Early Childhood Activities (14 to 18 Months)

Hi everyone!  As promised, I am sharing with you the early childhood activities I gave to Mavi when he was about 1+ years old.  We started at 14 months and I was just giving him random activities that I know of.  It was then around 16 or 18 months that I learned about the importance of fine motor skills which they will eventually need in their preschool years and beyond.  So I made some research and started our journey in “home” schooling.

Reading Books

Now this is what we did since he was months old.  At first, we started with books for babies… simple stories, books with large pictures to capture his attention.

Pre-writing Skills

A very basic activity but very important.  This will introduce them to writing, papers, and pens.  I bought Crayola jumbo for him for this activity.  Because I started Mavi early on in writing, I never had problems with him when it came to the proper holding of a pencil or pen.

Integrating Workbooks and Hands-On Materials

With math, I use workbooks and Math Montessori Album which I purchased from KHT Montessori. In this post, I will show you how we integrate workbooks and Montessori Math.

So we start with     a workbook. As you can see we are currently reviewing the place value. Using the book, we discuss this a little bit, then close the book and prepare our Montessori materials for a hands-on activity.

In Montessori, there are a number of ways on how to present place value. I have talked about this before using the Golden Beads. This time, we used the Stamp Game tiles.  Here's my presentation of hundreds, tens and ones. Each digit can range from 0 to 9.

Then I set up an activity for Mavi to see if he was able to grasp the concept.  I don't want to overwhelm him so we only worked up to tens. The number tiles you see here is from our Hundred Boards.

After the hands-on activities and when he's ready we work on the workbooks. Adding hands-on activities to textbooks/workbooks/activity sheets makes the learning less tedious and more exciting for little fellows. So either way, workbooks or hands-on activities you'll be fine.

Linking to:

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

Learning About Southeast Asia

Here’s a summary of activities for learning about Southeast Asia.

Southeast Asia Map and Flags

This activity is all about familiarization of the Southeast Asia Map and identification of countries which belong to this region.

Learning materials used in this activity:

• Asia in a Nutshell
• Flags of Asia Pack (Nomenclature and Pin Flags)

Bahay Kubo (Nipa Hut)

Bahay Kubo is square shaped house with no divisions, just a door and windows.  It is made up of local materials such as wood or bamboo or  nipa grass.  It is a Philippine icon and represents the Filipino culture.  Note that these houses are raised, for proper ventilation I guess since the flooring is made up of bamboo.  Another reason is to avoid the flood.

Yes I have seen Bahay Kubo and have friends and relatives who used to live on this type of house.  Until now, they still exist and I can’t wait to show them to Mavi.  He has always been fascinated with Bahay Kubo. Maybe he can’t imagine how people can live on just a square house. 

Thus, I decided to create a model using cardboard boxes from Book Depository. 

There are still people who lives in this stilt houses and I can’t wait to show it to Mavi when we visit the folks this year :)

I cut out the cardboard boxes into strips then stick them on a wooden BBQ skewers.

And here’s how the skeleton  looks like when all four sides are attached.

Adding the roof which is made up of cardstock and a wooden ladder here’s the end product.

Linking to:

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