Updates on Math and Language

And so we've been doing language and math seriously this summer.  So here's what we have accomplished so far:

Language.  Initially we were working with kindergarten workbook, but he finished it in no time and seems bored so I upgraded him to a first grader workbook (bought it in a local bookstore) and so far he is liking it.  He loves the challenge and the work book got lots of reading comprehension exercises which I really really like. 

And we are also working on digraphs using my Consonant Blends Worksheets. He has no problem identifying the consonant blends (beginning and ending) but when it comes to filling up the missing digraph, he's still a little bit confused in some areas.

Math.  We are still on Booklet 2 and Addition Chart 3 of Montessori Addition.  We will proceed with Charts 4 and 5 once we're done with Booklet 2.  You can read about Montessori Addition here and download my addition booklets from Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads.

Lastly, I we're using Singapore Math workbook (K1).  Compared to the workbooks here, I love the scope of Singapore Math.  It covers graphing, logic and more.  I ordered this book from my friend lives in Singapore and they can usually be bought here: Popular Bookstore.  They're very affordable, the only problem here is shipping cost.

             

 

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
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I Can Teach My Child

Artist & Art Study ~ Piet Mondrian

Today we learned how to make art, the Mondrian style.  He is a Dutch artist who loves to use lines, and his famous work involves the primary colors (a good way to teach primary and secondary colors!)  My son described his work as Church windows :)

First, we read stories and facts about Mondrian and pointed Netherlands in our Europe map and identified its flag.  (This is a good way to review our Geography/Continent Study)  We used this resource from Making Art Fun.

I cut out strips of black cardstock and had my son decorate his own "doors and windows".  First he I made him use primary colors using crayons.

                

And the next one, I made him use paints in secondary colors.

              

And this is what he came up with. 

 

I love how it turned it!  I'm keeping all our works from our Artist Study so I can frame them when I have the time :) 

By the way, here's a Mondrian Song I came across the web (Forgot the link, but if you know it or own please let me know for the credits).   We sang it together while admiring his work.

Mondrian Song (London Bridge Tune)

Mondrian use lots of lines, lots of lines, lots of lines

Mondrian use lots of lines, in his paintings.

Black and white, red, yellow and blue, black, white, red, yellow, blue

Mondrian is famous for, Abstract Paintings.

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
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I Can Teach My Child

Whales and Dolphins (with links to FREEbies)

Here's how what we did for the past few days, working on our whales and dolphins theme.

Arts and Crafts

I printed out a pattern of killer whale and humpback whale from LearnCreateLove.com for us to paint.  We could out the different parts and had my son assemble it and add some decors on it.

 

Parts of a Whale

For the parts of a whale, we used our nomenclature card and booklet.

           

I also have a dolphin nomenclature and booklet set if you are interested.

 

           

We love using these cards.  My son loves to compare the parts of the whale to his body parts.  And we love our Safari Toob figures too! They're so detailed that you can even see the blowholes on the figures :)

            

The printable comes with an activity sheet for little ones to color and write a label.

            

Books for reading

Most of these were from the library.  I included a Tagalog book about whales because my son loves learning the Philippine's national language :)

          

Different kinds of whales and dolphins

One of the books has a detailed description of each animal so we used it to learn about the different kinds of whales and dolphins as well as our matching and fact cards. 

          

(Click this picture for the link)

How deep do they dive? 

I came across this wonderful site and downloaded their Teacher's Guide on Whales (for Kindergarten).  The document is a haven of information on whales and dolphins and it got lots of activities for you and your kids to try.  We did How Deep Do They Dive? pages 24-25 of the document.

            

We were able to differentiate which mammal dives deeper using the graph.

           

Whales and dolphins skip counting cards

And finally, you can also work on the skip counting with this cards!  Just click on the picture below for the link.

And that's it for our whales and dolphins! Hope this would help you in case you will try this unit. 

For more FREEbies and printables, check The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads.

Linking to:

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Whales and Dolphins (FREE Matching and Fact Cards)

Hope you guys would love these cards as much as we do!  The file is free for download and can be used used for whales and dolphins study.

We're having studying whales and dolphins this week and will talk about it in details soon.  We finished painting our whale crafts and waiting for it to dry.   We'll be putting it in an ocean backdrop which my son and I will be making tomorrow.

So to get your free cards, just click on the picture below.  If you plan to have a Shark Theme, you can read our activities here and here.

For more FREEbies and affordable downloads, visit The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
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I Can Teach My Child

Consonant Blends Activity Sheets

I can't believe that it's August already and school will be starting in a month!  I hope everyone is enjoying the last few weeks of their summer.  Weather here is back to normal, cold and rainy.  But I've been on bed rest for a while, reason why I was visible in the blogging world for days.  While on bed rest, I kept my son busy by working on these activity sheets I prepared for him a few weeks ago.

I have a CVC version of this and this is a follow-up on our language lessons and spelling as well.  You can read about them here: Beginning, Vowel and Ending Sound Worksheets, Working on Spelling, and CVC Word Trace and Spell Worksheets.  But this one is aimed for kids learning two letter or three letter consonant blends.

Shark Unit II (FREE Shark Matching and Fact Cards)

The second part (FIRST PART HERE) of our Sharks study is looking into the different types of sharks, what you need to know about each one and how they differ from each other. With this I used our Sharks Safari Toob and created matching cards for my little boy to play with (he loves matching activities!). I tried to discuss the difference of each shark based on their physical features... my son loves describing them!

Sharks Unit I (FREE Skip Counting Cards)

Today I'm sharing the first part of our Shark Unit (link to the second part). I bought the Safari Ltd Sharks TOOB and we've been using them non-stop.

100 Facts on Sharks is a wonderful book for learning all about these creatures. It got lots of shark pictures and provides fun facts :)

[REPOST] Continent: Australia

EDIT: Thank you so much to my reader Tracy for pointing out incorrect details of my animals. I have already corrected it and updated the link. Caiman doesn't exist in Australia.. and it's actually a mistake. It's supposedly crocodile but I got confused with my animal figures :( And all the while, I thought BBQ ribs originates from Australia and they actually think of it as American food! Thank you so much! I am so happy to learn all of these as well.

My family will be on vacation in the next few days and I have been cramming these days due to preparations. Aside from that we spend most of our days outdoors because of football practice, thus the lack of updates and post.

Last week, we worked on Continents, and the subject was Australia.  Was very happy that I found these books from the library.   My son loved the books for they had a lot of photos that made an impact on my son.  The books provided pictures of the people and the culture of Australia, which was very very important in our unit lesson.

Now the materials I made were:  the maps, flags, postcards and stamps.   I also skipped printing the currency  because my son isn’t interested with it at the moment.

My son also created the Australian flag out of cardstock (with a little assistance from me).  He knows by heart the number of stars on the flag LOL.

I printed cards for the landmarks and foods in Australia.  We were supposed to make Pavlova, but since we’re not really a fan of sweets and pastries, I rejected the thought of making it in order to save time and money :)  Instead, we made BBQ ribs!!

Then he started drawing each cards.  Can you guess each of it?  There’s an alligator(caiman), the boat in the Sydney Opera House, the Cockatoo, a Dingo and an Emu.

Also, I made control cards for the animals in the Safari Toob Down Under for matching game.  You can download it from here.   Images were googled and if you wish to share it, kindly redirect them to  my blog or on this post for the link.  Thank you!

We plot the animals on the map where they’re mostly seen in Australia.

   

And to complete our unit lesson, I purchased the Kangaroo Nomenclature Card from Montessori Print Shop. 

The next time we do Australia, I promise to add more materials and age appropriate activities.  For now, I think these are okay :)

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Artist Study ~ Vincent Van Gogh (Starry Night)

We concluded our Van Gogh study with Starry Night.  We previously had Sunflowers and my son had a wonderful time painting like Vincent!

We discussed about the colors.  With Sunflowers we were using bright colors... with Starry Night we're using darker shades like blue, violet and black.

 

I also paint with him :)

  

Here's my son's Starry Night rendition :)

 

Next would be either Seurat or Mondrian. I'm hoping we could do a lot of Artist Study before the school starts this fall. 

I wonder what have you been doing this summer?

Have a nice day!

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