Halloween 2011

Growing up, we never had Halloween celebrations in the Philippines.  And when we moved here, I couldn’t resist not to comply with their traditions.    So to introduce the spirit of Halloween to my son, here’s a few of activities which we did last week.  Promise that I will be more prepared next year.

Making pumpkin faces.  I got the inspiration from here.  Too bad we didn’t have a real pumpkin(out of stock)  it would have been more fun.

         

Numbers and counters and sorting using Halloween foam stickers which I got with a whooping 50% off.

         

Lots of playdoh fun making monsters and this idea comes from Pink and Green Mama.

We also participated in our community’s Haunted Forest Walk which was held  last Sunday (October 30) at MP. It was a family event and the boy was so happy to see lots of kids in costume.  There was a long queue, but the line was moving so after around 15 minutes we entered the haunted forest.

                         

And these are some of the sights my son enjoyed and recognized.

Hansel and Gretel’s bad witch.  Farmers with pumpkin head... when he saw this he shouted “Pumpkin patch!”.

          

The spooky train which he didn’t find spooky at all. In fact he wanted to ride on it.  And the giant eyeball, which he admires!

         

These bird skulls were the only thing that scared him.  Look at how tight he hugged his Daddy!

On the left is a read giant spider with a man’s head.  It crawls down from tree, thus the blurry picture.  On the right is a Snow White’s stepmom mirror.

                        

Then the next day we went Trick or Treat in our neighborhood.  My boy had so much fun! He enjoyed meeting friends and receiving candies from our super nice neighbors. 

                        

We went with these nice girls.  They like Mavi so much.  They kept on laughing at him whenever he says “Happy Halloween” or “Thank You” and telling me that my son is so loud hahaha.

Post ‘trick or treat’ at home. I have to keep most these candies as we’re not allowing him to eat too much sweets.

Indeed a memorable Halloween for my boy.  Till next time!

Moon and Planets

Last week we were rowing Goodnight Moon and ABC Bunny.  We also read Papa Can You Take the Moon for Me and the Stars and Planets book from the Ladybird Read It Yourself Series as follow-on reads (related to moon and stars).

My son got really excited upon knowing that we’ll be doing activities related to space.  You see lately, he’s so obsessed with rocket ships and told me he wanted to go to the Moon riding a rocket ship.  And he loves to memorize the planets! Goodness. 

To feed his enthusiasm, we started with the nomenclature card of the Phases of the Moon.  I got mine for free from ETC.  It  helped that we arranged the phases of the moon on the events that occurred in Papa Can You Take the Moon for Me, for my son didn’t get bored or tired understanding the topic.  (He tends to listen intently when I discuss topics related or based on a book he read).  For him it was just a story telling.  But of course, he picked the concept that the moon can get bigger or smaller.

 

Then we did the matching game: picture cards with the control cards/label with the control cards.  Supposedly he should match the label with the picture card but then he still couldn’t do it so I just made him do the later.

          

And I was inspired by this project from Adventures of Bear that I just got to do it with Mavi too.   I did all the cutting as he can’t cut circles yet... he did all the gluing job including putting the labels.  My son considered it a masterpiece!

After I took his picture he insisted that he should take my photo too... with his work.

The last activity that we did was the planets.  This wasn’t supposed to be part of the unit but then he got the book and started reading it to me.  He kept on asking me the names of all the planets for at that time, he can only memorize the first three.  So I took my nomenclature card (homemade) and discussed each planets.  I did the discussion in a ‘story telling’ manner.

       

Le Louvre

The best museum we’ve been to.  My son enjoyed running around the museum.. of course he couldn’t appreciate it yet.  Hope we can go back so I can discuss to him valuable works of art that made it history.

Montessori Wrap-Up

Mavi is 37 month old.

Here’s the summary of our Montessori-related activities for the past two weeks.

MATH

Working with bead stairs worksheet.

Learning how to add and understanding the ‘teen numbers. 

         

Patterning using popsicle sticks.  The sticks were from National Bookstore (Bacolod).

Forming polygons using popsicle sticks.  We counted the sides of each polygons formed.  I realize that whenever we do some “shapes” activity related to polygons, I should give emphasis on counting the sides.

          

 

PRACTICAL LIFE

Sorting pompoms using a clamp.  The pompoms were from Spotlight Singapore.

Sorting pompoms using a chopstick trainer.  You can get this trainer anywhere in Singapore.

                               

Wooden nuts and bolts.  I bought this one at Daiso Singapore.  It was difficult for him at first to roll the nuts, he gets confused on what direction he should turn it.  Eventually he figure it out and started playing with it for hours.

         

 

SENSORIAL.

We have lots of old magazines at home so here I cut a few pictures and made it into puzzles for the little one to play.

         

Lots of drawing this week and he prefer using oil pastels and Crayola’s Pipsqueak.

LANGUAGE

Phonics search for letters CUSNPOLH.

         

Just wanted to show these landmarks :) I find it really cute.  Of course, they fall under U for United States and United Kingdom hehe.  In case you wanted to know where I got these, it’s from Safari Toobs.

Pink Series and moveable letters.  We’re still working on sets 1 to 4 and this time I taught him how to use the moveable letters with our CVC words.  The letters were made from foam art papers. 

         

Then we did more writing practice using his mini-chalk board, a gift from his Dad’s friend and using Kumon lowercase Write and Wipe.