Hands-on Learning: Biomes of Australia

A few weeks ago, while were doing an Australia Unit, Mavi and I talked about the animals in Australia and in which habitat they belong. We’ve done this years ago but it’s always nice to revisit and add a little depth in the topic. 

The Polar Regions (Arctic and Antarctic Unit) for Gradeschoolers

January is usually the best time to have winter themed activities or do either Antarctica or Arctic activities.  It is the time when kids can envision these frozen part of the planet due to the cold/extreme weather.  To start with, I've setup an invitation to play tray in our shelf and displayed books to go along with it.  These can be accessed by the boys whenever they want to and they are not age specific, big boys and little brothers can share and play with the tray!

Landforms of the Arctic and Antarctic Regions

Both of the boys are learning about the Polar Regions this month.  I have shared our Polar Animals Sensory Bin last week, and today I’m sharing what Mavi has been working on.  While Vito is having tray works, Mavi on the other hand is learning about the difference between the landforms of the Arctic Circle and the Antarctica.  This activity is vital in understanding the environment in both regions.

The Study of Northern Europe

Mavi and I are looking into the different regions of Europe and we started with Northern Europe (of course, that’s our location!).  So as not to be overwhelmed, we only focused on 4 countries:  Denmark, United Kingdom, Ireland and Sweden.


So to learn about Northern Europe we have the following activities:

Europe Continent Study for Grade Schoolers

We are revisiting our Europe study, this time I’ve decided to take it by regions.  But before we dive into that, we reviewed some of the things we’ve learned in the past years.

Europe Continent Study: European Regions

Here’s a new study for this year, learning Europe through its regions.  Here I was showing Mavi the divisions and the boundaries in the map.  I bought this map years ago at Montessori Print Shop.  So we’re doing a color code here based on our map in Europe in a Nutshell.  Blue for northern Europe, red for western Europe, green for eastern Europe and orange for southern Europe.

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.

Continent Fact Cards Game and {Learn & Play Link Up}

Mavi can’t get enough of these facts cards from my Nutshell Geography series! He wants us to play this when in the car, or when we're walking home.  I would ask him a questions based on the facts and he’s going to tell me the continent or the country it’s connected to.  We developed a scheme of giving him 3 clues (mostly letters from the answers) and I am PROBIHIBITED to give the answer. It’s amazing how both Mavi and I enjoyed it.  So happy that we found a new way to use these cards!

These cards are from:

• Asia in a Nutshell
• Europe in a Nutshell
• Africa in a Nutshell
• South America in a Nutshell

EUROPE in a Nutshell

My son’s favorite continent (according to him)! is finally up in My SHOP! I am so excited and happy to announce that I’ve completed our Europe in a Nutshell learning material and is now cooking in the printer, to be laminated and will be used in a couple of weeks for our Europe study!  Mavi just loves my Nutshell Geography series and can’t wait to try it with Vito in the near future!

Continent Study of South America

*** Contains affiliate links

South America Continent Maps and Flags

Whenever we worked a geography lesson at home(for elementary only!), I always start with maps and flags because I wanted him to know the location and flags of certain cities from that continent.  We travel a lot, crossing countries and continents almost every year and so knowing all these will be useful. The Montessori Continent Puzzle that we are using is from Tower High Learning.

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 Landforms Cards

** Contains affiliate links **

Here’s my presentation of the landform cards.  Although this was not the first time Mavi encountered the cards, he was more than excited to use our new Montessori materials because this time, it has textures!  Plus, it helped that we have this Learning Resources Transportation counters to use with our cards!  You can get this from any Montessori shop or from Amazon.  (Mine is from Tower High learning)

If you want you want to see our introduction to landforms, read it here. 

I created the description cards that you see in the photo.  I love doing this and let Mavi read :)  It is my way of letting him practice reading, not just in books.

Now the transportation counters helped a LOT in my presentation.  It helped me demonstrate where’s the land and water in the cards.  Such a perfect tool for visual presentation! 

And they are so cute!  They’re really worth-it! So here are my additional materials to help me with the topic.

Here’s the 6 landform materials (out of 8).  Aren’t they so beautiful?

We’ll do more of this in the coming weeks as we explore countries and continents via Five in a Row.  Hope you like this post!

Pin this!

More geography activities from here: Follow Pinay Homeschooler's board Geography on Pinterest.

ASIA in a Nutshell

One of the most interesting continents to look into is Asia.  Oh yes! It is the biggest continent and with some of the most interesting countries like China, India, and Russia!  Now if you want to explore this wonderful continent in your class or home, checkout my ASIA in a Nutshell learning material.

What’s included?

Book Review: Grandfather’s Journey

**Contains affiliate links**

From Amazon: “Lyrical, breathtaking, splendid—words used to describe Allen Say’s Grandfather’s Journey when it was first published. At once deeply personal yet expressing universally held emotions, this tale of one man’s love for two countries and his constant desire to be in both places captured readers’ attention and hearts. Winner of the 1994 Caldecott Medal, it remains as historically relevant and emotionally engaging as ever.” 

I was forced to read this book because this is the first book in the FIAR list that’s in our possession.  Forced in a sense that, it doesn’t look interesting at all. The cover is lousy, with dull colours and doesn’t look like a children’s book at all.

But oh boy, I was wrong. It is true indeed that you should not judge the book by its cover.  Once Mavi opened the book and started reading, we were glued!  The story is so simple, yet it touched our hearts.  Mavi and I immediately fell in love with story as we see ourselves in the character.  We are expats, and we both love two countries.  There’s depth and emotions in the story.  After reading this book, we were so overwhelmed with emotions that we began missing the Philippines.

A very good book for kids.  The book has large pictures with easy to read texts.  I love the simplicity of it and how easily a child can read this.  Now I understand why it received a Caldecott Medal :) 

This book can also be purchased at Book Depository (free shipping!).  Seen in the picture: Japan flag using LEGO, transport counters from Learning Resources and a bird origami. 

Now listen to my 6 years old son, narrating the story:

A Continent Study of AFRICA for Kids

It’s a month of Africa Continent study in the house.  Mavi enjoyed learning about this beautiful continent, its geography, exploring the different places and landmarks, the wildlife and habitats and of course the different culture and traditions that make Africa unique!

AFRICA in a Nutshell

I love making materials for our geography lessons!  It gives me the freedom to choose subjects, topics to touch, and most of all it gives me the freedom to put depths into it.  Now my latest creation is the Africa Continent Study! It is loaded with activities for you and your little ones or students. (Click the image or this link, Africa in a Nutshell to go to my shop)

So what’s included in this learning material?

History: Earliest People

Here are the activities for the first chapter of the Story of the World Vol 1 Earliest People.  (Based on the Activity Book Vol 1) [Affiliate link]

Map and Activity Sheets 

I took a photo of Mavi’s interpretation of the nomads living inside a tent and with a campfire.

 

Cave Painting

The book also suggests that you try cave painting (pretend) as a means of communication or recording of events. 

LEGO Project

As much as possible to we love to incorporate LEGO in our work. So here we made Jericho, the first city… just as the book described it.

 

Learning About East Asia

If you’ve been following my blog, we started our Asia Unit last month and so far we successfully completed our Southeast Asia Study.  In this post, I present to you materials and activities we worked last week for East Asia. 

Maps and Flags

As you all by now, we ALWAYS start our continent/country study with maps and flags.  This will familiarize the child of the subject’s location and each of the country’s national symbol.  For the East Asia, we identified three major countries: China, Japan and South Korea

Materials:

• Asia in a Nutshell
• Asian Flags Nomenclature Cards Pack

Again, we used Lego to recreate flags.  This activity is similar to our Southeast Asia flag activity.

Famous Landmarks

We have painting/crafts activity and Lego play.  Our tablet is very useful for this activity.  We used it to view pictures (for clear view) and watch videos related to our study. 

Materials

• Asian Landmarks Cards for other activities (3-part cards, fact cards).
• Lego
• Paints
• Pink Tissue Paper

Famous landmark for Japan is Mount Fuji

             

 

We chose Great Walls of China as our subject here.  Here we use our fact cards, which Mavi reads while we view the bigger picture in our tablet.

Calligraphy

We are using the Japanese numbers in this activity.  I painted the characters on papers and cut them for presentation.  Now Mavi has to make the characters as well.

After the activity, Mavi was like “Mom it is so difficult!”. 

 

Animals

We’ve studied Asian Animals previously, so in this activity we’re doing a Panda puzzle.  I printed this from DLTK Kids, and Mavi has to color and form the Panda according to the cheat card.

 

Arts and Crafts

We made oriental fans and learned how to make origami items.  For the oriental fans, we used paper plates, used watercolor for the background and black tempera paint for the details.  Our origami papers are homemade because the real ones are so expensive in this side of the world.  They’re colored crafts paper and I cut them to a size of 6 x 6 inches.

Books

We used lots of books, but here are my son’s favourites [aff.links]:

• Letters Around the World:  China --->> OUR FAVOURITE SERIES!
• Discover Countries:  Japan

For more Asia Unit please check my Pinterst Board Follow Pinay Homeschooler's board Continent Study: Asia on Pinterest.

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History and Geography

The Making of Bahay Kubo

Here’s my attempt of presenting how we made our Bahay Kubo (Nipa Hut) project which was part of our Southeast Asia Study.

It’s pretty simple actually. What you will be needing are the following:

• strips of cardboard paper
• bamboo skewers
• double sided tape
• green cardstock (roof)

Procedure

1.  Cover the upper portion of the sticks with the double sided tape.

2.  To make a wall, stick the strips of cardboard on the two bamboo skewers. See the picture below (make two of this).  Leave a square shape in the middle for the window.

3.  To make the square house, connect the two walls using the cardboard strips again.  It should automatically stick on the bamboo skewer because of the double sided tape.  But you can add more tape if needed.  Leave a rectangle opening on the other wall for the door.

4.  For the roof, I use a cardstock, folded it and cut some strips on its end.  To make it sturdy, I glued the middle part in a cardboard paper.

            

5. To attach the roof on the house, I tape (double sided) another strip of cardboard in the middle of the roof so I can place it on top of the house using the side walls. 

           

6.  For the stairs, again it’s pretty simple. I use the double sided tape to attach all the elements in the stairs.

And that’s how we were able to come up with a Nipa Hut model.  Hope this post will give you an idea how to make your own version as well. Happy weekend!

Learning About Southeast Asia

Here’s a summary of activities for learning about Southeast Asia.

Southeast Asia Map and Flags

This activity is all about familiarization of the Southeast Asia Map and identification of countries which belong to this region.

Learning materials used in this activity:

• Asia in a Nutshell
• Flags of Asia Pack (Nomenclature and Pin Flags)

ASIA Unit Study 2014

It always excites my son to study Asia.  For some reason, he finds this continent so mysterious.  As I said before, maybe it’s because of the diversity in culture, people and lifestyle.  We came from the Philippines and in a short time we stayed in Singapore.  Mavi even attended a Chinese school and yes at 2 years old he can speak a few Chinese :D  So Mavi was exposed to the different culture and people but he was young then, so he couldn’t appreciate it yet.

Anyway, here are the materials/activities I prepared for Mavi for this year’s study.  This is just Asia in general, I have separate post for each study of the Asian regions.

MAP WORKS

A review of the Asia Map.  We are also doing a puzzle map similar to this activity. 

Presentation and work of the Asian Regions. Asia is divided into 6 regions, namely:  Southeast Asia, East Asia, South Asia, West Asia, Central Asia and North Asia (Russia).  Here we identified major countries of each regions and place the Asia Pin Flags to plot their location.  Mavi also worked on the 3-part card of the Asian regions.

 

HABITAT

Study of Animals of Asia and Habitats. 

Below is a worksheet for Mavi to work plotting the appropriate habitat.

ANIMALS OF ASIA

The study of habitat is side by side with our animal study.  We use the cards to look into the animals and sort them out whether they live in a rainforest, desert or grassland. 

In addition, we made animal skin prints similar to Africa Study.

           

 

Now this study won’t be complete without learning about the treasures of Asia.  We used the Natural Resources of the World cards for this.  In the set-up I placed papers and a pen to write/draw the end products of Asia’s resources.

 

ASIAN CUISINE

Now this is part of daily life as this what I always prepare at home (Asian Cuisine cards).  I just have to emphasize to Mavi from what country our meal of the day came from.

     

Coming up… Southeast Asia!

More activities from here:

Follow Pinay Homeschooler's board Continent Study: Asia on Pinterest.

 

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
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I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!