The Pinay Homeschooler

Animal Unit Studies and {Learn & Play Link Up # 5}

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Another week of Learn & Play Link Up! I am so excited to feature 5 blog posts that has captured my attention. As you all know, we love doing animal studies at home because Mavi looooovess learning about them!! And my little Vito is now obsessed with dogs and spiders! Yes! spiders! So I’m thinking of having an animal study soon, and I now know where to get inspiration!

So here are the posts that are featured for this week:

Life Cycle Art from Minnie Monets and Mommies

Alligator Printable Pack from Mommyhood in Holland

Montessori Inspired Butterfly – Caterpillar Unit from Living Montessori Now

Dinosaur Color Sorting Activity from Stir the Wonder

Insect Sensory Bin from Rubber Boots and Elf Shoes

This week on The Pinay Homeschooler, I am going to feature our insect studies for the past years. Mavi loves everything about insects. it is also important that kids understand how to differentiate insects from other creepy crawlers. Remember, not everything that crawls are insects! Like spiders, worms and centipedes… they belong to different groups!

Welcome to the Learn & Play Link Party!

Now it’s time for this week’s link party! This is a BRAND new link up for all blog posts that include learn and play activities and hands-on education for kids. We are excited to read your blog posts and to see what you have to share! Please link up below and grab our button to display on your blog.

If you are a blogger, share your family friendly posts here. We are looking for things which include:

Montessori Education
Homeschool
Sensory Play
Tot and Preschool Trays
Fine and Gross Motor Activities
Kids in the Kitchen
Healthy Recipes for Kids
Arts and Crafts
Natural Living
Free Educational Printables
Family-Oriented Activities
Healthy Living

Your post will be featured on each of our blogs where we will pick our favourite posts every other week. That means there is more of a chance that you will be featured!

Everyone, please meet our link party hosts:

learn and play party hostesses

Christian Montessori Blog ~ Please visit our CMN FB group ~ Pinterest

Vanessa from Mama’s Happy Hive~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Jennifer from Study at Home Mama~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Marie from Child Led Life~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Jae from Pinay Homeschooler~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Heather from Golden Reflections Blog~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Renae from Every Star is Different~FB~Pinterest

GUIDELINES FOR LINKING
Please link up 1-3 posts
Follow each of the hosts on social media
When you link up, please add our button and place it at the bottom of your shared posts or link back with text link.
By entering a link, you’re giving us permission to feature an image on our blogs. Proper credit & links will ALWAYS be given.
Please visit a couple of shared posts and leave a comment for them
Remember that you must link back in order to be featured

Grab This Button:

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Tried and Tested: How Machines Work Book

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

I wanted to give this book a review and a little presentation as I really like its concept. You know how much I love hands-on activities, and if you are learning about machines, nothing is best than having a real experience. The problem with this is we don’t have the scientific tools and the space for this kind of experience. So I was really really happy when I came across this book kit from Suzie’s Home Education Ideas last year. I immediately placed an order as you seldom see stuff like this available in Amazon.

What is the book all about?

This is a book about simple machines. The book has a colourful presentation of the history and usage of each type of the machine/invention. The timeline of the invention is very helpful. Mavi loved reading it, and discovering how each machine evolved through time.

Now the book comes with cardboard kits, bolts, nuts and other kits. The kit is combination of cardboard and plastic. After each discussion of the machine, you are instructed to create the blach blatch. To assemble the blah blach, you need the instruction sheet for that. Yes, it has a separate sheet for instruction, while the book will simply explain the theory behind the model.

So this is basically this is what it looks like. The book is readable by younger kids who love machines.

This is the kit (made of cardboards) that is included in the book. Some would say that this is the downside of the book. The cardboard wouldn’t last long if you keep on using the kits. As fro me, I’m fine with these cardboards. The book is not that pricey, there I expected that it doesn’t come with fancy materials like those of KNex and LEGO. So far, they served their purpose and was able to demonstrate the concepts behind the simple machines without breaking apart.

These are nuts and bolts with strings. You can barely see them here. They’re all pretty easy to use and assemble.

And here’s the instruction sheets. Again, so easy to follow.

Based on my experience and how Mavi dealt with it, I realized that this kit is appropriate for kids around 8years+. For a 6years old, the materials can be too tedious to assemble. The bolts and nuts are quite a challenge for Mavi and I, unless you are skilled in using these materials. The cardboard stand is quite annoying, always detached from the board because it doesn’t fit perfectly. They could have created a more sturdy material that fits on the board. Other than that, I like the book and the kit that comes with it. This book teaches the basic with hands-on materials that are handy and doesn’t take up space (like those educational toys that are made up of gazillion pieces). And much more, affordable! You can get it from Amazon and Book Depository.

I highly recommend Book Depository for readers from Asia and those who wants free shipping.

Those in Europe, you can get this from Amazon UK. And in US, Amazon (as of now it is very pricey!), so you’re option is Book Depository.

If you have more questions, don’t hesitate to drop me a comment in this post. I would love to answer your queries! And watch out for the actual lesson, I will have a separate post for that.

FREE Animal Life Cycles Learning Material

Monday, May 18, 2015

At last! I was able to update my Animal Life Cycles file and I added life cycles of insects! Yes, so many have emailed me asking about it. So sorry, I did not include it in the first edition because we were not studying it yet.

Sensory Play and Activities

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Welcome to another post on 12 Months of Montessori Series! For May, we’re exploring Montessori sensorial activities and I am sharing with you fun activities that led to discoveries using their senses.

My initial plan for this was for a nature exploration outdoors since we all know that nature provides the BEST sensory experience. But because mother nature wasn’t in the mood (rained throughout the week!), I decided to do most of our sensory activities at the backyard and indoors.

Montessori emphasized that children learns with their senses. It is important that they use their senses to explore the world they live in. Stimulating these senses will send signals to the child’s brain that will help to strengthen the neural pathways which are important for all types of learning.

In a Montessori classroom, there are a lot of sensorial materials that are used to help the child develop discrimination, order and broaden and refine their senses. But just because we don’t own any of these materials, that doesn’t mean we can’t do sensorial at home. In fact, I prefer giving my kids the REAL experience when it comes to sensory.

Without much further ado, here are Mavi and Vito…

Sense of touch. We started off with ice and water play. This was the time when we got Mr Sun. I immediately took out the materials and let the boys play together. This activity introduced the concept of warm and cold to Vito.

Sense of hearing. We explored the rhythm bells I got earlier this year. Oh boy, it was really something new to him and he loves shaking it to produce sound. Here, I introduced Vito the loudness and softness sound.

Sense of touch and smell. We went crazy over Crazy Soap!! Thanks to Stimulating with Rachel who suggested this brand to us. I wanted to use kid-friendly soap as I used shaving cream before which gives a strong scent. The Crazy Soap has gentle smell that the kids love, and the foam is just amazing! You can shape it and it bounces! This activity introduces Vito to vocabularies like “good smell”, “soft”, “bouncy” and “squishy”.

Sense of sight. Activity we did in the backyard where we enjoyed the abundance of dandelions and blowing the seeds! We also planted garden pinwheels around the yard so Vito and Mavi can enjoy watching it turn (it can be relaxing!). My Vito was so amazed by the wheels!