Indoor and Outdoor Light Activities for Kids

Vito is 31 months old.
I decided that for our Light and Shadow Unit, we’ll explore indoor and outdoor lights. 

Investigating the Past Life with Safari Toob Fossils

We love our Safari Toob!  I think every ‘Mom’schooler should have at least a set or two of these toobs.  They are fabulous learning materials and my kids love them!

Anyway, Mavi is officially joining Vito’s weekly themed activities as he’s almost done with school. He misses “Mom” school and urged me to let him join with the activities.  So while Vito is all about play and learn, I’m giving Mavi some serious investigative work like research, more readings, and selective hands-on activities.

Exploring Colors with DIY Light Table and Stencils

Vito is 31 months old.

We’re having simple activities for our Light and Shadow Unit.  Since it’s been raining most of the time, we’re doing much of the activities indoors (much to my dismay).  So probably, creating shadows under the sun has to wait, and shadows using torch will also have to wait since our sunset here is 10PM.  We might redo this activity in September or October, when night time comes early so we can play with our torch and make shadows.

How to Raise Montessori Babies and {Learn & Play Link Up}

It's link up time! My featured posts for this week is all about Montessori babies! Here's how you can easily set-up activities for your little ones that are Montessori-friendly!

Dinosaur Small World Play Tray

Here’s what a mother can  do to her dinosaur-obsessed kids. 

Montessori Inspired Dinosaur Clean-Up Activity

Vito is 30 months old.

It was so warm last Tuesday that I asked the boys to play outside and then wash their dinosaur toys. Oh boy, they were so happy to do so!

Inspiring Kids To Do Research

As you all know, we’re having Dinosaur-themed activities this week. This curriculum is basically for Vito but most of the time, Mavi wants to take part in it as well, especially when the topic is interesting to him.  And since Mavi loves dinosaurs, I gave him some tasks last Monday (holiday in Ireland).

Fun Dinosaur Color Sorting with Homemade Playdough Recipe

How cute is this? Vito is currently obsessed with colour sorting and playdough so I'm using this obsession to my advantage.  I made playdoughs of rainbow colors and used them in our color sorting activity with our Learning Resources Dinosaur Counters and they turned out so festive and Vito played with them non-stop!

Collection of Transportation Activities for Toddlers

Vito is 30 months old.

We’ve just concluded our week long transportation-themed activities and I would like to share with you the activities and materials Vito loved and enjoyed using!  Hope you find these helpful!

Creativity with Shape Mags (Stick N Stack)

Vito is 30 months old.

I bought this amazing product when we went to the US last month.  We have Magnatiles and we love it, but the problem is we can’t really make something more out of those squares and triangles. When I came across Stick N Stack in Amazon and read good reviews, I just needed to buy those beautiful window tiles and carts!   And if you ask me, yes they work really well with Magnatiles!

And since we’re having Transportation Unit, I made Vito create his own cart.  Oh boy, he played with it for hours!!  I asked Mavi to assist his little brother for awhile but later on left when he realized that Vito doesn’t want him for a playmate.

FREE Types of Clouds 3 Part Cards

Hi everyone, I’m sharing our types of cloud cards for free! Download your copy and hope you find this helpful when learning about the weather and clouds.  The book that we are using is called Clouds Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 1 (AmazonUS) (Book Depository) and it is a very good book!   More of it here.

Animal Themed Activities and Printables

Vito and I will be doing animal activities soon and these featured posts from our link up last week are such an inspiration!  Checkout these wonderful Moms and their fantastic activities!

Transportation Unit: On the Road Vehicles

Vito is 30 months old.

I was pretty busy the other day that I didn’t have time to think of activities related to road vehicles. So I made the boys create their own landscape of a road with vehicles on it. 

Books on Vehicles that We Love

These are the books that we are loving and using in our Transportation Unit this week!  These are perfect for kids ages 2 to 7 years old! Check out the details below.

Learning the Different Types of Clouds

I recently purchased a few science books for the boys which I bought from Book Depository.  Mavi loves science and I am so happy that the books are child-friendly and can be read independently by older kids.  I love investing in books because my boys love to read and it can be used over and over all through the years. Great heirlooms for family too!

Anyway, the first book he read was the Clouds Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 1 (AmazonUS) (Book Depository). This is by far the best book I’ve encountered that illustrated the different types of clouds in a simple way, and the explanations are so basic and easy to grasp for kids. So after reading the book, we sat down the next day and worked on some hands-on activities for retention.

Transportation Unit: Water Vehicles

Vito is 30 months old.

Both of my boys were looking forward to this Transportation Unit as they love cars, trains and airplanes.  We started off by introducing Vito the water vehicles using Safari Toob In the Water  figures, a little water sensory tub and matching activity.

Exploring the Landmarks of the World

Our recent trip to the United States has reignited Mavi’s interest in geography, and he asked me if he could review our landmarks of the world figures to check the places he has already visited.

Beginning Sounds Through Language Objects

This week, Vito and I are exploring beginning letter sounds through objects we can find at home.  This is very similar to the Alphabet Sort Montessori Inspired activity, but in our case we are not sorting the objects yet.  What Vito and I are doing is to just  name or identify the objects and match them to our control sheet.

Teaching Kids About their Lungs

I forgot to share this simple activity we did during our Body Unit week.  The boys had so much fun learning how their lungs work using our homemade lung materials!

Puzzles for Learning!

One of the best tools for teaching spatial relationships are puzzles, of any form. So in our Farm Unit, I added some puzzle works for Vito. These materials were with us for a long time now and has been using them from time to time.

Because Toddlers Can Make Butter Too!

Friends, I’d like to share this simple butter recipe that Mavi suggested (his school project).  A few weeks ago, they were learning about the lives of the Irish people during 1916 and one of which is learning how to make this “the old school way”.  This butter recipe is so easy to make, and surprisingly it ended up so delicious! Plus Vito even participated!

Milking a Cow for Toddlers

I never knew that this could be fun!  My Vito enjoyed this activity so much that we did this a couple of times during the day.  Even big brother Mavi joined in the fun as well, trying to outshine each other on whoever gets to finish milking first.

Farm Animals Sort & Play

When I was planning for a Farm Unit, I wanted it to be simple because  it’ll be the week of our arrival from our trip. This means, we are all tired (especially me!), and I need time to do all the unpacking.  So my aim is still to provide activities to Vito with less preparation. 

Now, I made these playdough last month and yes, they’re still good!  The main objective of this play is to sort out the animal figures from Safari Toob and Shleich according to their “habitat”.

Teeth Activity for Toddlers! (29 Months Old)

Vito is 29 months old.

Another fantastic activity I got from my Pinterest board!  This is a perfect activity for toddlers to explore their teeth as they can’t usually see it.  This is so easy to assemble and will keep your little ones engaged!

Homemade Face Puzzle for Toddlers

Vito is 29 months old.

So I was brainstorming the other way of what else could we do for our Body Unit and Mavi suggested that I should give Vito do a puzzle work.  But he worked with our favourite body puzzle already and Mavi said, what about creating Vito’s face? And it hit me! Why not print a picture of Vito and turn it into a puzzle!  This way he’ll be familiar of the order of his face from top to bottom, right?

Internal Organs Sensorial Tub and Matching Activity

Vito is 29 months old.

This is one of the highlights of our Body Unit! I was more than excited to give this to Vito!  Just look at his face on how much he’s enjoying this activity!

Human Body Letter Match Activity

Vito is 29 months old.

I mentioned in my previous post that this is the kind of letter activity Vito enjoys.  He is showing signs of liking letters, identifying letters in books, boxes, and in just about anything! He is now loving the ABC song too! LOL  So for the body unit, I made this material to match uppercase and lower case letter B.

Beleduc Boy Body Puzzle

One of my best finds this year is this absolutely amazing learning material from Beleduc.  Just like Grimm and Shleich, Beleduc is a German company that produces high quality wooden learning materials that are designed for kids of all ages.  I absolutely love this puzzle because for Vito, he is just playing a game but little did he know that he is actually learning!

Shapes Unit for Toddlers

Our Homemade Shapes Materials

Sometimes, the tools that Im looking for are not available on line or in stores so I made them myself.  I used to have a lot of time for making our own materials but with Vito and the increase of responsibilities at home, I can barely print my activities.  So my aim these days is to make materials that are simple and easy to assemble.  Here are the materials that are easy to make even without the use of a printer!

Creating Shapes with Geomag

Vito is 29 months old.

Have you heard of Geomag? We have this for years now but kept it because Vito used to mouth things. Now that he’s outgrown that behavior, I finally took it out and since then the boys had been using these magnets to create shapes and structures!

Shapes Resist Painting

Vito is 29 months old.

Here’s another interesting way you can get your kids to learn about shapes. I was telling Vito we’ll do magic, and look for shapes in the black paper.  He was fascinated of what he will discover after covering the cardstock with paint!

Learning about Geometric Shapes

Vito is 29 months old.
To start our Shape Unit this week, I want to share with you Vito’s current favourite learning material! This amazing product is from Learning Resources and both of my boys has been using the activity sheets for days!

FREE Color Sorting Cards

Earth and Land Unit for Toddlers

Vito is 29 months old. 
Activities for Earth Day! Here are some of the activities we did this week in celebration of Earth Day.  These are simple, yet fun activities that I’m sure your kids will love!

Earth Alphabet Match

I am trying my best to integrate letter activities to Vito.  He is not just into it, so it is a challenge to come up with activities on letters that he likes. Vito knows his letters and this activity is for him to be familiar with the small letters.  

Learning through Arts & Crafts

We love making crafts at home! Aside from bringing out the artistic side of the kids, it’s also a great opportunity to practise fine motor skills.  So this week, I’m featuring five amazing arts and crafts activities from our beloved bloggers!
 

May Tot School Curriculum

For the month of May,  we will be having a break from the "themed" activities to give way for the springbreak (vacation!) and to focus on letter activities. 

Fun Sifting Activity for Kids

Vito is 28 months old.

We were reading the Under the Ground book and chancing upon the page of mining, I decided that we should play pretend to look for jewels in a tub of sand!  As you can see, this activity was intended for sifting the gravels and later on discover the jewels but I realized that sand is quite big so our sifter wouldn’t work.  Thus, I added the scooper from Learning Resources, it has bigger holes in it so it can sift the sand effectively.

Earth and Land Unit: Magnetic Earth Worms!

Vito is 29 months old. This activity was inspired by Simply Learning.

You can find lots of Earth worms under the ground! The main idea here is to search and collect all the Earth worms under the ground (oatmeal) using a magnetic wand. Fun activity for kids that both siblings can enjoy!

Earth and Land Theme: Earth Prints

Vito is 29 months old.

Earth Day is coming! We’re having a week of Earth/Land Themed activities and I just have a lot of inspirations from here and can’t wait to try them!  Yesterday we made Earth prints.  I decided to this one first as its very easy to recreate and manageable when you’re doing it with two kids!

Bird Themed Activities for Toddlers

Vito is 28 months old.
Here’s a recap of our week!  You may copy any of these for your own home school journey!

Bird Theme: Owl Babies Craft

For the Bird Theme, we are reading Owl Babies and The Story About Ping books.  Vito enjoys reading them with me but he loves Owl Babies more. So in line with it, we made some cotton owls at home to extend our learning about owls and the textures of birds.

How to Introduce Space and Planets to Toddlers

Vito can finally identify the sun, moon and earth, and can’t stop saying the word space whenever he sees a rocket ship!  With engaging activities, you can definitely expose your kids to the concept of space and planets. 

FREE Safari Toob Backyard Birds Matching Cards

These cards were used in our bird themed toddler learning matching activity using Safari TOOB backyard birds as shown in the picture.  Enjoy!

Bird Theme: Spaghetti Bird’s Nest

The boys are still giddy of doing this themed-activities weekly, and yes even Mavi loves it as he gets to join us from time to time.

We're seeing A LOT of nests in the neighborhood because the trees are still bare, so this has got me thinking of making a bird's nest at home.  I told the boys all about it, and they were so excited! There are so many versions of this if you searched in the web: the yarn, shredded newspaper… but I wanted to try the spaghetti as I have some that are about to expire.  (this idea was inspired by Let’s Tot School)

Earth & Land Theme List of Materials

Here are all the materials and resources that we will be using in our Earth/Land Unit for the month of April.  I prepared this list for those who wanted to follow our activities and those who are inquiring about the materials we are using. 

Fish Themed Activities for Toddlers

Vito is 28 months old.
Here’s a recap of our week!  You may copy any of these for your own home school journey!

FREE Fish Themed Printable Pack

You can use this printable with Learning Resources Fish Counters.

Fish Theme: Hooray for Fish Craft

Our first activity for this week for the Fish Theme!  We love this Hooray for Fish book so much! I say this is one of the best books I’ve read for toddlers.  The images are so colorful, bold and it contains some silly stuff like numbered fish, big and small fish, fish with different patterns etc.  This is the reason why it is perfect for our unit this week!