Study of Rocks and Minerals for Kids (with FREE Cards)

** Contains affiliate links at no cost to you **

Oh here we are again, my son’s favourite topic: rocks! Last year we worked on identifying the types of rocks: igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic.  This year, I added minerals to our studies, to advance our learning about the Rock Cycle.
This years’ objectives for  Rock Cycle study:

1. Review the classification of rocks
2. Identify the characteristics of rocks
3. Identify the characteristics of minerals
4. Difference between rocks and minerals
5. Products of rocks and minerals

Materials used:

• Igneous rock collection
• Metamorphic rock collection
• Sedimentary rock collection 
• Minerals collection.    
• Digital microscope (optional) Was used to examine and take magnified digital pictures of the surface of rocks and minerals. This device can become handy in taking magnified digital pictures of tiny insects, objects, or any creatures.
• Rock and Fossil Hunter Book  A really good book that provides a table of rocks and minerals, with lots of experiments and activities.

This is how we worked on each rock.  I created learning cards for each collection, the links are at the end of this post.
  Comparing rocks and minerals
Comparing Pyrite (fools’ gold and real gold)
Colours of minerals.  Trying to draw and identify the colours of each mineral.


Rocks vs Minerals.  Combined a few igneous, metamorphic and minerals then have Mavi sort them according to:  minerals, rocks and “not sure”.  Mavi had so much fun here!
  Looking closely.  We used our digital microscope (husband provided this) to have a closer look at our rocks and to check for some crystal formations :)

Metamorphic

 Igneous

 Minerals

Get your FREE printable files from the links below:

• Igneous Rocks
• Metamorphic Rocks

You can also purchase an entire pack of rock materials (I suggest this!).  If you have a budget, it's better to get them all at once so you can pull out a prolific rock study.  Any of these two would be perfect!

• Rock and Fossil Collection
• Earth Science Collection

St. Patrick’s Day Activities for Toddlers

I am not really a fan of seasonal themed activities. Why? For a busy Mom like me, it is difficult to prepare and assemble materials.  The fact that we live far away from the city, our resources are quite limited. It is hard to find materials that fits well in a specific theme.

But… we all have to agree that it is fun to do with your little kids.  It’s cute and fun! And the kids will have that festive feeling of the celebration.  That’s why, because this month we are celebrating St. Patrick’s Day here in Ireland, I am trying out these seasonal themed activities with Vito!  Yes, I’m testing the water and see if I can pull off a seasonal themed activity and let’s see where this will lead me.  We’re not doing a bunch right, we’re only trying those that are easy to prepare and feasible for us.

[Tried and Tested] Tower High Learning

I came across Tower High Learning through random search in the internet for affordable Montessori puzzles.  I am so happy that I found another shop in the UK that sells Montessori materials.  As I skim through their online shop, I’m surprised that they offer a waay more affordable price than any shop I’ve encountered!  Excitedly, I contacted their costumer service for inquiries and they responded promptly to all my queries.  Marie, who runs the business is very friendly and easy to talk to!  So without hesitation I purchased a few puzzles for Vito and Mavi to work on this year. 

And guess what? They arrived after 2 days!! How cool is that??  To think that I just paid for regular shipping. Amazing isn’t it?

And yes, nothing beats the smell of new Montessori materials, waiting to be opened!

My botany puzzles!! I regret not getting the seed and roots!

  My Zoology puzzles:  bird, turtle and frog.  Must save for the the fish and butterfly.

I purchased this version of which there’s a skeleton presentation on the board of the puzzle.

 

And here’s my beautiful beautiful Asia Continent Map puzzle. Shining, shimmering… splendid!

And yes all those little tiny pieces all sits well on its board. Love it!  Wishlist: must get the control map next time!

Ahhh… oh how I love the puzzles! They’re on the lower price range but they were more than perfect! Flat, and all the pieces fitted well.

I have to start my “wishlist” for Christmas.  I can’t wait till  my next purchase when my funds are enough.

So don’t forget to checkout Tower High Learning if you are in Europe and looking for affordable Montessori materials.

 

**This is not a paid post or review.  Just wanted to share this amazing shop that sells affordable Montessori materials to Moms out there that have tight budget like me!

Fun Math Activities for Numbers 20 to 99

So we’ve been practising our Mathematics since we came back from our big break.  We’re almost done with our study on 2 digit numbers (20 to 99).  Now you might be wondering why we need to stick around here. Well you see, though Mavi knows his addition and subtraction by heart, there’s still a lot more in mathematics than that.  To explain, here’s a few of our “brainy” activities (this is how Mavi describes it!).

Count Me!.  Using our decanomial beads, I laid out 20 sets for Mavi to count using what he has learned previously on counting tens and ones! 

Place Value.  Here’s it is in Singapore Math. I copied the activities in our Math notebook so that we can reuse the workbooks from Singapore for Vito.  Mavi works on this using mental math, no manipulative needed.

Find the number. This thinks that this is a very tricky game. I made a lot of questions and clues for him to find the correct number using our hundred board.  This is to test his analysis. Example:   8 less of 35 is?

 

Smallest and Greatest number. Given the number series (I prepared 10 for him), identify the smallest and greatest.  Again he finds this difficult, but upon teaching him the trick, he was able to answer the questions quickly.

Another version is to arrange the given set (15 sets) from smallest to greatest and greatest to smallest. Arranging from smallest to greatest was very easy for him, but he complained that doing the other way around is more difficult. He gets confused between numbers.  I even added 1 digit number (number 6), to my surprise he considered it as “60” rather than “06”.  So I therefore conclude that conventional counting, that is from smallest to greatest is waaay more easier for them than the other way around!

                

Why don’t you try this with your kids and let me know how they feel about it! 

More math activities here!

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