Digging Up Dinos!

Okay so I braved myself setting up some sensory tub for my son.  Actually the main purpose of this tub is to excavate the dinosaurs.  We’ve been reading books about dinosaurs lately and my son kept on asking me why some people dig dinosaurs.  It is so hard to explain it to him at the moment since he has no idea of extinction and death.  So just for fun, I told him that we will excavate (dig-up) dinosaurs and be scientists for a day!  And he was ecstatic!

Here’s our little sensory tub for digging up dinosaurs.  It contains salt (LOL) because we don’t have play sands.  I was thinking using a brown rice but they’re a bit pricey.  Then I added some egg carton box for volcanoes, mini chocolate eggs and some rocks.

This activity was primarily inspired by the Adventure of Bear’s post. She also shared a link on where to get these dinosaur information.  The ones on the tray were dinosaurs that eat meat (carnivores) while the strips on the left are for dinosaurs that eat plants(herbivores).

 

And here’s my son digging up dinosaurs and their eggs :)  We matched the dinosaurs he discovered to the ones on the strip.    As we match, I discussed whether the dinosaur eats plants or meat.  He enjoyed eating the eggs too!

  

I love how he concentrates when he’s working and how serious he was. 

He enjoyed matching as well.

And this is what we ended up with.   I love that he learned what “excavate” and “scientist” means.  He uses these words now.

 

It was fun fun fun! Despite the mess he made later(I forgot to take photos!) it was still worth the clean-up because I knew he truly had a blast and learned a lot.

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Dinosaur! Roar!

We’re doing dinosaurs this week.  And here’s a glimpse of what we did for Math-related units.

Graphing game using dinosaur eggs :)  He loved spinning the clip!

And he realized that they were not dinosaur eggs at all!  They’re chocolates! See his smile? Precious!

We also had pattern games.  Here he tries to copy the patterns in the control sheets.    The dinosaur printables were all downloaded from 2 Teaching Mamas.  They have wonderful resources for unit studies!  So helpful isn’t it?

  Then we also match our dinosaurs with some control cards I got from Jojoebi’s Site. 

Oh and look forward to my post on how we excavate dinosaurs!  Coming soon :)

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Garlic Press, Sponge and Water

Since we’re on our way to spring, and it isn’t that cold to play with water anymore, I decided that it was time for some water play.  This is a water transfer practical life activity using a garlic press and sponge.  I placed a towel underneath to absorb water spills.

It was difficult for him to squeeze water out of the press.  It was too big and heavy for his little hands.

With a little help (because he doesn’t want me to intervene) he successfully squeezed the water out.

But then he realized, why use a press when he can use his hands!

And thus the fun begin! Squeezing water out using his hands and it was more enjoyable that using a garlic press LOL.

 

Later, with all spills and mess... I was able to convince him that he should be the one cleaning up, not me :)

Large Numbers and Bead Activities

My son got interested with beads this week so we  worked on some Montessori inspired activities to make use of our math beads.   The cards were downloaded from Montessori Print Shop for free, the beads were homemade and since I don’t have hundred beads, I printed out on a cardstock a graphic version of it.  And I read a few tutorials from the web to able to present the activity in a step by step manner.

Be sure that your kids are familiar with beads works before doing this exercise.  Here are some of our activities related to bead works: Bead Stairs, tens and teens.

Exercise 1: Reading of large number cards.  I did this using the three period lesson.  After mastering the teens (10 to 19), we worked on reading the tens.  I place the 1’s on the left and the tens on the right.   This is how my 3 lesson period goes:

Step 1:  “This is 11”. (Placing 1 on the right side of 10).  10 and 1 is eleven.  I did the same thing with 25 and 32 and etc.

Step 2.  “Show me 11”.  This time, Mavi has to form the number 11 and etc.

Step 3:  This time I form the numbers and would ask him “What number is this?”

Exercise 2:  Introduced the number cards and the beads (1’s, 10’s and 100’s).  I’m still figuring out how to make a thousand cube thus the absence of it in this activity. 

Exercise 2.  Matching game of number cards and their quantities.  I demonstrated first what to do so he can understand the concept behind it.  Here I am showing him how to put quantities for 80.  Here, I would ask, “How many tens do we need to make 80?”.

Here on how we form quantities for the hundreds.  Same goes for the hundred, asking him “How many hundreds do we need to make 300?”.

 

Now after a couple of presentations, I told him that this time, he should put the right amount of beads according to the number cards I place on the tray. He struggled at first, especially with the hundreds. 

He knows his short beads very well so he didn’t find it hard if I asked him for the 1’s.

Supposedly, we were to do this the other way around, with me putting the quantities and having him match it with the correct number cards but we he was already complaining that he’s tired so we have to stop. 

Large number cards matching with beads is a great activity for child to learn the connection between written symbols and their quantities.  Montessori beads are really a favorite of mine, but sadly, they’re waaay beyond our budget so I just have to settle with DIY.

The following day we did some short beads exercises.  He loved this activity because he gets to color and write his numbers at the same time.  The bead worksheets were from The Helpful Garden which I downloaded for free!

 

 

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