Exploring the Animal Kingdom for Kids

Hello everyone! Mavi is still on a school break this week so we'll be busy doing lots of "home" school activities.  Thank goodness the weather is getting warmer, Mavi gets to play in the yard, digging dirt and "fossils" LOL.

Speaking of which, he's currently obsessed with dinosaurs and with animals in general.  So while he's at it, I took the chance of introducing him to the Animal Kingdom.  I released this file last week so if you want to check it out, just click the image below for the link.

To start with, here's my presentation of the chart.  In my printable file, there are 8 invertebrate animals and I used common animals so kids learning them can easily identify the specific group.  The presentation of the chart to Mavi went smoothly.  He was really surprised that there are animals that doesn't have a backbone. 

As we went along with the presentation, I made him the definition or fact cards that goes along with each of the animal. I made sure that the information I wrote in those cards were interesting enough for a 5 year old :)  We will further discuss Mollusks and Arthropods in the next few weeks for an additional knowledge of their subclass (group types).

 

He learned that some animals can be both a boy and a girl!  And look, we added some animal figures as well and that includes jelly worms!

 

When we reached the Chordates (Vertebrates) he got really excited as this was the part that he's familiar with.

He was so excited because he wanted to put his animal figures under each subclass of the Vertebrate animals LOL.

 

And yes... that includes the dinosaurs!

So classifying animals on what subclass (amphibians, reptiles, mammals, birds and fish) they belong to is another activity that we delve into. And that would be on my next post... so stay tuned!

PS.  I was a little bit hesitant to introduce this subject to Mavi.  But I was surprised that he was attentive all throughout our lesson.  He even patiently read all the description cards for me.  I am happy that he was able to grasp the concept immediately, that not all animals are the same, that they are grouped so we can easily identify their features and understand their characteristics and uniqueness. 

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The Animal Kingdom Learning Material

While Mavi is enjoying his school camp, I grabbed the opportunity to make this learning material so we can use it in the next few days (when the camp is over) before he goes back to school at the end of April.

I'm so happy that my laminator arrived yesterday and I was busy laminating these cards (thus my absence in blogging).

This is my Animal Kingdom learning material.  It is a PDF file which you can download from here, The Animal Kingdom Learning Pack, or by clicking the pictures below.  It consist of the following:

• The Animal Kingdom MASTER Chart in A4 SIZE
• Chart with pictures only (no labels) in A4 SIZE
• Chart with labels only in A4 SIZE
• Chart with no pictures and labels in A4 SIZE
• 15 cards with pictures and labels  to form the chart
• 15 cards with pictures and  no labels (for 3 part card use)
• 15 label cards (for 3 part card use)
• Matching definition cards

Oh they look so lovely once laminated! Don't mind the lines on that image of the starfish.  That's just my printer who's already low on ink :(


So the file has 9 invertebrates and 5 vertebrates and they all come with definition cards that you can read with your kids (or let your kids read them if they are already a reader).


Hope you like it! Thank you!

Golden Beads Addition

On days that we're not doing any "themed" activities, we work on our bead materials and lately the golden beads has been a favorite in the house.  Technically, this activity is good for 2 or more participants but since we have no other kid at home that can participate I volunteered for that position :)

So this is a simple addition "game" as I always tell my son.  Using our small number cards, I would create a random 4 digit number for both of us and we're going to fetch the equivalent of that number using the golden beads. 

           

Then someone has to add or combine them all together to determine the total.  But since we don't have a third person to do that, my son and I did this together.  We combined our beads and counted them.  I made him identify the number of thousand cubes, hundreds, tens and ones. 

 

Using the small number and large number cards, I made him add the numbers to check whether our counting with the golden beads is correct.  Here I showed him that we can add quantities by combining or manually counting, but it always easier to do the addition using the technique below.

  Here's the layout of our work.And we did a few more.  I also made him use the activity sheet (Stamp Game sheet) from Montessori Printshop so he can practice writing 4 digit numbers.

            

          

Though it's a good activity for addition, it is quite overwhelming for one child to do.  After a few work on numbers he complained that its tiring.

Next, we'll attempt to have a Stamp Game.  We'll see how he'll react to it :)

Bird Unit Activities

Son's request was for us to have another bird unit (click here for our previous lessons).  So here are the activities and materials I have gathered for this week's unit study.

Bird Nomenclature and Definition Cards.  Whenever we study animals, I always start by introducing the different parts of the animals and how they function.  I just have to say we've been using 3 part cards method and it has accelerated my son's reading.

Following the nomenclature and definition, my son always works with the activity sheet identifying the parts.  Here he can make his own booklet of bird parts using colored pencils and crayons. 

 

Bird parts booklet.  This method enables my son to practice his spelling and a much deeper understanding of the bird parts.

Bird species matching.  I provided bird pictures in the my Bird Pack which we use to identify the different species of birds. We use our Safari Toob bird collection (and Schleich too).

 

Bird's feet classification.  I made a table of the different types of bird's feet and list down the bird (figures) that we have.  This activity aims to identify the the bird's habitat and lifestyle.

 

Similarly, I printed out a picture of the different shape of the bird's beak from here.  With this activity Mavi will be able to tell what the birds eat.  This activity was inspired by this one.

               

Bird's colors.  Because Mavi loves to color, I collected these images from the web.  The aim of this activity is for Mavi to color the birds based on our figures.

              

The nomenclature cards, definition and bird cards were also from the Bird Pack.  Click the image below for the link.

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