The Pinay Homeschooler

Ultimate Collection of Practical Life Activities (Part One)

Thursday, June 18, 2015

“Practical life or real work activities, along with the development of language, may well be the most important work in the first six years of life. By means of these activities the child learns to make intelligent choices, to become physically and mentally independent and responsible. He learns to concentrate, to control muscles, to act with care, to focus, to analyse logical steps, and complete a cycle of activity. This lays the groundwork for sound mental and physical work throughout life.” – Susan Mayclin Stephenson, CHILD OF THE WORLD

Scooping Pasta

Materials:

bowls
pasta
spoon

Essential in practicing the small muscles in the hand. Practiced by younger children to develop skills essential in feeding.

Spooning Rice

Materials:

bowls
rice
tablespoon

Essential in practicing the small muscles in the hand. Practiced by younger children to develop skills essential in feeding. This can be a little bit tricky for smaller children as rice grains are much smaller than the pasta.

Whisking

Materials:

bowl
whisk
something to whisk (liquid or powder)

Essential in practicing the hand and arm muscles. For Developing motor skills as well.

Latches

Materials:

To develop the skills in opening and closing different kinds of latches. For hand-eye coordination, concentration and motor skills.

Wooden Puzzles for Toddlers

Melissa & Doug Farm Wooden Chunky Puzzle (8 pcs)

Materials:

Recognition of farm animals, able to match them to the board, develop problem solving skills and enhance memory. Develop hand-eye coordination, dexterity and concentration.

Shape Punching

Materials:

To strengthen the small muscles of the hands. Develop shape recognition as well.

Roller Painting

Materials:

paint rollers (Rimobul Artist Studio Sponge Painters - Set of 6)
non-toxic washable paints (Crayola Kids' Paint Washable, Assorted Colors 6 Bottle, Crayola 6 Count 8 oz. Washable Kids Finger-paints features 3 Bold Primary colors & 3 Bright Secondary colors)
painting paper

Develop fine motor skills, encourages the child to use his arms, hands, wrist and pincer grasp to paint on a paper or easel.

Sharpening Pencils

Materials:

pencils
handheld pencil sharpener

To develop in-hand manipulation skills. This is the ability to move objects using one hand.

Spooning water

Materials:

bowls
liquid medium
spoon

Develop hand-eye coordination and concentration when transferring water from one bowl to another. Essential skill in feeding and food serving.

Garlic Press

Materials:

garlic press
garlic (or foam)

Enhance the skill of grasping objects of various sizes and hardness. To improve thumb stability, which is essential in holding things and drawing.

Paper Clips

Materials:

paper clips
bundles of paper

Another simple and feasible activity that allows kids to develop their pincer grasp and concentration.

Lacing

Materials:

To develop the skills of using both hands in a controlled and organized manner. Having a good bilateral coordination will allow both side of the brain to work.

Nuts and Bolts

Materials:

nuts and bolts (Melissa & Doug Take-Along Tool Kit Wooden Construction Toy, Jumbo Nuts and Bolts Set with Backpack by Skoolzy)

Develop hand-eye coordination, and in hand manipulation (allow using of one hand to manipulate object).

Clamping using Pegs

Materials:

clothespin
bowl/s

Practice pincer grasp, a skill that is essential in feeding, pick up small objects, writing, drawing, scissors and more.

Color Sorting using Chopstick

Materials:

chopsticks (Training chopsticks for kids, adults, and beginners)
sorting tray (Learning Resources Sorting Muffin Pans)
counters (Bug Counters Set of 72)

Chopsticks enhances hand-dominance, pre-handwriting/handwriting skills, and improving pincer grasp in a fun and exciting manner. Associating colors.

Sponge Painting

Materials:

sponge
non-toxic paint (Crayola Kids' Paint Washable, Assorted Colors 6 Bottle)

Develop fine motor skills, encourages the child to use his arms, hands, wrist and pincer grasp to paint on a paper or easel. Color recognition.

Painting using Brushes

Materials:

paint brushes (Crayola Paint Brush Set)
non-toxic paint (Crayola 6 Count 8 oz. Washable Kids Finger-paints features 3 Bold Primary colors & 3 Bright Secondary colors)

Develop creativity, artistic skills and hand-eye coordination.

Gluing

Materials:

papers
different glue types (Elmer's Disappearing Purple School Glue, Elmer's Liquid School Glue Washable)

Develop creativity, hand-eye coordination, control of hands, pincer grasp and ability to strengthen hands through squeezing.

Glitter Glue

Materials:

glitter glues (Elmer's Liquid Glitter Glue Washable)
paper with lines

Develop creativity, hand-eye coordination, control of hands, pincer grasp and ability to strengthen hands through squeezing.

Using a Fork

Materials:

fork
package foams

Practice picking up “objects” using fork. Essential in feeding. This also develops hand strength with a pinching activity.

Transferring using a Chopstick

Materials:

chopsticks (Training chopsticks for kids, adults, and beginners)
sorting tray (Learning Resources Sorting Muffin Pans)
pompoms (Creativity Street Bright Hues Pom Poms)

Chopsticks enhances hand-dominance, pre-handwriting/handwriting skills, and improving pincer grasp in a fun and exciting manner. Associating colours.

Transferring using a Tweezer

Materials:

pom poms (Creativity Street Bright Hues Pom Poms)
tweezers (Learning Resources Helping Hands Fine Motor Tool Set)

Enhances hand-dominance, pre-handwriting/handwriting skills,pincer grasp, hand control and concentration.

Transferring Glass Beads using Jumbo Tweezer

Materials:

jumbo tweezers
glass/crystal beads

Enhances hand-dominance, pre-handwriting/handwriting skills,pincer grasp, hand control and concentration.

Transferring Glass Beads using Tweezer

Materials:

tweezers (Learning Resources Helping Hands Fine Motor Tool Set)
glass/crystal beads

Enhances hand-dominance, pre-handwriting/handwriting skills,pincer grasp, hand control and concentration.

Sticking

Material:

assorted stickers
paper

Skills developed in sticking activities: fine motor skills, sorting skills and creativity. Develop motor skills and concentration as well.

If you are looking for more ideas you might want to check the Ultimate Collection of Practical Life Activities (Part Two).

Complete Guide to Insect Study for Grade-Schoolers

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

We just concluded our study of insects and oh boy, both Mavi and Vito had a wonderful time learning all about these creatures! We’re having zoology (animal study) for this month (12 Months of Montessori Series) and I’m going to give you a complete guide on how to study insects with your kids.

What is an insect?

Start your unit study by learning what is an insect. Put it simply, it is an animal that has 6 legs with segmented bodies. And yes please, spiders are definitely NOT insects. Now for Mavi to have a wider understanding of this subject, I've set up a sorting activity of the 4 major groups of the Arthropods. Since we've done this last year, Mavi has a prior knowledge of the difference between insects and spiders. He got confused with the crab though, if its either arachnids or crustaceans LOL. Initially he placed it in the Arachnids Smile

These animal figures were from Safari Toob Insects and Insect Lore.

The Life Cycle of an Insect

Now after learning about the animals that belong to the insect family, we looked into the life cycles of an insect. Here we talked about the insects that undergo “complete metamorphosis” and those with “incomplete metamorphosis”. Note complete metamorphosis means, it has the stages of: egg-larva-pupa-adult.

Materials here are Insect Lore Life Cycle of Butterfly and Ladybug

Parts of an Insect

We also learned about the different parts of an insect. I have a separate post on this one and you read it here or click the image below.

Insect Habitats and Bug Hunting

I created guides on hunting insects in different habitats. We have insects found in woodlands (in the forest), those found in rivers and lakes, the ones found everywhere and in the meadows/fields. We used these guides as we go “bug hunting”.

We were able to catch a few insects like ladybird (escaped from our net after a few hours), this unidentified insect in the outdoor stairs and ants.

Vito was fascinated with ants! He also had a separate insect study for toddlers.

Vito’s Insect Study Winking smile

Previous Post on Insects

Thank you so much for taking time to read this post. I hope that I was able to give you enough ideas so you can also jumpstart your own insect study with your kids.

If you need some learning materials about insects you can also buy the following from my printable shop:
The Arthropods Learning Pack
The Insect
The Ant
The Grasshopper
The Dragonfly

This post is part of the 12 Months of Montessori Learning which is hosted by Natural Beach Living and The Natural Homeschool.

Natural Beach Living ~ The Natural Homeschool ~ Living Montessori Now ~ Planting Peas

The Kavanaugh Report ~ Mama’s Happy Hive ~ Study at Home Mama ~ Child Led Life

Every Star Is Different ~ Grace and Green Pastures ~ The Pinay Homeschooler

Clock Nomenclature Cards

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Our next math adventure would be all about clocks and I made these materials for Mavi. You can have your own copy too! Visit our shop and choose any of these.

Each file has:

12 hour clocks
12 half past hour clocks
12 quarter past clocks
12 quarter to clocks

More printable and learning resources from The Pinay Homeschooler Shop!

Montessori-Inspired Parts of an Insect

Thursday, June 11, 2015

We are having a blast looking into the world of insects! In this post, I will show you how we are learning the different parts of an insects as well as the source of our materials.

Seen on the picture are the materials we are using to learn about the insect’s body parts. The insects that we examined here are ants, butterfly, ladybird, grasshopper and dragonfly. As you can see, this is NOT really hands-on because of two factors:

The absence of these insects (except for ants and ladybird) during the time we have this study. No grasshoppers (tropical country) and no butterfly at all!
We cannot dissect ladybird and ants. They’re just too tiny!

With these, we just used our nomenclature cards and animal figures. Speaking of animal figures, I highly recommend Safari Toobs Insects. You can easily demonstrate the body parts because of the details in the figures.

Resources in the picture:

Nomenclature Cards

We worked on the entire nomenclature cards in the span of one week. Because of the repetition of the activity, Mavi was able to identify the similarities of these insects, like:

They have segmented bodies: head, thorax and abdomen
6 legs
Most have antennae

Each nomenclature card comes with a definition booklet of the body parts. Mavi loves reading our booklets (this is a perfect way to let your child improve their reading skills!)

Montessori Puzzles
I purchased these puzzles before I had Vito. We used it to identify the different parts of an insect and worked on it

Mavi loves to trace the puzzles and made his own version of butterfly.

The puzzle was also enjoyed by Vito. He loves butterfly (even if he hasn’t seen one yet) and chose to work on the puzzle.

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