The Study of Northern Europe

Mavi and I are looking into the different regions of Europe and we started with Northern Europe (of course, that’s our location!).  So as not to be overwhelmed, we only focused on 4 countries:  Denmark, United Kingdom, Ireland and Sweden.


So to learn about Northern Europe we have the following activities:

Letter ‘t’ Sound Activities for Toddlers

 

Vito’s activities last week revolves around the letter ‘t’.  As you all know, we’re working with letter sounds for a while and funny how he’s able to name alphabets using their sounds these days instead of their names LOL.    The unit is not just actually a week’s work, but it took us 2 weeks TO get over with the materials and activities, because Vito kept using them! Let me share with you activities we did to explore and learn objects with the letter ‘t’ sound.

Lettet T Object Basket.  Let’s start with our object basket.  I filled it with 3-4 objects starting with letter t that Vito uses a  lot at home like torch, telescope/binoculars, teeth and Titanic LEGO made by Mavi.  Then added a few letters like this foam letter from Munchkins (Vito used to bite these!) and the all time favourite letters from Hape.

Train Shape Cards.  I made these! I’m so happy on how it turned out.  The train plus the DIY air dry clay shapes are currently Vito’s favourite activity. He loves matching the shapes to that in the train! 

That’s his brother’s sleep mask (from Emirates), which is his favorite accessory as of the moment.

Color Sorting using Transport Counters.  The counters are from Learning Resources and this is one of our favourites!  The train cards are DIY: using a train coloring image, I printed it in different colors of cardstock and laminated it. 

He worked on them but doesn’t stay long. As I previously said, color sorting is NOT his favourite thing as of the moment.  But even so, I still would introduce different kinds of color activities just in case he might find his interest.

Counting.  Vito loves to count, it’s like effortless in my part to make him count and identify numbers.  He counts on his own and is always giddy whenever he sees numbers.  So this turtle activity is his favourite.  We just don’t have enough turtle figures to count up to 10 LOL.  The turtle counters are from Safari Toob.  We previously worked on trees as well for our letter t unit. Check it out here

Brushing of Teeth Teeth.  Our model of mouth/teeth is just so awesome! Vito is fascinated with this and loves brushing it with his toothbrush LOL.  This is a wonderful practical life activity, especially to those little ones who are hesitant to brush their teeth   Know where you can get these teeth model here.

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Science Experiments: Making CRATERS

Such a lovely activity for my kids! We had fun dropping balls of all sizes here and there.  

Objective:
1.  To identify the type of surface where craters are formed.

Materials Needed:

an aluminum foil, the bigger the better

soft material like a newspaper, a rug or towel

balls or rocks

Procedure:
1.  Lay the soft material in the ground like a newspaper a rug or a towel.
2.  On top of it, lay the foil.

3.  Stand at the edge of the foil and drop the ball or rock at the center of the foil.  Note be decided to use the mini basketball because we realized that golf balls made a small impact.
4.  Repeat this process on a hard floor.  This time it was Vito’s turn to drop the ball.

5.  Examine both pieces of the foil.
Findings:
The ball that was dropped in the foil on a soft surface (first image below) made a larger impression compared to the foil lying on a hard floor (second image).  You can immediately see the impression when the ball is dropped in a soft surface!  Look at them, they look like craters!

You can barely see an impression here, but Vito did dropped the ball a few times.
What happened?
The ball that was dropped in the softer surface sank, allowing more of the ball to be pressed against the foil.  In effect, this created those “holes” in the foil.  This is similar to the case of a meteorite (stone or metal in space) when striking a soft surface, it creates a larger imprint that are shaped like holes called craters.  Craters are best formed when meteorites strikes soft, powdery surfaces like that in the moon!  Why not check out real pictures of the surface of the moon from NASA!

You might also want to check our previous science experiments:

• Why do stars twinkle?
• Solubility of different substances in water.

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Learning the Timeline of European History

I am thrilled to share with you our approach to learning the timeline of European history. As I mentioned earlier, my son is fascinated by world history, particularly the events in Europe and Asia (his home continent!). So, while he was exploring his interest, I took the opportunity to delve into the rich history of Europe. To accomplish this, I created these beautiful timeline cards that feature bold pictures (because kids are drawn to pictures) and include a brief description of each historical event. I conducted thorough research and handpicked the major events that were included in the cards. We were already reading the books of the Story of the World series, but most of the events in the cards were not mentioned in the book.