                   

And I let him use our  Do-a-Dot markers!  This is colouring a cross for Lent.  We’re taking a break from crayons and pens so I’m letting him use this stamp markers for variation.  This he has to practice stamping, not writing as he used to.  I have to demonstrate first what to do with it. We’ll be using this a little bit more for practice.

 

It has been sunny for the past weeks and we’re always outdoors! 

 

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March Activities and {Learn & Play Link Up}

March is fast approaching and I’ve been doing some planning for the boy’s activities for next month.   I am also looking forward for a warm weather so we can do outdoor play and exploration.  For this week’s featured activities, let me share Vito’s first “themed” unit:

We had a lot of fun with these, especially the scooping of pompoms and the paint works!

Now, for this week’s featured posts, I am sharing the activities that you can do for the month of March!

Bible Stories Sequencing Activity Cards

We love telling and hearing Bible stories at home!  Especially in this season of Lent and as preparation for the upcoming Easter celebration.

Our Spring Season Picture Cards

Spring is just around the corner and I’ve been thinking about the activities that the boys and I can do. I was very much inspired by Deb’s post on Spring Season Cards, so I borrowed the idea of printing pictures that relates to spring and we will be using them for the follwing:

• introducing the season of spring to Vito
• creating stories using the picture cards
• inspiration for crafts
• inspiration for outdoor activities
• St. Patrick and Easter activities
• farm animals and their babies
• animal life cycles

Montessori Inspired Dinosaur Activity Trays for Preschoolers

This is a long overdue post because we’ve been doing a lot of outdoor activities lately.  Most kids are really fascinated with dinosaurs, especially my eldest who’s obsessed with these prehistoric animals.  So last Easter break, we revisited some of our dinosaur activities and introduced new ones to Vito.  Here’s a roundup of our dinosaur activities which both of the kids enjoyed during the break and I hope your kids will love this too.

The Story of Christmas - Sequencing Activity

Earlier today, Vito and I spent a delightful time creating our Nativity Sequencing Story to celebrate Advent. In the past few days, we have been reading various books on the Christmas story, and today, we worked on some extension activities to practice some skills that I will mention below.

How We Learn Colours These Days

We finally started our colour toddler basket last week wherein we put red objects in the basket for learning colours.  We started with the colour Red, the colour of Valentines Day and Chinese New Year

There are so many versions of this basket, sometimes they are called discovery baskets or treasure baskets wherein Mommies gather specific or themed objects and place them in a basket for the baby and toddler to explore.  Now what makes our version different?

B4FIAR: Ask Mr. Bear

A few weeks ago, we rowed Ask Mr Bear and pull out a Farm Animals themed as well. My son loves this book to pieces and he can almost memorize it.  There were times I can here him do a monologue using his animal figures (Safari Toobs) basing on the story.  
Here are some pictures that best describes the activities we did to go along with the book.

Story sequencing. To make it more interesting I added the objects the animals offered to Danny as a gift for his Mom.  This printable was downloaded from Homeschool Creations.

Identifying beginning sounds using the printable pack which I downloaded as mentioned previously.

Where’s the Birthday Cake game which has the same mechanism as Where’s the Easter Card game.   Another favorite math game!

 
Oh and this is exactly the reason why I seldom have time to post.  This is out of topic, but we really really love playing outdoors.
Animal farm family matching game.  The cards can be downloaded here.  Well this is just my version, I made this because I was inspired by My Montessori Moments who has a COMPLETE set of animal families for download.   

Lastly, we sort zoo and farm animals. 

I am looking forward of rowing this again, and hopefully by then I have enough idea, resources and time to carry out additional activities.
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Faith Formation Books

Aside from The Bible, do you have favourite books to read with kids that tells about Jesus (if you are a Christian) and Godly stories?

Exploring the Landmarks of the World

Our recent trip to the United States has reignited Mavi’s interest in geography, and he asked me if he could review our landmarks of the world figures to check the places he has already visited.

Bird Theme List of Materials

Spring Themed Activities for Toddlers and {Learn & Play Link Up}

In this week’s featured posts, I would like to focus on spring activities for toddlers.  Vito is in the peak of learning as he always asks for something to “play”.  These amazing posts from featured bloggers will truly inspire you.

Lent In Our Home

My son attends a Catholic school so he knows all our religion’s celebrations and traditions.  I was  raised in a Catholic family and during Lent we do a lot of religious activities at home like processions, daily prayers, participating in the Stations of the Cross, novenas, watching religious films in the church and attending mass and more.  I wanted my kids to experience this to understand the meaning of Lent and why we celebrate Easter. So I decided to start a simple Lenten tradition in our home, to focus on Jesus, prayer, meditation and sacrifice.

 

Color Theory Part I

Helloooo!! How’s everyone??? I haven’t been in this blog for a week!  Oh well, it must be the Easter vacation hangover or probably enjoying much of our Spring break :)

I’m participating in this Spring Blog Hop, it sounds fun!  That is why we did colors today to jumpstart our Spring activities :) 

I decided to take this one slow, so we only did two color schemes and skipped the colorwheel.  I’m using the The ABC’s of Art to discuss the primary and secondary colors (we’ll be doing other colors next).  So I took our red, yellow and blue paints to create secondary colors.  I made use of cotton buds LOL as our paint brushes.  Since we’ll just be mixing paints, it would save me a lot of work since I can dispose them easily rather than using paint brushes where I have to wash them after we use them.

Mine is on the upper portion.  I made sure to have my own work too… and surprisingly, I enjoyed it!

With all colors available (primary and secondary), we made a rainbow :)  These are the colors that makes a rainbow in order from the colorwheel.

This is my son’s version of rainbow colors.

Next, we’ll do the colorwheel and study other color schemes like complimentary colors, warm and cool colors, and maybe neutral colors as well.

Linking to:

Montessori Monday 
Teach Beside Me
Montessori Spring Blog Hop

Euro Coins

Before the Holy Week I pulled out a lesson about money and learning how to count/use Euro coins.

I got the coins from ELC which was on sale last Christmas and it was just this month that we get to use it because my son has been playing a lot of “going to the grocery” and pretending to buy something.

Here’s the set-up. The control cards were homemade and the Euro coins we’re using at the moment are 2EU, 1EU, 0.50EU, 0.20EU, 0.10EU, 0.05EU. Since I don’t want to overwhelm him with so much info, I skipped using the 1cents and 2cents.

First I discussed all about the money, and where we usually use it. Then I made him match the coins with the control cards. He did very well!

After which, I cut out these pictures from a magazine and we played the “grocery” game using our Euro coins.

Here he is selecting what he wanted to buy. Then I would tell him how much it cost... say 1Euro. Then he would go back to the table and pick the 1Euro from the pile shown in the picture below. I was surprise that he never missed! He always gives me the right amount!

Now, there were times that he selects more than one item... and that means I added the total amount. Say it cost 3.50Euro, so I would tell him to get a 3.50Euro... and instruct him that the amount is composed of 2Euro, 1Euro and 0.50Euro. He loves loves playing this game! And it’s also a perfect exercise for learning addition.

I am planning to do plenty of money games in the next few days wherein I will focus on learning how to add coins in order to match the total amount. As he progress, I will introduce more denominations including the bills as well.

Happy Easter everyone!

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