First Great Lesson: Experiments on the Laws of the Universe

It’s that time of the year in our home wherein we're doing "The Great Lessons". Maria Montessori’s plan for the framework of elementary education is cosmic education and cosmic education is attained via telling the five great stories and followed by key lessons. These stories are typically told in the beginning of the Montessori school year for lower elementary and repeated ever year. This is our second year of the great lessons and I decided to document it so you can replicate it in your homes as well.

Montessori For Everyone has a beautiful summary of what The "Five Great Lessons" are all about. This post is all about the First Great Lesson: The Beginning, and we'll showcase the experiments to demonstrate the basic laws governing our universe.

Ancient Egypt Learning Materials for Kids

This holy week, Mavi revisited ancient Egypt after rereading the Ten Commandments story.  We dug up our Egypt Picture Book materials so he could work on some readings and do some activities to follow them.  In this post, I will share the contents of our Egypt Picture Book learning pack, which you might want to try.  It contains reading materials, activity pages, picture cards and outline cards for colouring.

Animal Habitats Sorting and Activity Sheets

Vito is 40 months old.

If you read my post on the 12 Months More of Montessori for Earth Science, Vito and I will be working on animal habitats.  We tried this before, in its simplest form when Vito was still a toddler and I decided to move forward into a more abstract approach (with some sensorial activity) now that Vito is older.  In this post, I’m going to share the learning materials which the boys are using and the books to go along with our activities.

Montessori Inspired Land, Air and Water Transportation Cards

Vito is 39 months old.

My kids are obsessed with vehicles, but I think most boys are!  They love their Bruder trucks and figures from Safari Toobs which they use a lot in pretend play and play-based learning.  When Mavi borrowed this amazing book from the library (DK Visual Encyclopedia of Vehicles) Vito can’t stop identifying the vehicles in the book.  It’s either he would ask us around (what’s this?), or identify the toys he own and match it to the pictures.  It’s pretty amazing how much interest he has shown!  To widen his vocabulary and knowledge of vehicles, I created cards for him so we can start with the Montessori three lesson period and later on, do some sorting.

Montessori Inspired Parts of a Flower Activities

For Mavi's midterm break, I am planning activities that both my 3-year-old and 8-year-old boys can participate in. One of the activities is to learn about flowers and their composition. Despite having done this activity before at the ages of 4 and 6, Mavi is still excited to do it again with his younger brother. This is a new challenge for me as I need to ensure that the activity is engaging for my younger son, while also conveying information to my older son. In the post, you can find out how I made the boys work together in the activities that I prepared for them.

Hands-On Learning on Common Flowers

Valentine's Day season is always the time wherein the boys and I would talk about flowers.  Not just because it is Valentine's Day, but because this is basically the time wherein we get to see spring flowers starting to bloom out from their buds.  We see them everywhere, in the backyard and front lawn, parks and of course in our neighbours’ houses.  My knowledge of flowers is very limited; I only knew of some tropical flowers from my country and Asian countries.  Of course, there’s always the rose, tulip and orchids… but no, I haven’t heard of daffodils, crocus and poppies not until I stepped foot in Europe.

STEM Toy Learning Optics with Laser Maze Logic Game

 

The boys are crazy over this Laser Maze Logic Game.  I came across this logic STEM toy while I was scouting for learning materials for Mavi’s “optics” activity.   Mavi loves solving the problems in the task cards and Vito on the other hand is fascinated by the effect of the laser light on the target. 

Book Review: Danny Dingle’s Fantastic Finds

I was quite surprised when Mavi finished this book in one day!  It arrived on the mail last week, and when I opened it in front of him, he excitedly asked if he could bring it to school so he can read it during the break. 

A Penguin Project for Mom and Kids

Oh I am so happy how these turned out!! The boys and I enjoyed making these penguins using simple art materials.  It took us around an hour to finish everything (with a stubborn preschooler) and we were totally blown by the result!  This art project was from Deep Space Sparkle, one of my favourite artsy website and my go to for painting projects. 

Telling Time Activities

Mavi wanted to practice more of reading the time, especially when it comes to reading and writing “quarter to” and “half past”.  He seems to be confused with the positioning of the small hand.  So with this, I made a few activities for him to work afterschool.  I am sharing these activities as well as the printables were are using (yes it’s free!).

 

Autumn Themed Graphing Game

We are loving DIY math games! The boys enjoyed our Race Game a few weeks ago, so I didn’t hesitate to give them our Graphing Game.  Not only can my preschooler practise his counting skills and taking turns, this is also a great opportunity to introduce date recording (and analysis) for older children. 

 

Rocks and Minerals Learning Activities for Kids (with Free Cards)

The summer break gave us an opportunity to explore sciences that Mavi loved to learn but couldn’t because of school.  After our trip to the Wicklow Mountains last month, he’s been asking  if we could learn about rocks and minerals.  He plays Minecraft so he wanted to understand the building blocks he’s using.  I started making the materials last month and it was just a few weeks ago that I finished the entire set and we were able to use it together with our rock collections!

Activity Using Our Water Cycle Learning Pack

We finally concluded our Water Cycle Unit (for Mavi) and he had a blast!  It was timely because it rained for the past few days so we spent most of our days outdoors, observing the nature for the process of water cycle.  Now I’m sharing here the materials that we used and the extension activities that we did.

Understanding the Water Cycle

Last week I decided that Mavi and I should do a water cycle activity with Vito.  I prepared some materials and simple experiments to demonstrate this amazing science!

Fun Rain Cloud Experiment for Kids

Vito is 31 months old.

Still part of our study of the bodies of water, we tried the rain cloud experiment at home and it was a total hit!

Learning About Waterfalls and Rivers

Vito is 31 months old.

Another fantastic activity that we did this week was the making of waterfalls and river.

Hands-on Learning on the Types of Fossils

One activity that Mavi and I did during our fossil study was to examine the different types of method of preservation of organisms.  We discovered that there are actually 5 major types of fossils and I’m sharing how Mavi worked on them.

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.