MEXICO, the place you thought you knew

It is so hard to to have after "school" activities lately as it gets dark early in the afternoon. Mavi would ask me why we're doing school in the evening when in fact it is just three in the afternoon.  Though we still have a lot of things to cover up before the year ends I'm not letting  myself stress out and be pressured of my "to dos".  As I always say, the journey of our schooling at home is all about the experience and fun that we have NOT entirely about the output.

Okay, enough ranting.  This post is all about our Mexico Unit which we started last week.  The materials that we used in this unit are the following:

• Flags of North America
• Flags of Australia/Oceania
• My Adventure Book (North America Edition)  (read about it here)

We started with flags.  We review the countries that we have studied so far and compare them.  As you can see we work on the 3 part cards, and country-capital city matching cards.  These are all included in the printables mentioned above.

 

We talked about the colors used in the Mexican flag, and Mavi discovered that Australia and the United States uses the red color as well! So we discuss the meaning of the red color (and why it is always used in flags) and the green color and what it means to the history of Mexico.

Aside from coloring, we made a Mexican flag similar to this project. We used tissue paper and a cardstock.

 

Mavi made an eagle at the center of the flag representing the coat of arms of Mexico.

Moving on... we also worked on the biomes of Mexico.  We did this with Australia, and I decided that we should try a different approach this time. 

We made a map of Mexcio (biomes) using PlayDoh. We use yellow for desert and light green for deciduous and tropical rainforest (I can't find a darker shade of green to represent the tropical rainforest).  Our maps (left) and Mavi's (right) show below.

 

And we added plants, animals and landmarks found in Mexico.

And that's it for now. I'll be posting a second part of our study as I don't want this post to end up like a novel LOL.

For more FREEbies and learning aids, please check The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads.

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!
All and things beautiful: history geography

Intro to Decanomial Beads

Finally, my Decanomial beads has arrived!  This is the first Montessori materials I purchased and it's so worth it.  Son loved it immediately. Actually, if you've been following my blog, I have a few homemade beads.  But the problem is that I don't have enough and don't have the storage box. 

Now that I own this set we can do a lot of Montessori math :)  And the box really comes in handy.

The first thing we tried was the Snake Game.  I am using Karen Tyler's Math album for this one but you can read about the mechanics of the activity here.

 

Oh we'll be very busy in the next few days :)  We'll use this alongside our study of Mexico and United States.

My Adventure Book (North America Edition)

I'm happy to announce that My Adventure Book for North America is now available!  It covers three countries of North America:  Canada, Mexico and the United States.  My first release was Australia/Oceania and Mavi loved it.  We had a wonderful time learning all about Australia... and you can read about it here, here and here.

This is just in time to for a brief introductory of the United States for Mavi in this month of US Thanksgiving. And we'll also be using our Turkey Nomenclature and Definition Booklet to complete the theme :)

 

Each country in the file contains:

• Fact sheet
• Meaning and use of the country's flag and coat of arms
• Maps of the country
• Biomes and landmarks

• Known animals existing on each country
• Famous people
• Famous cuisine/food
• DIY postcards, images for coloring, postage stamps, immigration stamps for play pretend
• And activity sheets
• Spanish and French Salutation Flash Cards (For Mexico and Canada)

Here's how I keep them in clear folder.  We'll be working with Mexico tomorrow (Mavi's special request)

Hoping that you will try it!  Thank you!

For more FREEbies and learning aids, please check The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads.

Turkey Nomenclature Card and Definition Booklet

Look what I made for our Thanksgiving Theme activity this month!

The file contains:

• 13 picture cards
• 13 labels
• 13 control cards
• 13 definitions for booklet
• activity sheets
• title cards

Hope you like it.  Enjoy!

For more FREEbies and learning aids, please check The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads.

Continuing our Blue and Green Series

I have been busy making materials for the past few days.  Although Mavi has done these a lot of times already, I decided to have new activities when it comes to language to enhance his fluency, vocabulary and improve his spelling.  These activities were very much inspired by Making Montessori Ours.  I love the depth of their math and language lessons so I decided to try it with my son as well using Montessori materials (I purchased a few).

Since my moveable alphabet will be arriving next week, I already prepared these cards to jumpstart our lesson.  I am still contemplating whether to get a language manual or not.  As of the moment, I am just relying on other's Montessori mom blogs and the ones that are free online.  If ever I will purchase a manual, I am torn whether to get it from Montessori Research and Development or from KHT Montessori.  Having said that, I'm also busy reading reviews on which one will fit our home school.

As of now, we're practicing the digraphs sounds and writing the words.  We'll be doing the beginning and ending digraphs, and identifying digraphs used in the middle of the words.