B4FIAR: Jesse Bear and {Learn & Play Link Up}

I am starting Before Five in a Row with Vito.  I am a fan of FIAR and I’ve been doing it with Mavi for years. 

Last week, we did Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?  Vito loved it instantly!  He can relate to the daily activities of Jesse Bear and how amazing he recognizes most of it as part of his routines.  Like changing his shirt, high chair and mealtime, bath time and when running towards Daddy when my husband arrives from work. 

Now here are the activities we did to go along with Jesse Bear:

Morning

We played in the yard, put on his jacket and red pants  

Then try to play sand just like Jesse Bear. That is Kinetic Sand and we are loving it!

Noon Time

Lunch time, he ate some steamed veggies, then apple and drank milk.  He insisted that we place the book in his table to make sure he’s doing what Jesse Bear is doing.

 

Afternoon Time

To kill time we played with colored rice and scooping because Jesse Bear was playing with his rice! 

We also played matching shoes game!    When your child is about 1.5yrs old, they’re able to discriminate objects. Try matching games as simple as matching their shoes! Vito is such an expert!

Bedtime

Vito’s bedtime routine includes brushing his teeth (like Jesse Bear), washing his face and putting on his PJs.  I say this out loud as I do it so he’ll understand what we are doing.  And just like what I did with Mavi, I would read him books while I put him to bed.  This actually calms him down…. and make us both sleepy LOL. 

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Welcome to the Learn & Play Link Party!

Here are the featured literature-based activities for this week!

 

 

Harry Potter Sorcerer’s Stone Unit from Every Star Is Different

Fall Book Basket for Preschoolers from Homeschool Preschool

Peter Pumpkin Eater Printables from Embark on the Journey

Madeline Sensory Tray Writing from Growing Book By Book

 

Now it’s time for this week’s link party! This is a BRAND new link up for all blog posts that include learn and play activities and hands-on education for kids. We are excited to read your blog posts and to see what you have to share! Please link up below and grab our button to display on your blog.

If you are a blogger, share your family friendly posts here. We are looking for things which include:

• Montessori Education
• Homeschool
• Sensory Play
• Tot and Preschool Trays
• Fine and Gross Motor Activities
• Kids in the Kitchen
• Healthy Recipes for Kids
• Arts and Crafts
• Natural Living
• Free Educational Printables
• Family-Oriented Activities
• Healthy Living

Your post will be featured on each of our blogs where we will pick our favourite posts every other week. That means there is more of a chance that you will be featured!

Everyone, please meet our link party hosts:

Christian Montessori Blog ~ Please visit our CMN FB group ~ Pinterest

Vanessa from Mama’s Happy Hive~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Jennifer from Study at Home Mama~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Marie from Child Led Life~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Jae from Pinay Homeschooler~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Heather from Golden Reflections Blog~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Renae from Every Star is Different~FB~Pinterest

GUIDELINES FOR LINKING

• Please link up 1-3 posts
• Follow each of the hosts on social media
• When you link up, please add our button and place it at the bottom of your shared posts or link back with text link.
• By entering a link, you’re giving us permission to feature an image on our blogs. Proper credit & links will ALWAYS be given.
• Please visit a couple of shared posts and leave a comment for them
• Remember that you must link back in order to be featured

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An InLinkz Link-up

How to Teach a Toddler About Trees

During the midterm break I’ve been taking the boys out because of the glorious weather.    And since whenever we’re out, Mavi would climb the trees (and Vito would do the same), I took the chance to formally introduce Vito to trees.  Since he’s able to say words straight and could grasp simple concept, it’s about time I show him the wonders of trees!

The BEST way to learn about trees is to have a personal encounter with it.  And since we’re surround by them, we explored trees’ by climbing, touching and feeling their barks, observing the leaves colors, compare sizes and more. 

For Vito though, trees are something that he can climb on.  Whenever he sees a tree, he would just insist to climb onto it, like the picture below.  He was just in that position for about 30 minutes, not complaining and enjoying every single moment of it.

 

With these, I can conclude that Vito can somehow understand now that trees :

• have leaves
• have rough barks
• comes in big and small sizes
• are something we can play with

Now, for extensions,  I also prepared simple tree-themed activities for Vito at home for indoor play and learning.  Here are the trays I prepared for him:

Counting Trees.  Vito loves this! I stamped four dots in the paper with a number symbol and we count as we place a tree on each dot.  I used a do-a-dot marker for this.

Matching Trees (Abstract-Abstract).  Remember when we worked on leaves and he’s not interested in matching cards at all?  Well, that changed now as he was able to work on our matching tree cards without hesitation!  And yes he completed the four pairs with much concentration. I love it!  You can get these beautiful cards from here or click the image below.

Tree Puzzle.  He loves working on tree puzzle but somehow, our tree puzzle is still too complicated for his age.  He knows where to place the roots and trunk as of the moment, but finds it hard to fit them in the puzzle board.  So what I do is just ask him where the piece is supposed to go, he points and I do the fitting.

Tree Matching.  Similar matching activity as above, but in this case we are using a tree figure and matching it to cards.  We are doing lots of matching activities as this introduces early math concepts and object discrimination.  Tree figures are from Safari Toobs.

Books.  These are the books that we focused on during the week of our tree themed activities: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and The Acorn’s Story, both of which are so enjoyable to read!

And how long do we have this for a theme? Mostly for 7-10 days!  Of course, these are just some of the thing he does, he also plays with his toy and read book, learn letters and numbers.  It’s just that I love introducing new concept/s each week and in a way its easier for me to focus on just one or two things.

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Learning History of Ancient Europe for Kids

If you've been following us on Instagram, you might already know that Mavi is deeply interested in world history. This all began when he became fascinated with Horrible Histories and started borrowing books from the library. To nourish his interest, I decided to purchase Story of the World books. We have been reading them for a while now and are almost done with Book 1: Ancient History.

I'd like to share with you how we learn world history at home. Aside from our previous lessons on Ancient Egypt, Mavi is currently interested in learning about the history of Europe. So, at the moment, that's where we are focusing our attention. The cards that you see are part of my Europe in a Nutshell learning material.

Hands-on Learning on the European Regions

Mavi is into geography once again and we are revisiting the Continent of Europe.  My approach for this year’s study is to look at Europe through the different regions.  It’s easier to understand and internalize facts when they’re into smaller groups than attacking them as a whole.

So I created these label cards for northern (blue), western (red), southern (orange) and eastern (green) Europe.  The color coding is based on our map in Europe in a Nutshell.  The mini flags seen in the photo is from Flags of Europe printable.