Ultimate Collection of Practical Life Activities (Part Two)

I’m sharing another set of practical life activities that we do at home! If you enjoyed the first part of my post, well, here are more exciting stuff to do with your kids.

FREE Baby and Child First Aid App from British Red Cross

Dear parents, I have good news for you! Our friends from the British Red Cross (BRC) have a handy and must have emergency go to app for parents! It’s the British Red Cross (BRC) Baby and Child First Aid App, and you can download this mobile app for FREE. Yes, you heard it right, it’s for FREE, and it perfectly runs in Android or Apple mobiles. Now why am I sharing this? It’s important that we educate ourselves with first aid skills, especially with the knowledge on how to administer it to our children. As a mom, I consider the knowledge of “what to do in an emergency” as a very important life skill that could save my children’s life and that of others. And if you are someone who likes to be prepared and armed with this vital ability, there is no better way to learn this than through the BRC Baby and Child App.

What is the BRC First Baby and Child First Aid App?

This app is packed with useful and reliable information on how to properly and correctly administer first aid to children. Any parent can easily learn and acquire skills from this app as it has been meticulously designed and crafted to help parents learn how to take proper action when an emergency at home arises. In short, they were thinking about us parents when they made this!

Why I consider the Baby and Child First Aid App important

I have two hyperactive boys in the house and we never ran out of injuries due to minor accidents. Not to mention there are occasional attacks of asthma, high fever, allergies, cuts, bumps… you name it! I spend a great deal of time searching all over the web for immediate remedies whenever I have problems with my kids’ health. But with the BRC Baby and Child App, I don’t have to do that! I can educate myself ahead of time and be ready in case of emergency. With the knowledge, I can minimise the consequences of my child’s injury, reduce the pain until professional help arrives. And I feel confident and secured because the ones who provided the solutions are highly trained medical professionals with expertise on children.

A walkthrough of the features

Here are the three most important features of the app:

Learn – select this tab if you want to learn how to administer first aid to children. There are lots of options to choose from and each lesson is accompanied by a video, animation and tips.   Pictures below show how the app looks like in a smartphone and a tablet.

This is how it looks like when you press any of the tabbed selections. The picture below falls under “Bleeding heavily”. As you can see, there’s a procedural instruction on how to respond when your child is bleeding profusely and it is coupled with an animation to demonstrate the first aid further.  For your convenience, I provided screenshots taken in an iPad and tablet.

 

Prepare – this section contains prevention tips and how to prepare in case of accidents

Emergency – this section provides parents of the basic first aid that should be administered in case of an emergency situation. Buttons for emergency numbers are also provided whenever you need a professional help.

The picture below shows what to do in case your child is suffering from burns. I am so impressed of the step by step process they provided (even included a timer!) and how amazing that they included a speed dial for professional help.

 

I want to learn more, what will I do?

It is a good idea to take a proper First Aid training to cope up with an emergency. British Red Cross is offering a baby and child first aid course to parents, especially those with children from 0 to 12 years old. Your entire family will benefit on this very important life skills!

And to add more colour to BRC’s campaign on First Aid education, they have created this super cool video on simple first aid  techniques for parents about child poisoning. Come take a look! 

It is time that we should invest on preventive and primary healthcare. Knowing that we have British Red Cross, you know where to go when you need help. So don’t forget to download your free baby and child first aid app now.

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by the British Red Cross

The Tooth Cross Section

Mavi just had his first visit to the dentist (he is cavity free!) and I’m going to have one of my molar tooth extracted.  So there’s been some talks about teeth in the house and how to avoid tooth extraction like mine. 

Fortunately, we have this dental learning set at home which I got from the local store, and we used this to learn more about the tooth anatomy.  This is a closer look of the tooth model and its internal parts.

We used our Tooth Cross Section nomenclature cards to learn about the essential parts of the tooth.

The description cards that you see below is actually part of a booklet which I created. 

The sole purpose of the definition cards for reading practise and vocabulary, the reason why I always integrate it in our activities.

Mavi is actually exploring this on his own.  What I do is set up the learning table and have him work on the materials.  He examines, compare, read and ask questions.  For the presentation, I would place the nomenclature cards in this wooden box I purchased years ago in the Absorbent Minds UK. 

Tooth cross section is part of our dental unit, which I will post later on.  I hope this will inspire you for further exploration of dental study.

By the way, I have a free Teeth Developmental Cards which you can download from here.

If you like this post and wanted to make it as your reference, then  pin it for later!

Thank you!

The Annelids: Earthworms and {Learn & Play Link Up}

Lately, we've been noticing a lot of worms in the yard. I have to admit, I've never been a fan of them! In fact, I'm terrified of worms. However, the boys seem to find these creatures quite amusing. While we were observing them in the garden, I decided to bring out the earthworm life cycle figures that my Aunt had brought when she visited.

Before learning about the life cycle of worms, Mavi and I researched earthworms on the internet. Here are some fascinating facts we found about worms!

1. There are 6,000 species of worms worldwide.

2. Worms breathe through their skin as they have no lungs.

3. They are hermaphrodites, meaning they are both male and female and can produce sperm and eggs.

4. Worms need water to survive. If their skin dries out, they will die.

5. Earthworms are made up of mostly water, about 90%.

I also created similar learning materials for my Animal Life Cycle resources. I find this approach helpful as Mavi can retain a lot of information by presenting the life cycle this way.

You can download a copy of the Worm Life Cycle here.

Because I can’t take earthworms indoors or conduct hands-on learning on earthworm anatomy, we used our worm figure instead to examine the parts of an earthworm. Click here for a copy of the Worm Nomenclature Cards.

Because I wanted to integrate Vito into our activities, we made some wormy meal (unhealthy!). I made Vito hammer a few Oreo cookies… and use them as soil.

Then we added some wormy jellies for everyone to feast on!

Welcome to the Learn & Play Link Party!

For this week, I’d like to feature amazing printables that I’d like to try for my kids!  These are created by generous mothers who wanted to share with us what they are currently using in their own home school.  Thank you so much for these Moms!

Galapagos Animals 3 Part Cards  by In Our Pond
France 3 Part Cards by Welcome to Mommyhood
Ocean Animals Clip Card by A Little Pinch of Perfect
Planets Learning Pack by 3 Dinosaurs

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

Grab This Button:

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South America in a Nutshell

If you have been following my blog, you know that we love studying geography!  This month, I am happy to share my South America in a Nutshell learning material.  And just like its predecessors (Asia in a Nutshell and Africa in a Nutshell), this is packed with lots of information about South America, its flora and fauna, culture and people.  Here’s a walkthrough of the learning material.

Montessori Multiplication Bead Board and Bars

To those who are interested, I recorded Mavi’s work a few weeks ago on Montessori multiplication using the bead board.  We do it occasionally for practice. Whenever he does the bead board, he followed this work with multiplication using the bead bars.  Please use the video below as your reference in case you wanted to try this at home.

Learning Music for Kids (with FREE Printable)

Welcome to another series of 12 Months of Montessori.  For this month, I am going to feature our Montessori-inspired activities in learning music.


Different Types of Music

Mavi loves learning about music. We often hear different genre in stores like classical, rap, hip hop and ballads. He would often ask me “why are some people making sad music Mom?”.  Therefore, I decided to introduce Mavi to the different types of music.  How music is used to express one’s feelings, how it is used to pray, to entertain and how it symbolizes one’s origins.

Sorting Musical Instruments

Yesterday, we started our Montessori-inspired activities for Music.  This is in preparation for our Montessori Music post this coming Friday, the 17th of July for 12 Months of Montessori Series.

Now, I just wanted to highlight this activity, of sorting musical instruments.  There are lots of instruments out there, but I think it is important for the child to identify the groups or families of these instruments to understand how they work.


The Helpful Garden has this amazing file of musical instruments!  It was created as a Montessori 3-part cards, but in our activity, we sorted them out according to their categories.  So I started off by presenting the instruments to Mavi and how these instruments make sounds.  (We also watched videos on how these instruments are being used)

Guide to Space and Heavenly Bodies Study for Kids (with FREE Resources)

I’ve been planning this unit since last month because I wanted to prepare ahead of time. We’ve done A LOT of space and heavenly bodies unit in the past and I wanted to upgrade the lesson, add something new for Mavi to learn.  So right now, I’m sharing our Space and Heavenly Bodies Study for this year. I’m also putting a bunch of links from our previous lessons and activities for your reference. I hope you find this post helpful.

Space and Solar System

               
Solar System and Planets Part I
Solar System and Planets Part II
Planets and Solar System for Preschoolers
Moon Phases

        
The Moon
Phases of the Moon
A look at the Northern and Southern Sky
We looked into the star constellation maps seen in the northern and southern hemisphere.  This is to make Mavi aware that there are stars that can be seen in the northern part of the world but not visible on the other side.

                   
Stars and Constellations
For the details of our constellation study, click here or click the image below.  The material we used here is the Fantacolor pegboard.
Space Exploration History
I made chronological cards of the space exploration history.  The pictures and the fact cards were all taken and referenced from Wikipedia and Wiki Commons.  Though Mavi can read this straight from the site, I wanted to have something tangible and something that we can work on, like arranging the timeline and matching it with objects.

The cards I created contains the year and a title of the major event that occurred in that year.  The description is very much readable by kids though there were a few words that Mavi couldn’t pronounce well or he needed to ask me for the meaning.  Such a good material to improve reading skills, spelling and vocabulary!
After which, I showed him how we can arrange the cards according to their timeline.  This gives him a visual presentation of the order of events. 

Aside from arranging the cards chronologically, you can also use them to match objects.  Here we used Safari Toobs Space, Safari Toob Insects (fly) and Safari Toob Farm (dog).

So if you wanted to have a copy of the cards for Space History Timeline, click here for the link.
Parts of a Space Shuttle
The parts of a space shuttle is something that Mavi really looked forward to.  Oh boy he was so happy that I made him another “flying object”.  The first one was the Airplane Nomenclature Cards, and here’s the newest Space Shuttle Nomenclature Cards.  This is based on the NASA’s space shuttle design.  Using the cards, a child will learn the different parts of a space shuttle.  I wrote the parts’ functions in a notebook because I was out of ink.

To get a copy of the Space Shuttle Nomenclature Cards, click here.
Sensory Tub
Now, this is something I prepared for both of the boys to play with.  Xavi had his own Letter S: Star Unit study last week so it was timely that I prepared this Space Sensory Tub for the boys.  Figures are from Safari Toob Space, homemade PlayDoh planets and homemade Earth felt.

FREE Space Exploration History Learning Cards

We recently concluded our First Great Lesson part 3 which is all about the space and the solar system.  We were able to reuse our material of Space History Cards which I made years ago because Mavi was asking me all about how did NASA came to be.  

Letter D: Dinosaur Unit Activities and {Learn & Play Link Up}

The boys are crazy about dinosaurs so this is what we had last week for our letter D sound of the week. I think this is the very first animal Vito recognized because he’s been seeing these dinosaur figures since he was born.

I made use of all Mavi’s dino toys and used it for Vito’s unit. The activities here are so simple and easy to prepare especially if you have dinosaur figures already.

Cleaning dinosaur toy.  This was the first activity I could ever think of. Knowing the boys like to play with water, surely they will like this. And they did!  They washed and brushed their dinosaurs together outside. Vito mostly played with the water but Mavi was seriously doing the work.  So even if Vito didn’t get to really “brush” the dinosaurs, it was a perfect way to expose him to such kind of activity.


Playdough Dino Prints.  I wanted Vito to improve his “pressing” skills so I got out our playdough so we can make impressions.
As you can see, he doesn’t really press the dinos in the dough.  He would just place them on it.  At times he would push them into the playdough using his pointer fingers, not much of the entire hand yet.

Letter D.  We started sounding the letter D around the house as we talked about dinosaurs. Aside from my foam letters, which I posted on the wall for Vito to see everyday, I also made him put dots on a letter D.   He had fun sticking the dots on the letter.  Vito is using more of his left hand these days. Hmmm… I think I might have a leftie!
               
Now Vito realized he can stick the dots to his face as well. And he had fun doing it!


Matching Dinosaurs.  Vito can identify objects now, so I was wondering if he can match objects as well. This activity is more of a presentation rather than Vito matching the dinosaurs.  I placed one piece of the dinosaur in the palette tray and the other on the basket.  Then I take one dinosaur from the basket and say “let’s look for a match”.  So basically, the child will learn objects that match. 


Dino Prints using Paints.  Another activity that I have to take picture before we do the actual thing.  As much as possible I try to involve paints in our unit activities to introduce Vito to arts.  This dino prints was not really appreciated by Vito. He couldn’t make a print out of a dinosaur yet, do he was quite frustrated, so he resorted to hand painting instead.

Discovering Dinosaurs in Ice. This was a total hit! I made these ahead of time and once they were ready both boys were so excited to touch and taste the ice!   
Integrating learning with sensory activities is so much fun!


Dinosaur Free Play. And of course, how can we not have a free play.  I let Vito play with the dinosaurs most of the time.   Vito and Mavi played the dino figures indoors (Mavi making stories)….. 
… and they also played with it outdoors!


More dinosaur activities!!
Over the years, we’ve done a number of wonderful dinosaur activities.  Click on the links below for more ideas!

Dinosaur and the land before time
Dinosaur activities
Digging Dinosaurs
Dinosaur and Worksheets
Preschool Dinosaur Activities
Homemade Dinosaur Fossils

Welcome to the Learn & Play Link Party!

For this week, I’d like to feature simple and easy to prepare activities. These would be best for busy moms like me!

FREE Yoga Poses Nomenclature Cards by Eager Ed
Spell Your Name Busy Bag by Spark and Pook
Beach Crafts for Kids to Make Dinnerware by Hands On As We Grow
A Week in the Life of Unschoolers by Nourishing My Scholar

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

Grab This Button:

<div align="center"><a href="http://christianmontessorinetwork.com/category/learn-and-play" title="Christian Montessori Network"><img src="http://www.christianmontessorinetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/learn-and-play-link-up-150-150.png" alt="Christian Montessori Network" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Please Follow
Follow Pinay Homeschooler's board Pinay Homeschooler on Pinterest.

An InLinkz Link-up