FREE Letter A Dot and Tracing Activity Sheets

Last spring Vito and I started to work on letters and letter sounds again (Beginning Letter Phonics Cards and Beginning Reading: Language Objects and Activities).  Because he enjoyed working on these Letter B activity sheets, he always asked for “more” sheets to work on and always repeating “buh for bird” and other b objects.  This led me to create more sheets! And because it’s apple season, I gave him “Aa” and it was perfect!  He worked on all three sheets!  More of this letter A activities but for now, I’m sharing our FREE letter A sheets.

FREE Letter B Dot and Tracing Activity Sheets

I’m so happy of how my dot activity sheets for Vito turned out!  I prepared this for our Bird Unit (for the letter b sound) and has been a morning ritual for Vito to complete covering the dots with our glass nuggets.

Collection of Color Learning Activities for Preschoolers

Happy Valentines Day everyone!  I hope that your day is as colorful as my post today. 
For the month of February,  my entry for the 12 Months More of Montessori Learning is all about how we learn and explore colors at home.   If you are looking for more ideas on how to extend your color activities at home, then this is definitely for you!  At 39 months, Vito is knowledgeable of all basic colors and I just have to nurture this knowledge through planned and spontaneous activities.

LEARN COLORS THROUGH NATURE FINDS
Last year, Vito and I started bringing home “nature finds”.  This was the time when he turned 3 years old and stopped mouthing objects.  We would bring simple things like sticks, pinecones, flowers or rocks, then placed them in a basket for more exploration.  We discussed the objects’ texture, shape, weight (heavy or light), size (big or small) and of course the color/s.  To simply demonstrate how to extend the “nature table” activity by focusing on colors, Vito and I collected and glued some flowers, leaves and sticks on a white cardstock and then matched them to their nearest colors in the Montessori Color Tablets (3rd Box) .


Because they are placed in a white background, Vito can easily identify the color tablets closest to the petals, leaves and sticks.  This is a simple activity that’s so easy to replicate.  You can work on rocks, different hues of leafy greens, flowers and more.

COLOR GRADING
We are now using  Montessori Color Tablets (3rd Box) for this activity.  This is a sensorial material for visual discrimination and perfection of colors.  I was a little bit hesitant to purchase it at first so we used a DIY.   If you skim through my blog, you might have read about our previous color grading activity using water and food coloring. 



I will talk about the Montessori Color Tablets (3rd Box) in a separate post but for now, here’s Vito trying out the yellow color (we worked on it one color at a time).  We talked about the dark and light yellow… and on how it gets lighter or darker.

COUNTERS
I love Learning Resources’ counters and we use them a lot at home.  We extended its use not just for counting but for color sorting and fine motor skills activities too!  What you see here are the Mini Motors and the Backyard Bugs counters. Vito arranged the counters on their corresponding cut-out colored strips.



IN FOODS
We worked on fruits and vegetables last year too and sorted out their colors. Vito loves our play pretend Farmers Market Color Sorting Set and he would often sort them according to colors.  But you don’t need to use this, you can use whatever you have in your kitchen. By the way, in this activity we are using the Montessori Color Tablets (2nd Box).

 


RAINBOW COLORS
Nothing beats learning colors through the rainbow!  We love our Large Grimm's Rainbow Stacker to pieces and the boys are using this in so many ways other than stacking it and learning colors!   I love that it provides different hues of red, green and blue.  Because Vito is constantly exposed to this toy, he’s able to identify the dark and light green, red and blue.  Mavi even made a LEGO Bricks version of this rainbow! 



ARTS
Of course, there’s the paints, watercolors and markers!  Explore colors using these inexpensive art materials.  We are not yet talking about primary and secondary colors, but occasionally I would show Vito that we can combine colors to produce another color.
COLORS IN BOOKS
There are so many books on colors but this book is our favourite.  Vito enjoyed this the most because he loves flipping the transparent pages of the book to see the result when colors combine.  Colours (My First Discoveries) is perfect for toddlers and preschoolers!


COLORS IN SCIENCE
This was an experiment we did last year and Vito loved it!  This is one of the many ways we show our kids how secondary colors are formed. See how Vito studied color mixing through this post "Color Mixing: Green, Orange and Purple".

EVERYWHERE
Colors are everywhere! Don’t limit yourself to the ones you have at home (objects).  Go out and explore the colors in forests, beaches, parks and just about anywhere… and it’s free!

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This post is part of the 12 Months More of Montessori which is hosted by Natural Beach Living and The Natural Homeschool.

Amazing blogs participating in the 12 Months More of Montessori that you should visit:

Easy Flower Science Activities for Preschool and Kindergarten | Natural Beach Living

Montessori-Inspired Skip Counting for Kids {Spring Printables} | The Natural Homeschool

How to Prepare a Montessori-Style Lenten Tray | Living Montessori Now

Montessori Practical Life - Caring for a Plant | Happy Mama’s Hive

Toddler Butterfly Theme for Spring | The Kavanaugh Report

Collection of Color Learning Activities for Preschoolers | The Pinay Homeschooler

Montessori-inspired Plant Activities with Free Printables | Every Star is Different

Montessori Flower Arranging: Practical Life Skills (Free Printable) | Christian Montessori Network

PB&J Bird Seed Ornaments | Sugar, Spice & Glitter

8 Must-try Insect Activities With Free Montessori-inspired Printables| Uno Zwei Tutu

Hands on butterfly themed learning activities | Welcome to Mommyhood

Activities for Toddlers (12-18 Months)

I’m often asked by my readers and fellow Moms for the activities suitable for certain ages.  So I decided to sum up Vito’s favourite activities since 12 months old.  First in the series, I’m sharing activities that Vito enjoyed when he was between 12-18 months old.   (Always supervise your child in each of these activities)

Activity Trays for 33 Month Old Toddlers

Hello everyone! We only have two more weeks before school opens so I decided to postpone Vito’s Fruits and Art Unit for the rest of the month so I can spend quality time with the boys and not think about activity preparations.  With this I’m sharing Vito’s activity trays which he started working on early this month. Vito only spends about 20 minutes for our “themed units” and the rest, he would either do free play or work on these trays.  These would entertain him while I do house chores, sometimes I supervise especially if we use glass bottles.

FREE Printables for Alphabet Learning Sheets

Hi everyone! I’m often asked in my Instagram account on where I get our printed learning materials for learning letters (letter recognition and pre-writing) so I’m going to share with you the links of my sources here as it’s difficult to do that in IG.

Teaching Toddlers How Plants Grow

After our watercress activity, I introduced Vito to the life cycle of a green bean plant using Safari Ltd Life Cycle of a Green Bean Plant and the cards from The Wise Owl Shop.  Check out some of the activities that we worked on during the past few days that demonstrate how plants grow to toddlers.

Growing Watercress with Kids at Home

Vito is 33 months old.

For the second week of August, we’re learning about plants!  So to start with, the boys and I grew watercress at home and they totally love it!  Another activity that is suited for siblings!  Take a look at how Vito and Mavi worked on this together.

Introducing Toddlers to Animals in Land, Water and Air

I had two presentations for the land, water, and air animals.  I first showed Vito what’s land, water, and air animals.  We worked with action songs to demonstrate how animals move in land, water, and air.  After I presented the pictures and the trays, Vito sorted out the animal figures I prepared for him.

Introducing Wild Animals to Toddlers

VIto is 32 months old.

As we continue our wild animals exploration, the boys and I watched documentary shows in Netflix about animals in Africa.  Vito enjoyed watching the shows and kept on naming the animals that he can identify.  With this, we worked on vocabulary words by identifying other wild animals that he’s not familiar with like gorilla, panther and rhinoceros.  We used our Safari Toob Wild animals for this activity together with the matching cards we got from The Wise Owl.

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 Sounds and Music: The Musical Hand Bells

Vito is 32 months old.

I prepared a few simple activities for our Sound and Music Unit.  It was the week of heatwave so I grabbed the opportunity to bring the boys outside more often to practise their biking and scooting skills, and as for me, able to run and lose a few pounds LOL.

Joking aside, this musical hand bells was a favourite of Vito. He loves using just to listen to the sound it makes and at times ringing the bells together to make “music”.

Homeschool Activities for Toddlers 32 Months Old

I’d like to share a summary of Vito’s work tray activities at 32 months.  These are the trays that are either part of our themed activities or just some random ones that I prepared for him in line with his current interests.  I hope that this will give you an idea on what to give your children in case he/she’s of the same age.  Keeping records of Vito’s work trays are also a means for me to track his development and progress per month.

LETTER PATTERNS

One of the challenging task that he’s working on this month.  We’re working with letters CUSN-POLH and here he’s doing the letter C.  This printed material was from The Confessions of a Homeschooler and the magnetic board plus the patterns were from Melissa & Doug Deluxe Wooden Magnetic Pattern Blocks Set.

SANDPAPER NUMBERS AND COUNTING WITH DO DOTS

He loves the sandpaper numbers!  So we worked on tracing the numbers first and I demonstrated by counting it using the do a dot marker.  So aside from pre-writing, it’s also a great practise for 1:1 correspondence.  The sandpaper numbers can be purchased here and you can get the markers here, Do a Dot Markers.

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

We love Safari Toobs and its his first time to use the Musical Instruments Toob.  As of the moment, we do the typical match to figure and picture using the 3-Part Cards from The Wise Owl (Philippine based).  You can check about this activity here, Montessori Inspired Activity: Musical Instruments.

ANIMALS IN THE WILD

Learning about the animals in the wild, using this set from The Wise Owl again (the 3-Part cards for the Safari Toobs Wild Animals is also in my 200+ Toobs Matching Cards Bundle Pack).  He can name a few but find it difficult to say the names of other animals like the rhino, hippo, and panther. You can check the details of this activity here, Introducing Wild Animals to Toddlers.

ANIMAL COVERS PATTERN MATCHING

One of our favorite printable from our shop (Animal Skin Cover Matching Cards)!  Matching animals with their covers.  We are using animals from Schleich and Safari Toobs Wild Animals.  You can check the activity here, Animal Skin Covers Sensorial Matching Activity for Preschoolers.

MUSICAL HAND BELLS

We’re having the Sound and Music Unit and one activity is using these musical handbells.  You can check how we conducted our activity here, Montessori-Inspired Sounds and Music: The Musical Hand Bells.

ANIMALS AND THEIR LETTER SOUNDS

A little bit of phonics activity by matching animal names to their beginning sounds.  We just worked from letters A to E.  Animals are from Schleich and foam letters from Munchkin Letters and Numbers Bath Toys.

MONTESSORI KNOBLESS CYLINDERS

This is one of his favorites for this month.  You can get the Knobless Cylinders at any Montessori shop or here.  Read about this amazing sensorial material and activity here, Montessori Sensorial Activities using the Knobless Cylinders.

LETTER TRACING

Vito is currently obsessed with tracing so I got him a dry wipe/wet wipe chalk markers which has no strong scent.  I used to purchase those dry erase pens that are using ink but they really smell, and I just discovered these chalk markers which are perfect for Vito. It’s non toxic, has bright colors and can be removed easily!  You can get these from AmazonUK and AmazonUS.  The wipe and erase cards were Mavi’s and I purchased them from Singapore (Kumon), you can also get them here.  And if you have more time and want to create your own cards you can also get this printable instead, Alphabet Tracing Mats.

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