Europe Study Part I

My son has specifically requested that we have Europe Study this month.  I guess the interest was brought about by the celebration of St. Patrick's Day this month in which they created the Irish flag in school and were plotting Ireland in the Europe map.

WARNING, this post is flooded with photos, as I would rather describe the activities we did in pictures rather than writing a novel about :)

Before anything else, if you are interested to read about our 2013 Europe Unit Study, please click this link.

For the resources and materials:

   - Flags of Europe (includes all materials used here except the puzzle flags)

   - European countries outline / solid black

Now for this years unit we started working with mapping and flags.  I printed the large flag from here.  The site allows you to print the maps in different sizes you.  I chose a bigger version so we can label the countries clearly.

 

Oh and Mavi has an audience while working :)

 

       

Next we work on the flags.  Here on the pictures below Mavi is identifying the countries and their flags. 

I also created these flag puzzles for Mavi to worked on.  I just printed these flags in big sizes and cut them to pieces for him to assemble.

         

Of course, the 3 part cards of the European flags is a must :)

 

Mavi also worked on these flag matching activity.  Here he's matching the flag to the name of the country and the capital city.

Identifying the country's flag was a breeze but he is still new to identifying the capital city (except for the countries we've visited and stayed).  We'll be working on this a little more.

            

And last activity for the flag works is assembling European flags using pre-cut craft papers.  Early on I selected a few flags that he will work with.  I cut out the pieces needed and mix them together.  The challenge here is for him to look for the pieces that goes together to assemble a certain flag.  So you can see in the picture below he was able to make the flag of Ireland and Spain, and about to assemble the flag of Germany.

          

More activities coming up next!

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!
Natural Homeschool's Montessori Linky

Dinosaur Activity and Learning Materials

Hi everyone! My son had a sudden obsession with dinosaurs a few days ago and I thought that you will be interested with some of the resources we have.

These are Usborne Dinosaur Fact Cards which I got from Amazon.  My son described them as "awesome" cards.  We used these to identify dinosaurs in Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Period (sometimes sort them out), herbivores and carnivore dinosaurs and learn how to pronounce their names.

A few years ago, I made these cards as well which you can download for FREE.  I made them out of the Safari Toob Dinosaur replica.

Here's an activity sheet that comes with it as well. We used them to record our findings about a dinosaur (using our Usborne Fact Cards mentioned above).

You can get the link by clicking any of the images below.

And lastly, here's a wonderful collection of dinosaur coloring pages from www.dinosaur-coloring.com! My son loves them to pieces.  I practically printed everything from this web page and my son worked on all of them!

I hope you like this activity!

For more FREEbies and learning aids, please check The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and our FREE Downloads and Learning Materials page.

Linking to:

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

European Countries (Territory Outlines)

Greetings! 

We're revisiting our Europe Study this month and I've been a little bit busy adding more materials to our study.  Last year, I published these learning materials for a Europe Study Unit and now I came up with new ones that we can use to have a better understanding of this continent.

I have here the 43 European countries in their territorial map outlines/contours.  There are two files available:  map in outlines and map in solid black (click the image for the link).

 

 

 

These materials aim to help Mavi identify the countries of Europe by just looking at the contour of a specific country.  I remember when I was in high school we would do this in History class but of course, it only involves Asian countries.

My son definitely loves this.  He enjoys matching the cards to our Europe Puzzle Map.  I have to say though that some contours can really be challenging to match!

 

If you don't own a wooden puzzle map, you can still use the file as this is a 3-part card which means it includes picture cards and labels as well.

By the way, I printed out the ones with the outlines only as I am saving black ink :)  But I find the solid black ones so pretty!

I have a few more materials to publish in the next few days. I can't wait to share it with you!

Oh, for other references please read about our 2013 Europe Study here and here.

Thank you!

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

The Hundred Board

Aside from the Golden Beads, I also purchased the ever popular Hundred Board.  Now I understand why it is one of the bestselling Montessori materials.  The main function of the board is to familiarize the child of the numbers from 1 to 100 and reinforce the sequence.  But I can see a whole lot more.  At home, we use it for games that teaches patterning, addition and skip counting. 

Here's an example of a simple patterning set-up I have.  You can see missing horizontal and vertical lines for Mavi to complete.  Before we start the game, I let him discuss his observations.  After which I tell him that to complete the board without counting, he needs to see how the pattern goes.  Here on the first set up, the first digit is increasing while the second digit remains the same. 

With the second set-up, the first digit is constant while the second digit is increasing (see the numbers 1-10).

This technique helped him complete the hundred board without starting from 1 or if there's a mixed-up setting.   I was happy that he grasped the concept easily.  At times, I can see him place the tiles on the square by counting and sometimes by just following the order and pattern.

He complains that it's difficult to complete starting from 1, but by introducing some games he was more eager to use it and began enjoying it. 

Linking to:

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