Books for Artists Study

I miss our Artist Study.  Mavi enjoyed our Artist Study sessions.  This was when there was no Vito yet and when my hands are not full :)   Mavi is very much intrigued on the lives of some greatest artists, he loves to listen to their life stories and the paintings that they made.  I have attempted this a million times, to reboot this lessons but the baby is a big factor. We’ll just have to set this aside and revisit this once Vito can join us.

Now I made this post to introduce two sets of books that Mavi and I really really love and enjoyed reading.  I found these in our library… but of course they don’t have the complete set which I dream of owning someday.  They are for keeps :)

The first set of the books are from James Mayhew. The books are all about Katie, who loves to visit museums with her grandma and when no one is watching, the paintings come alive.  My son loves this idea of Katie going inside the painting and meeting the characters on it.    We’ve read some of it and here are our favourites arranged according to how much we like them.

 

• Katie’s Picture Show 
• Katie and the Waterlily Pond
• Katie and the Impressionist
• Katie and the Starry Night
• Katie and the Sunflowers
• Katie and the Spanish Princes
• Katie and Monalisa
• Katie and the Dinosaurs

The second set of books that we also love are from Laurence Anholt.  This time the stories are all about children meeting great artists.  The books are more focused on the artist’s life rather than the paintings they’re made.  Now these books are pretty popular in the library so they are seldom available.  I plan to purchase them as gifts later on.  As I said, these books are worth-it.

Books we’ve read from the series:

             

• Camille and the Sunflowers
• Degas and the Little Dancer
• Leonardo and the Flying Boy
• Picasso and the Girl with a Ponytail

And there you go, my picks for studying great artists.  Hope you checkout the books using my affiliates.  Don’t worry, you won’t be charge or there’s no additional cost.  I will just earn a teeny weeny commission if you order through my links (affiliates).  And don’t hesitate to get your books from Book Depository because it is FREE DELIVERY NATIONWIDE.

Thank you and hope that this post helps.

FREE Spelling Worksheets for Letter Sounds ‘s,a,t’

Hi!  I am so happy to share these files with you! We’ve been working on them for the past three days and Mavi is loving them.  As you all know, we’re having more math and spelling this summer and I try to customize the activity sheets according to the level of Mavi.

Here are the first three of the spelling worksheets I've created.  The sequence of the letters is based on how my son’s school is teaching them, the phonic sounds.

Each file is contains:

• word cards with pictures
• word and picture match using cut and paste
• rearranging letters to form the words (use the word cards here if needed)
• writing of the words and using the picture as a guide
• filling up the missing vowel –> Mavi’s always MISSING this out.  He tends to ignore writing the vowels so I have to add this in the activity sheet.

As you can see below, he’s trying to use the Montessori movable letters to sort out the scrambled letters. 

But he discovered that he can also use the word cards.  

It was a fruitful activity!

For Preschoolers, I also have the following language activities.  Here are the links:

Beginning, Middle and Ending Sounds

FREE Word Card Families and Rhymes

Word Card Families and Rhymes FULL PACK

So what are you waiting for… download your FREE copies of spelling sheets now :)

Would really appreciate if you leave me a feedback :)  Thank you!

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!

Ice Sensorial Play

Yesterday I gave Vito a few ice for a sensorial play.  I’ve always wanted to see how he would react once he touched the ice.

I placed the ice on the tray and he was a little bit hesitant at first but quite excited.  So he’s trying to use his pointer finger to test the material.

 

I love looking at those little hands working and trying to figure out the ice cubes.  Pardon those red cheeks. I was feeding him with bolognese at that time.

 

When he was sure that the ice wouldn’t hurt , he starts to pick them up.  But he failed in the beginning as the ice were very slippery.

And finally, with determination and focus, he was able to lift up a cube with both hands and mouthed it.

           

 

Oh yes, it is cold!!

          

Note:  Always supervise your baby when doing this activity.  Be careful as the ice are slippery and if they mouth it, there’s a tendency that they will swallow it and choke.

3D Shapes

A few weeks ago, we revisited 3D Shapes.  We previously had this activity using cards and our paper models.  They were a hit!

My son never showed interest on 3D shapes and neither was I.  All I could ever remember was those grueling memorization of formulas in my Engineering class. I never liked geometry LOL.

Because the papers are now gone, I bought wooden 3D shapes in Absorbent Minds.  I bought the small one as we don’t have enough storage here.  Well, he was quite into it this time.  I have to explain why there are called 3D. We made basic shapes (squares, rectangle, circle etc) by pressing the wooden 3Ds on a playdough.

          

Next we tried forming the shapes using craft sticks and plasticine. I’ve seen this activity multiple times in other blogs and thought it was easy to make. But I was wrong! LOL.  They were actually hard to form :) But nevertheless Mavi and I enjoyed it.  We laughed hard each time a shape is broken LOL.  The plasticine didn’t hold the stick that much. I wonder if marshmallows would be a better alternative?

          

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!