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.

Continents Revisited

Okay so we haven't done serious "schooling" during the midterm break as I wanted then little boy to have some rest and recreation.  In between Fresh Beat Band and Carrie and David's Popshop, I inserted a few math activities which he truly loved.  Then just before the weekend, he asked if we could do "the world map" again.  So what we did was paint the Montessori World Map. Mavi attended Montessori School last year and we've done a lot of Geography lessons, so he's very well familiar with this already.

Because we've done coloring a lot of times, I asked him to paint the map this time.  I showed him some tricks so that he won't go over the outlines of the map.

Then we started mixing colors for the continents (what makes brown? what makes a pink color?).

            

I printed an activity sheet from The Helpful Garden.  I'm surprised he can easily identify the continents just by looking at their outlines even though we haven't done this for a a while now!

          

We'll be having visitors and they'll be staying with us this week so I am not sure if we can have after school activities.  Wishing everyone a happy happy Monday!

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!

Learning about LENGTHS (Measuring)

This is an introduction to a RULER, and new concepts like length, inches and centimeters were also introduced.

We have done measuring activities previously but at that time, my son wasn't really interested and cannot grasp the concept. 

But I happily announce that in this activity, he was totally engrossed!  I can't describe the concentration and dedication he showed me whenever I ask him to cut a center length of paper strip or make a worm of  certain length using PlayDoh.

Make sure that your child understands the concept of length (or how long) as you will be using it often in this activity.  Also I recommend that you talk about the ruler first, describing inches and centimeters (this depends on the age of your child).

Here are some of the tools we used that can be easily found inside your house:

• Small and large paper clips.  You can connect them and make your child measure (inches or centimeters) it or the other way around.

 

• PlayDoh or homemade dough.  I asked him to make a very long "worm" of playdough and cut them into specific lengths.

 

• You can also use craft sticks. 

   I also cut different strips of paper and made him match the labels for each strip using a ruler. 

Now this time, I made him create the strips according to my instructions.  BUT first, you need to show the child how to use the ruler to measure strips of paper and most importantly TRY TO DEMONSTRATE at first.

Here, I have to keep on reminding him always start at '0'.  I didn't realize it was complicated because he has to adjust the ruler's position from time to time to make the starting point at '0'.

                  

   He labeled the strips.

And what more would interest your child than to measure parts of his body!  In our case, we measure his fingers LOL.

Hope this post gives you idea on how to go start learning about lengths and sizes.  My next objective is we'll measure weights.  But I still have to get some materials for this one and I am eyeing this weighing scale.  A wishlist for Christmas!

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!

Learning about SETS

Creating sets by sorting is for me a fundamental basis of virtual mathematics.  A set is basically a collection of objects with distinct properties.  And for kids, we do this mostly with the basic activity of sorting.

Since it's the midterm break, Mavi and I will be doing lots of math activities.  We'll be reviewing basic math concepts using manipulatives for retention :)

First on my list is the concept of "sets". 

For toddlers, this is just a sorting activity.  But for a kindergarten, I have to elaborate that it's all about making collections or groups. 

WHAT YOU NEED: 

• counters and other manipulatives (buttons, bear counters, patterning shapes)
• instead of using a sorting cup or tray, I used colored cardstock

  

Here's how I set them all up on a table.  I prepared instructions on a strip of paper for him to read and work on. 

Each instruction varies, like: "set of seven red objects", "set of three blue buttons", "set of four squares". 

And we also revisited our Numbers and Counters :)  My son loves this! 

We'll do basic addition and measuring next :)

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child