B4FIAR: Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina (Part 2)

Mavi is 36 months old.

As a continuation of our B4FIAR for Caps for Sale, we did crafts, math and science after our language lessons . For math, I relied on the the packs which I downloaded from the site I mentioned in my pervious post.  Then I added some patterning activities using homemade materials.

ARTS AND CRAFTS.  We did tree painting and attempted to put monkeys on it too!  During our activity, I showed him how to create a simple tree using brown color for trunks and branches, and green for leaves.  As we go along, I would describe how I execute my strokes.  After which, I encouraged him to do the same.

                                    

But he was eager to do something different using his fingers.  Picture above is showing my son making a turtle hehe.

Below is a painting of my son’s version of a tree.  He did the trunk and branches and put a small amount of leaves on it.  Then I finished his work by adding more leaves.

MATH.  We read the book once again and while doing so, I made him arrange the caps according to the color that was mentioned on the book.  Again, the file was from the B4FIAR packs of Homeschool Creations (see previous post for the link).

        

Then I introduced the concept of patterns.  This is something new for him as he wasn’t interested with patterning before.  And I was surprise that he liked our matching activity this time and even asked for more!  All pattern materials are homemade (you can send me a PM if you want the file).   The graphics in the pattern file were just taken randomly via Google image.

Here, we did a pattern match.  So happy that he finished this activity in a minute.  But I was kind of disappointed that it didn’t challenged him a bit.

Next we did some “follow the patterns” activity. He was very keen on how he will position the patterns and made sure that he gets them right.

      

Below is a coin counting activity that my son enjoyed the most. To make it more “Montessorish”, I made him use some play coins for counting.  So instead of him counting the ones on the card, he counts as he places a coin on top of the picture on the card.  We use a wooden peg which I bought at a craft store nearby.

      

SCIENCE: PARTS OF A TREE

These activities were not supposed to be part of our B4FIAR.  I was preparing this for our “trees” theme activities  but decided to add it to our B4FIAR curriculum because a “big tree” is mentioned on the book.

So here’s what I came up... a tree puzzle made from felt sheets.  Totally forgot where I got the pattern... promise to add a link once I find the source.  I put labels so my son can familiarize himself with the different parts of the trees.

 

Mavi was very very excited for this material.  He loves puzzles and he kept asking me if he can do the puzzle all by himself.  See how he position the branches :)

     

We made use of the 3-part nomenclature card (homemade) for parts of the trees.

Inspired by this post, I made a matching game of tree shapes.  The graphics were all sourced from the internet randomly.

      

And here, we further discussed the parts of a tree by doing paper crafts.

 

Well there you go... our very own B4FIAR for Caps for Sale.  To end this post... here’s my little one pretending to be the peddler and balancing a throw pillow on his head :)

A Tree Dice Game

This week we tried the fall dice game after reading this post from My Montessori Journey.  I got bored with our numbers and counters activity that I wanted to try a different approach with math this time.

Since I'm saving ink, I just made all of these out of cardstock instead of the ones made available for download.  I made the dice direction by drawing the leaves, use crayons to color them and added the dice counterparts (was based on the original file).    This would have been better if I made the tree trunk out of brown foam sheet though so I can reuse it in the future.  But the thing is I can't find a brown foam sheet here so I might as well redo the tree trunk out of a felt paper.  Anyway, for the maple leaves... I printed it out of different colored cardstocks and cut each one.  It requires a lot of work, but you can save a lot of time if you can purchase small craft foam leaves.   

Here’s how my version works:

1. Position the tree.
2. Make the child identify the number that appears after rolling/tossing the dice. 
3. Based on your dice direction (see white paper), put the colored leaf that corresponds to the number of the dice.
4. If your child doesn’t recognize the number dots on the dice you can have him match it to your direction card.

      

My son loves playing this game.  He enjoys tossing the dice and becomes giddy every time he puts a leaf on the tree.  He can easily recognize the dots on the dice from 1-4 but gets confuse between 5 and 6 at at times.  We will continue playing this game especially Fall is just around the corner :)

 

Later on, he decided to group the leaves according to their colors :)

Practical Life Activities

Because he’s in school most of the time, we seldom do practical life activities.  Last Friday he was home the whole day and I made him do some activities while at home.

Here he is practicing how to use a chopstick.  I got the chopstick trainer from a craft store nearby and made use of all our old pompoms.  At first he finds it difficult to pick up the pompoms out of the container.  You see, the pompoms are very soft so it needs a lot of eye and hand coordination and concentration as well in order to pick them up.  Finally after a few tries, he was able to discover a few techniques so he can pick and transfer them on the ice tray.

We have this toy for a long time and it didn’t occurred to me that we can use it to practice stringing.   Since my son is obsessed with letters, I know that he would love doing this activity.  When I gave it to him and showed him how I can string the letters together with pipe cleaners, boy oh boy, he immediately asked for his own set too!

Another thing that you can do here is practice reading cvc words by putting 3-letters words together and read it together. This way, it’s much more fun than just putting cvc letters together on the fridge :)   My son loves to string everything together and pretend that it is his crown. He would put it on his head and proclaim himself as “the king”.

Letter Sounds and Writing Practice

These are the materials I made for my son to work for writing and practicing phonics.  Every week we work on two letters based on our ramfbitg (red), cusnpolh (yellow) and dexqyjkvwz(blue) series.  I got this idea from My Montessori Journey where she categorized her letter sounds by color codes.

Here I’m presenting the letter for M for it’s the beginning letter of my son’s name :)

Each set is comprised of:

• a color coded sound book (DIY)
• a letter builder made from foam sheets
• a letter builder control card
• an Itsy Bitsy book which I got from here
• lowercase tracing card from Kumon
• uppercase tracing card which is a DIY
• a lowercase sandpaper letter

Below is a closer look of what’s inside my sound booklet. Each booklet is made up of 4 pages with images inside that begins with the letter M.  I don’t have specific order as to what we need to work on first.  Sometimes my son and I would read the booklets then do the writing, or the other way around.

After we have worked on a pair of letters, we do some phonics exercises with our Alpha Phonics Boxes. 

Frog Unit Part 2

Here’s a continuation of our Frog Unit.  You can find the first part here.

This is a “Life Cycle” booklet which I bought at a random shop in SG.  It contains life cycles of all significant animals that we will studying for pre-school to kindergarten. Very useful and has lots of beautiful graphics.  My son loves to read this book over and over.

 

Using this 3-part nomenclature card, which I downloaded from somewhere (I forgot the link!) I demonstrated the lifecycle of the frog by ordering the cards.  I was saving ink so I didn’t print a second batch to be use as picture and label cards.

We ordered the cycle of the frogs according to how it is presented on the book.

      

I made a frog puzzle.  The pattern of the frog was from Montessori N’ Such.  I made the puzzle out of foam sheets, but I’m thinking of redoing it using felt craft sheets. 

We read this frog book over and over again.  This is an 8 pages book entitled “I am a Frog” and it is also very informative.  I love how the frog in this book is presented... a little bit cartoonish.  It’s an easy to read, just 2-3 sentences a page which makes it easier for little ones to follow.

      

Frog Unit Part 1

Finally, we started working on our Frog themed activities.  I made sure that I have enough materials on hand to start this theme for my son usually keeps asking for “more”.

PARTS OF A FROG.  I made use of the 3-part nomenclature card which I downloaded for free from Montessori Print Shop.  The author/owner of the site gave a detailed post on how to use and create these cards.  My son loves doing this activity.  He always gets excited whenever I would take out a set of card for us to work on.  I will provide a separate post regarding 3-part cards. 

PRACTICAL LIFE.  I made these cutting strips using MSWord for Mavi to practice cutting.  The first half has a line guide while the rest doesn’t have.  I made him use the ones with the guides first so he would know what to do or how to execute the cutting exercise.  The frog image was taken from a random google search.

NUMBERS AND COUNTERS. I made frog counters for this activity out of green cardstock, covered it with contact paper and cut each frog piece. 

      

Math using Beads Stairs

Our math for the past weeks was all about bead stairs.  I’ve been wanting to try this on Mavi for a long time but he doesn’t show any sign of interest in counting.  These days, he was so fascinated with the beads that he wanted to use it.

I had difficulty when I first introduced this to him for I cannot get him to cooperate. He wanted to play the beads “his own way”.  But when I took the bead stairs worksheets that was the time he finally gave up and allowed me to take control. (that’s because he wanted to color the worksheets)

 

So this how we practice counting at the moment.  First I discussed about the beads, that each bead corresponds to a number. For him not to be overwhelmed by the loads of counting, I just introduced the 1-5 beads.  I placed the number cards and the beads on the table and made him “match” by counting the beads. 

 

Then we use the worksheet.  I made him color the “circles” with corresponding color code of the beads.  In here, I just laid out the crayons on the table, and ask him to color the worksheet.  He perfectly did well in picking up the right color that corresponds to the short beads.

      

I also made another set of short bead stairs and Mavi helped me with it.  He loves putting the macaron beads on the pipe cleaners.  It is a just joy seeing him so happy that he can string the beads together.  And the fact that he was working me with as well! And look! He insisted on taking a picture after we have assembled our bead stairs.

 

      

Here’s what we ended up:

And here’s what more he can do with the beads aside from counting... forming letters!  See even if he’s on a math session, he would steal a moment to build his letters!

Oh I forgot to mention that he can write letters now? It definitely deserves a separate post.

Flowers and Math

Wanting to try something new for our math activity, I decided to make flower counters and matching cards. 

First, I wanted to make a pattern activity.  But I was too lazy to make pattern materials so I just made these flower matching cards.  The objective here is for Mavi to match the multi-colored petal flowers from the pink cards to the white cards.  I thought that this was complicated enough for my son to get challenged, but I was wrong.  He finished the activity in a few minutes with no difficulties at all!  So the lesson here:  DO NOT UNDER ESTIMATE THE CAPACITY OF YOUR CHILD :)

My next plan to make matching games a little complicated.

      

Numbers and counters.  I don’t have any flower counters so I just draw them on a paper.  The number cards are DIY.

I was happy that I came up with this idea of making plants with flowers.  He got challenged here, for he cannot immediately identify the quantity of the flowers by the sight of it.  Thus in this case, he needed to count them one by one.  He had a few miss between numbers 5 and 6 but that’s okay.  Here I am showing him the many different ways we can count objects.

      

Remind to self:

1. Repeat flower numbers and counters and included numbers 7 to 10.
2. Patterning activities for flowers.
3. Make flower matching activity more challenging :)

Till our next math activities!