Repurposing Flashcards: Shapes and Colors

When Mavi was about 1, I had these flashcards which was given to me by a friend.  I couldn’t find any use for them at that time because Mavi wasn’t into flashcards.  He easily gets bored with them.  So what I did was use it as a control card for sorting. 

First I made a replica of all the shapes in the cards using a cardstock.  I made sure that the shape cut-outs will have the same color and size to the ones on the flash cards.  

 

Then I presented the cards to Mavi as I introduce the shapes.  I started with only 2 or 3 shapes so he won’t get overwhelmed.    Then as I place the cut-outs, I instructed him to match them with flashcards. 

It was really interesting because I’ve witnessed the level concentration my son had on sorting.  He examined the shapes well, eyeing each card carefully  then cautiously place the cut-outs on the correct control card.  I didn’t interfere, I just sat there and observe him as he sorted out the shapes.  There were instances he gets confused, then that’s the time I offered my assistance.  And as he progressed, he started developing his own technique in sorting, which as really an amazing thing to watch from a 1.5 years old. 

So you might want to try this in case you have excess flashcards and have no idea on how to repurpose it in your home “school”.

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner

Color Your Homeschool with Pasta!

So there’s so much you cian do with pasta :)  It was once a favorite learning tool in our home. Since I’m quite frugal, I barely give him toys from stores unless necessary, instead I made use of what we in kitchen (LOL) to save money and to be practical as well.

With that said, I made these colorful (rainbow) pasta when Mavi was just a teeny weeny.  We used it in so many ways! And here’s how I done it:

Gather various shapes of pasta like bowtie, penne, Rotelle, macaroni, shells etc.  Then measure the right amount of pasta you wanted to use and put them in a zipper bag (Ziploc).  Add around 1 tablespoon of alcohol and 5-10 drops of food coloring into the bag.  Close the bag, and mix (shake the bag) until everything is covered with color.  Leave the pasta inside the bag for 5-10 minutes.  To dry them up, cover a tray with cookie sheet or kitchen towel.  Carefully pour the colored pasta and spread them in single layer.  And that’s just about it!

 

So here’s how we use them:

1.  For color sorting activity.  I have this egg carton box which I painted with watercolor :)  He matches the pasta to that of the color in the egg box.

           

2.  Stringing and Beading.  Good for penne pasta :)

        

3. Playdough Tower

       

4.  Counters.  Again using an egg carton box as our tray.  I wrote numbers at the bottom of the box and he’ll put the right amount of pasta based on the number written. 

      

Those rainbow pasta are really beautiful!  How I miss them :)

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Preschool Corner

Counting by Tens

Hello readers! I mentioned earlier in my previous post that we will be doing A LOT of  math activities for this month.  With that, we started with skip counting. 

Based on my experience, this is something he is not really interested with.  So to get his attention I used his favorite toy (Lego) to demonstrate counting by tens.

First I made him stack 10 square Legos which he gladly did. I explained that 1 stack of Lego consist of 10 Lego squares. 

And I proceeded with 2 stacks of Lego.  Explained that there are 2 tens now, and 2 tens is twenty all in all.

 

And I made him put 3 stacks of Legos, asked him how many tens are there.  He counted the stacks and answered 3.  Then I explained that 3 tens is thirty.

We did this till we reached 80 because I ran out of Legos.  LOL.

And then we counted the numeral numbers by tens. I really don’t expect him to grasp the concept yet.  I just want him to be familiar with skip counting, that there are “shortcuts” in counting, that we don’t have to count each Lego squares one by one because it would be tiring. 

Now we’ll do counting by 2’s and 3’s next which I think he is more familiar with since I count by 2’s whenever we tidy up his animal figures.

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
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Teach Beside Me

FREE Numbers and Letters Playdoh Mats

I’m currently cleaning up my hard drives and I came across old files that were used during Mavi’s toddler homeschooling years :) Some of which are these Playdoh mats which I customized because I wanted something plain, smaller and requires less ink. So what I did was to create my own version, and I added number Playdoh mats as well.

So if you are interested, you can grab a copy of it for FREE by clicking the links below.  And if someone wishes to have a copy kindly direct them back here to my site. Enjoy!
Number Playdoh Mats
Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Playdoh Mats

Linking to:
Montessori Monday
Preschool Corner
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me