Landmarks Around the World

Vito had a sudden interest in naming landmarks. He was fascinated with the pyramids after watching a show about kids exploring ancient sites like the pyramids in Egypt and the great walls of China. I immediately showed some of our travel photos featuring these landmarks in the background. He was shocked that I had been to some of those places. With this, I introduced him to some other places around the world.

Animals of Antarctica Printable with Safari Toob Antarctica Set

Have you seen Safari Toob Antarctic toob yet?  To me, it’s one of the best toob they ever had!  I mean, aside from penguins, can you name other animals that live in Antarctica?  Quite difficult right?  That’s why we are so happy that Safari Ltd finally came up with these figures so we can introduce our kids to other animals thriving in Antarctica other than penguins!  So if you have kids or students who love animals and learning about places, Safari Antarctica Toob is one good learning toy you can invest in.

Safari Ltd Mammal Skulls Discovery Play

The boys love these mammal skulls which Safari Ltd has sent us!  They specifically love to bury these in the kinetic sand and play scavenger hunt or play-pretend to be scientists.  This is one of the afterschool activities the boys enjoy playing together and working independently.

The Safari Ltd Ancient Rome

A few weeks ago, Safari Ltd (Safari Toobs) sent us these amazing Ancient Rome Supertoob which is composed of 12 historical figures and a perfect learning tool to go along with our Ancient History Learning Cards. Mavi loves history and he was over the moon when he saw these beautiful figures arrive.  The figures are big, and sturdy.  I specifically love that they included the Aqueduct and Pantheon, landmarks that are not included in their previous landmark toobs.


Anyway, we’ve been busy using these figures for weeks now.  Here are some of the ways we’ve been using them.

Montessori Inspired Life Cycle of a Green Bean Plant

This is a follow-up activity on our Montessori Inspired Parts of a Plant.

After learning about the parts of a plant, Vito and I talked about how plants grow.  We walked around the estate and identified baby plants, some of them were just actually sprouting off the ground and this amazed Vito.  We also read the book How A Seed Grows to go along with our activity, this is a really good book!  The book illustrates the different stages of a plant’s (bean plant) life, from the preparations to planting up to the the part where the grown plant needs to be moved into a ground soil.  We have a few of these Read and Find Out books and Mavi loves to use them as reference.  Anyway, aside from the book, I also used the very beautiful Life Cycle of a Green Bean Plant from Safari Toob and a homemade life cycle cards (this are now available in my shop, Early Childhood Life Cycle Mats).

What are Insects?

Here’s a simple way of telling whether an animal is an insect:  has 6 legs (with or without wings).  This is something new to Vito, the word “insect”.  He usually calls them with their real names like flies, bees, dragonflies, etc. but is not familiar with their category.  Now, this is the first time that I introduced this concept, so he struggled a little bit until we started counting the legs!

Montessori Inspired Life Cycle of Insects

Vito and I have been talking about insects in the past few days.  I mentioned in my previous post, the current interest on insects was brought about by their sudden appearance.  So far he has encountered quite a few already like garden ants, flies, wasps and bees, and bugs. It’s a shame we haven’t seen grasshoppers and dragonflies here, I used to catch and collect them as a child (back in Asia). Anyway, since our last activity on Farm Families, Vito still loves to learn about mommies, daddies, and babies, thus I introduced the life cycle of insects early on in our activities.  Unlike my past activities with Mavi, this one is very simple and straight forward.

Seen here are the life cycles figures of:  butterfly, bee, ant, and ladybird.

Introducing the Solar System to Preschoolers

In line with our Days of Creation activities, the boys and I talked about how the universe came to be.  Mavi used his Usborne Fact Cards once again to review some solar system concepts and this made Vito get into the mood of exploring the planets as well.  

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.

Animals Around the World Activity

Vito is 39 months old.

There is nothing more precious in this world than seeing your kids work together peacefully LOL.  During the midterm break, I prepared some activities which both of them can participate in.  It’s not just about the academics, but my main purpose is for them to learn how to work together as a team and bond as brothers.  So aside from learning about flowers, the boys also explored the animals of the world using our Montessori Inspired Animal Continents Activity Sheets.  Mavi was so ecstatic to do this with Vito as he loves animals (he said he’s an expert) and geography.

Montessori Inspired ASIA Continent for Preschoolers

Vito is 39 months old.

This month, I’m helping Vito explore the Asia continent .  We’ve started continent study last year, which was followed by an exploration of the penguins in Antarctica.  We occasionally look at Maps and work on the continent puzzle, and based on my observation, Vito is ready to learn about Asia.

Montessori Inspired February Activities for Preschoolers

Vito is 39 months old.

Thank goodness January is almost over!  I really don’t like January, it’s that time of the year where we get to experience the worst weather condition.  Fortunately, we have fair weather this year, it’s actually warm!  But, I am so looking forward to spring now, and I can’t wait for all these gloomy days to be over.  And speaking of spring, this month, I’ll start adding “spring” activities into our homeschool activities.  We will be using traditional Montessori materials for most part and in some, we’ll have themed activities.  Hope you like what I prepared for Vito for this month.

Animals and their Covers

My boys love animal covers!  We used this whenever we want to play around with or beautiful animals from Schleich or whenever Mavi wants to replicate them through drawing.

Montessori Inspired Activity: Musical Instruments

As we continue our Sound and Music Unit, I also introduced the different musical instruments.  Of course, it would be best if we have all of these (LOL) or least own one, but since we don’t these beautiful musical figures from Safari Toob will do.

Montessori-Inspired Activity: The Life of a Honey Bee

Vito is 32 months old.

The appearance of the honey bees in our front and backyard has led us to look into the lives of these beautiful creatures who are the main source of honey.  Vito is terrified of them but not Mavi.  We were out the other day catching a few of them, observing how they produce the buzzing sound and freed them up again.

Montessori Inspired Insects Activity

I am reintroducing some Montessori-inspired activities once again to Vito.  We’ve been doing lots of free play for the past few days that I miss giving him “prepared” activities.  As he will turn three in the next few months, I’m planning to have a more “structured” schedule and curriculum for him this school year. I’ll share that later on once I figure out how to do that. 

Anyway, so in our Insects Unit, I borrowed these cards from my friends at The Wise Owl.  They’re Philippine based online shop that provides Montessori cards and Safari Toob figures locally.  Their cards are lovely and the images are so beautiful!

Dinosaur Small World Play Tray

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

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!

Our Favourite Toys for 2 to 7 Years Old

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“As parents and grandparents, we think that we are showing children we love them by giving them things.  In fact such practice, in and out of itself, may send them the wrong message.  Children may conclude that if people give you things, they love you.  If receiving things tells you that you are loved, the next logical step is to measure self-worth by what you have, not by what you are.  The reality is that very young children can only truly love one doll, one stuffed animal, and a few toys at a time. This experience provides a basis for adult life where one must learn to cherish one spouse, one family, one life, instead of fantasizing that it is possible to ‘have it all’.”  - MONTESSORI FROM THE START

We don’t have a lot of toys at home.  Mavi just like two kinds of toys: LEGO and dinosaur/animal figures, that’s just it.  All through the years, I don’t splurge nor buy toys as we don’t have the budget for it. I consider them as luxury so I just gave toys to Mavi as presents on his birthday and Christmas.  But because we “home” school, I purchase learning materials that my kids see as “toys” but in reality they are NOT really toys.    And because I am frugal, I buy toys that they can grow with, MULTIPURPOSE and something that they can play together.   So let me share with you the kids’ favourite things in the house.  These are the toys that we have in the house, except for the ones in my “wishlist and basket”.  These toys are being played day in and day out by the boys.

NOTE:  ALWAYS SUPERVISE YOUNGER CHILDREN WHEN USING ANY OF THESE TOYS.  Do not leave them unattended.

FAVOURITE TOYS

LEGO, DUPLO and PLAYMOBIL.  Need I say more? These are the favourite in the house. We have plenty of LEGOs as this is Santa’s favourite present EVERY Christmas for 4 years!  And Vito’s Duplo and Playmobil were brought from the local store when they were on 50% off. I would never get them for a whole price! Vito is now snapping bricks together and loves the Playmobil people.  Both of my boys spend hours and hours playing with these toys.  They never get tired of them.  Perfect toy for creativity, concentration and developing fine motor skills!

For Playmobils, we have castles and pirates. They’re Mavi’s favourite toy and can play with them for hours!

My son loves the LEGO CLASSIC Bricks.  He doesn’t really like those with premade designs as he always wanted to design his own thing. So I highly recommend that you buy the basic LEGO BRICKS especially if you are getting your first Lego.  Having a plate is also good. 

 

 

miniLUK and BambiniLUK.  Mavi and I looooves this! We can’t get enough of answering all the booklets, especially those tricky ones!  I bought the Starter Pack and bought the advanced booklets separately.  There’s a version for younger kids, the BambiniLUK and some friend in Instagram said that they like it. Mavi is like “Mom, its making my brain tired LOL”

 

Montessori Botany  and Zoology/Insect Puzzles, Montessori Puzzle Maps.  I invested on these this year and it was worth it! I have puzzle loving kids, and Vito is currently addicted to them.  Aside from educational, these puzzles are also perfect for pincer grasp practice.  Mavi on the other hand is obsessed with my Asia and Europe puzzles.  He loves geography, loves to learn about countries and their locations.  Tower High Learning is my favourite Montessori shop as of the moment and this is where I purchase my materials.

 

Schliech Animal Figures and Safari Toobs are also an all time favourite in the house. The uses of these figures include imaginative play, learning about animals, habitat play, exploring landmarks and just about anything!  You see these mostly in my post!  When Vito was younger, I made him use Schleich animal figures because they are bigger but now that he has overcome his mouthing, he uses both Schleich and Safari Toob. Mavi is obsessed with dinosaurs, and he uses them now as characters for his homemade videos LOL.   Now he uses both types for play and learning.

 

 

Hape Uppercase, Lowercase and Number Puzzles.  With Mavi, I used the Melissa and Doug Magnetic letters (I still have them) and they were really really loved.  Now the problem is Vito mouths things and I made Vito use it, the sticker of the letters were removed.  So I looked for an alternative alphabet toys for us to use and I discovered these amazing puzzles from Hape. They are WORTH-IT! We love using them in anything, from learning letters, puzzles to stacking! Yes, Vito loves to stack these together! We also use it to sort out colors!  Multi-purpose indeed!  But if you have older kids, Melissa and Doug Magnetic Letters are as good as well. 

   

Because I love to cook (Asian and Italian), the boys also love to pretend cooking with me using these Melissa and Doug cooking toys.  They can play for hours with these!

M-cro Maxi Scooter.  And I just have to include this!! Because they play with this scooter in and out of the house! Mavi uses this to school and Vito uses this indoor for scooting practice. I love that it is sturdy and kids can easily balance!

And of course, nothing beats classic toys like balls, cars and PlayDoh!  My boys wouldn’t complain if they receive any of these this Christmas.

WISHLIST

Magnatiles. Rave reviews everywhere but I just couldn’t bring myself to purchase these tiles or can’t even justify it   Maybe when they’re 50% off I would probably get one for the boys!

Unit Block.  I know that the boys will love this as well.  They can build and create so many things with this but the price is just too much for me.  I still have to think about this a million times.

Beleduc Puzzles.  My puzzle loving kids will love these puzzle series, especially the Your Body Layer puzzles!

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.