Frog Unit Part 1

Finally, we started working on our Frog themed activities.  I made sure that I have enough materials on hand to start this theme for my son usually keeps asking for “more”.

PARTS OF A FROG.  I made use of the 3-part nomenclature card which I downloaded for free from Montessori Print Shop.  The author/owner of the site gave a detailed post on how to use and create these cards.  My son loves doing this activity.  He always gets excited whenever I would take out a set of card for us to work on.  I will provide a separate post regarding 3-part cards. 

PRACTICAL LIFE.  I made these cutting strips using MSWord for Mavi to practice cutting.  The first half has a line guide while the rest doesn’t have.  I made him use the ones with the guides first so he would know what to do or how to execute the cutting exercise.  The frog image was taken from a random google search.

NUMBERS AND COUNTERS. I made frog counters for this activity out of green cardstock, covered it with contact paper and cut each frog piece. 

      

Math using Beads Stairs

Our math for the past weeks was all about bead stairs.  I’ve been wanting to try this on Mavi for a long time but he doesn’t show any sign of interest in counting.  These days, he was so fascinated with the beads that he wanted to use it.

I had difficulty when I first introduced this to him for I cannot get him to cooperate. He wanted to play the beads “his own way”.  But when I took the bead stairs worksheets that was the time he finally gave up and allowed me to take control. (that’s because he wanted to color the worksheets)

 

So this how we practice counting at the moment.  First I discussed about the beads, that each bead corresponds to a number. For him not to be overwhelmed by the loads of counting, I just introduced the 1-5 beads.  I placed the number cards and the beads on the table and made him “match” by counting the beads. 

 

Then we use the worksheet.  I made him color the “circles” with corresponding color code of the beads.  In here, I just laid out the crayons on the table, and ask him to color the worksheet.  He perfectly did well in picking up the right color that corresponds to the short beads.

      

I also made another set of short bead stairs and Mavi helped me with it.  He loves putting the macaron beads on the pipe cleaners.  It is a just joy seeing him so happy that he can string the beads together.  And the fact that he was working me with as well! And look! He insisted on taking a picture after we have assembled our bead stairs.

 

      

Here’s what we ended up:

And here’s what more he can do with the beads aside from counting... forming letters!  See even if he’s on a math session, he would steal a moment to build his letters!

Oh I forgot to mention that he can write letters now? It definitely deserves a separate post.

Flowers and Math

Wanting to try something new for our math activity, I decided to make flower counters and matching cards. 

First, I wanted to make a pattern activity.  But I was too lazy to make pattern materials so I just made these flower matching cards.  The objective here is for Mavi to match the multi-colored petal flowers from the pink cards to the white cards.  I thought that this was complicated enough for my son to get challenged, but I was wrong.  He finished the activity in a few minutes with no difficulties at all!  So the lesson here:  DO NOT UNDER ESTIMATE THE CAPACITY OF YOUR CHILD :)

My next plan to make matching games a little complicated.

      

Numbers and counters.  I don’t have any flower counters so I just draw them on a paper.  The number cards are DIY.

I was happy that I came up with this idea of making plants with flowers.  He got challenged here, for he cannot immediately identify the quantity of the flowers by the sight of it.  Thus in this case, he needed to count them one by one.  He had a few miss between numbers 5 and 6 but that’s okay.  Here I am showing him the many different ways we can count objects.

      

Remind to self:

1. Repeat flower numbers and counters and included numbers 7 to 10.
2. Patterning activities for flowers.
3. Make flower matching activity more challenging :)

Till our next math activities!

Re-visiting Painting

It’s been months since we haven’t had any painting activities.  Unlike before wherein Mavi would always ask for watercolors, these days he’s just into letters and his Safari Toobs toys.

So to keep him interested on painting, arts and colors I decided that once a week I should dedicate time to sit with him and paint.

As seen below, Mavi was trying to examine the Crayon Washable Paints.  He asked me to fill the palette.  I also made sure that there’s enough paint brush for him to use. And he seems to prefer the bigger brush.

    

One of the things that I taught him on this session is how to do the strokes properly.  I’m not a painter nor an artist, so I just go with the “up and down” stroke and the “circle” stroke.  II hope we could do some impressionism in the future :)

Obviously, my masterpiece looks like the work of a 1st grader hehehe.  But I enjoyed playing out the colors and demonstrating to the little one that we can create so many things with just the use of a brush a paint and a lot of imagination as well.

After 3 papers of painting, he got bored and decided to make a train out of his paint bottles.