Botany Unit: The Plant

Last week's activity:  The Plant  (my son is obsessed with Legos and he made a Lego plant similar to our cards LOL)

This is how I store my nomenclature cards.  Nothing fancy, just a green cardstock (Green for Botany)  and divided it into three sections.  I measured the width and height of the cards to make sure they fit well in each pocket.

First we read books. I started discussing how does a plant grow, what does it do and it's essential role on our environment.

Then I took out our materials.  This sunflower plant is from his school.  It's a perfect model for our study.

Next thing, we talk about the different parts of the plant.  As seen here, he's working on the parts of the plant nomenclature cards.

We also have blank labeling card worksheets.  He colors each part of the plant and writes the label/s on it.  He loved this!

                

Because I run out of felt, I wasn't able to prepare a poor man's version of a plant puzzle.  So instead I have him make a plant out of colored papers.  He did most of the work here.  All I did was to draw the outlines on the paper and assist him in cutting the parts.

  This is how it looks like when he was done.  I read the booklet to define each parts as he formed his plant.

 

If you may ask, all materials seen here (nomenclature, worksheet and booklet) are all in one file (click the  picture for the link).

 

And because he can't get enough of what he has learned, he collected these on our way home from school. 

Next post is all about photosynthesis and plant life cycle.

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Spring Carnival

Tree Shapes Outdoor Activity (Worksheet and Printable)

Because of the wonderful weather, I decided to throw a Botany Unit for this month.  We've got plenty of trees around the estate, all with different shapes so I was thinking that we should jump-start our Botany lessons with Tree Shapes.

So I made him a learning material that would help us identify the tree shapes in our estate... and hopefully use it this weekend as we visit the park.  This is an activity sheet that is included in the printable material, Tree Shapes.  We've also brought along our green do-a-dot marker with our worksheet.

Sifting and Discovering Gems!

This is one activity my son truly enjoyed :)  We never had "practical life" activities for quite a while and I was thinking to re-introduce some of it.

                

For this activity, I poured some flour on a bowl and added some gemstones we got from a recent trip to a leisure park.  Then I gave him a sifter to uncover all those precious gems!

                

And it is also a good practice in math! Try counting how many gems you discovered :) 

You can also use sand instead of flour and beads, letters, numbers or objects instead of the gems.

Try it! You're kids will looove it!

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Bird Study Part II

Sharing with you the conclusion of our Bird Study Unit which we started a last week. 

You can read about the first part here.

Activities related to our study can be found here and here.

Bird's Beak.  Now this is a new activity which we didn't touch last year.  It was way advance for a 3 yrs old but now that my son can grasp complex information, I decided to introduce this to him.  I got the picture from The Visual Dictionary, it shows some of the different sizes and shapes of a bird's beak.  Based on what we have learned from our Bird Parts Definition booklet (Bird Pack), the beak or bill is used mostly for grooming, protection and how birds catch and eat their food.  Some  are long so they can catch foods in the water, some are short because they mainly eat soft fruits and some can be sharp as they are used to hunt other birds and animals.

So we used our bird figures again to examine the different beaks.  These figures are from Safari Toob and Schleich... I have been collecting them for years as my son loves animals and they're learning materials.

Bird's Feet.  We also talked about the different shapes of a bird's foot.  They are designed to be different are birds live in different habitats. Like birds living in water have webbed feet for swimming, those living in trees have sharp claws etc.  Again, I printed out the picture seen below from here.

I also used this information in our discussion. You can get this from Science Buddies.

Next, we talked about different types of birds.  The picture cards (nomenclature cards) are included in my Bird Pack which you can get from here.  We talked about the unique features and characteristics of each.

This is how we differentiate each one (see picture below).  By using a printable bird facts, we were able to learn how each one differs from another. 

You can download this file for FREE from here.

I love how my son is eager to learn about these birds! 

 

Bird's Nest.  We were supposed to make a nest out of twigs and leaves in the backyard.   But it rained for days and I had a flu bug, so we ended up making some nest indoors LOL.  

               

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Weekend at the Park

We were blessed with a wonderful weather last weekend so we decided to visited a leisure park for rest and recreation :) 

First thing we did was of course visit the animals, as my son looooves animals!  We were so happy to see them all out in the open and were eager to entertain the kids.  I was glad that we get to see most of the birds from our Bird Study Unit I.  Rhea, Emu, Turkey, Chickens, Peacocks, Stork etc.  And surprisingly, there were lots of farm and zoo animals as well.

 

Oh and these are Bisons!! My first encounter with them.... such beautiful creatures!

 

When we're done with the animals, we proceeded to the activity  area the little boy to have some fun.  And look who's not scared of the Air Jump!

  

And the highlight of the trip was the pony ride :)  His teacher told me he can't stop talking about it in school LOL.

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Bird Watching!

Oh the weather is just so wonderful today that we decided to skip indoor activities (read our Bird Study Part I)  and do some bird watching and look for some bird's nests :)

 

And look what we found along the way, feathers! 

Hoping to visit the port this weekend so we can see some gulls too!

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Bird Study Part I

I wanted to share to you our Bird Study which we had last week.  We did this last year, but since my son is getting a bit older I added a few activities so he can understand birds a little bit deeper.

First we started with Parts of the Bird nomenclature card and booklet (all included in The Bird Pack).

We matched birds using our Bird Cards and the our bird collections coming from Safari Toobs (Exotic Birds, Down Under, Penguin and Farm) and Schleich.

All birds found in Safari Toob Exotic Birds have a matching card which also included the The Bird printable pack.  then I also added a few more bird cards so we can discuss the different kinds of birds.

I think he never outgrows matching! He still loves them even if he's been doing this activity for years!  

                 

Seen below, we are discussing the different kinds of birds, their characteristics, unique features and how they differ from others.  I will try to come up with a free printable for this one after I summarize the data, as it is worth sharing :) 

Then of course, we discuss the different parts of the bird using our Bird Definition Booklet.  Then I had my son do our homemade bird puzzle and put labels on each part.

                   

Next post is still on birds, we're doing worksheets, differentiate beaks and bird's feet.

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Define Sun Bathing :D

Happy Sunday!

The Bird (Pack)

We had a Bird Study last week and the printable material that we used is now up and available.

 

(Click the picture for the link)

 

The Bird Pack contains 12 parts of the bird nomenclature card and booklet.
      - 12 picture cards
      - 12 labels
      - 12 control cards
      - 16 bird cards (3 part cards)
      - bird activity sheets
      - title cards

We used the bird cards for matching with our bird figures (Safari Toobs and Schleich). 

 

We also used them to discuss the different kinds of birds.

And the booklet comes in handy when we discuss the different parts of the bird.  As we talk about each part, we place a label on the bird puzzle as shown on the picture below.

Hope you like it! Enjoy!

Working on Spelling

My son is currently obsessed with these Trace and Spell Worksheets that I made for him.  He's been working on them for days and loves to do them all over again.

I first gave him just four sheets to work on, but when he's done he said "Are there more of these Mom? I want to do them all!"


The file is available here.

I don't want to tire him so he worked on with the rest over the weekend.  I'm surprised he did very well with the CVC spelling. We're impressed! Husband said that I should give him the 4 letter words or the blending consonant words.  We might do that next month!

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Happy Mother's Day!