Sifting and Discovering Gems!

This is one activity my son truly enjoyed :)  We never had "practical life" activities for quite a while and I was thinking to re-introduce some of it.

                

For this activity, I poured some flour on a bowl and added some gemstones we got from a recent trip to a leisure park.  Then I gave him a sifter to uncover all those precious gems!

                

And it is also a good practice in math! Try counting how many gems you discovered :) 

You can also use sand instead of flour and beads, letters, numbers or objects instead of the gems.

Try it! You're kids will looove it!

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
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Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner

Bird Study Part II

Sharing with you the conclusion of our Bird Study Unit which we started a last week. 

You can read about the first part here.

Activities related to our study can be found here and here.

Bird's Beak.  Now this is a new activity which we didn't touch last year.  It was way advance for a 3 yrs old but now that my son can grasp complex information, I decided to introduce this to him.  I got the picture from The Visual Dictionary, it shows some of the different sizes and shapes of a bird's beak.  Based on what we have learned from our Bird Parts Definition booklet (Bird Pack), the beak or bill is used mostly for grooming, protection and how birds catch and eat their food.  Some  are long so they can catch foods in the water, some are short because they mainly eat soft fruits and some can be sharp as they are used to hunt other birds and animals.

So we used our bird figures again to examine the different beaks.  These figures are from Safari Toob and Schleich... I have been collecting them for years as my son loves animals and they're learning materials.

Bird's Feet.  We also talked about the different shapes of a bird's foot.  They are designed to be different are birds live in different habitats. Like birds living in water have webbed feet for swimming, those living in trees have sharp claws etc.  Again, I printed out the picture seen below from here.

I also used this information in our discussion. You can get this from Science Buddies.

Next, we talked about different types of birds.  The picture cards (nomenclature cards) are included in my Bird Pack which you can get from here.  We talked about the unique features and characteristics of each.

This is how we differentiate each one (see picture below).  By using a printable bird facts, we were able to learn how each one differs from another. 

You can download this file for FREE from here.

I love how my son is eager to learn about these birds! 

 

Bird's Nest.  We were supposed to make a nest out of twigs and leaves in the backyard.   But it rained for days and I had a flu bug, so we ended up making some nest indoors LOL.  

               

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
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Preschool Corner

Weekend at the Park

We were blessed with a wonderful weather last weekend so we decided to visited a leisure park for rest and recreation :) 

First thing we did was of course visit the animals, as my son looooves animals!  We were so happy to see them all out in the open and were eager to entertain the kids.  I was glad that we get to see most of the birds from our Bird Study Unit I.  Rhea, Emu, Turkey, Chickens, Peacocks, Stork etc.  And surprisingly, there were lots of farm and zoo animals as well.

 

Oh and these are Bisons!! My first encounter with them.... such beautiful creatures!

 

When we're done with the animals, we proceeded to the activity  area the little boy to have some fun.  And look who's not scared of the Air Jump!

  

And the highlight of the trip was the pony ride :)  His teacher told me he can't stop talking about it in school LOL.

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
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Preschool Corner

Bird Watching!

Oh the weather is just so wonderful today that we decided to skip indoor activities (read our Bird Study Part I)  and do some bird watching and look for some bird's nests :)

 

And look what we found along the way, feathers! 

Hoping to visit the port this weekend so we can see some gulls too!

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
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Preschool Corner

Bird Study Part I

I wanted to share to you our Bird Study which we had last week.  We did this last year, but since my son is getting a bit older I added a few activities so he can understand birds a little bit deeper.

First we started with Parts of the Bird nomenclature card and booklet (all included in The Bird Pack).

We matched birds using our Bird Cards and the our bird collections coming from Safari Toobs (Exotic Birds, Down Under, Penguin and Farm) and Schleich.

All birds found in Safari Toob Exotic Birds have a matching card which also included the The Bird printable pack.  then I also added a few more bird cards so we can discuss the different kinds of birds.

I think he never outgrows matching! He still loves them even if he's been doing this activity for years!  

                 

Seen below, we are discussing the different kinds of birds, their characteristics, unique features and how they differ from others.  I will try to come up with a free printable for this one after I summarize the data, as it is worth sharing :) 

Then of course, we discuss the different parts of the bird using our Bird Definition Booklet.  Then I had my son do our homemade bird puzzle and put labels on each part.

                   

Next post is still on birds, we're doing worksheets, differentiate beaks and bird's feet.

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Define Sun Bathing :D

Happy Sunday!

The Bird (Pack)

We had a Bird Study last week and the printable material that we used is now up and available.

 

(Click the picture for the link)

 

The Bird Pack contains 12 parts of the bird nomenclature card and booklet.
      - 12 picture cards
      - 12 labels
      - 12 control cards
      - 16 bird cards (3 part cards)
      - bird activity sheets
      - title cards

We used the bird cards for matching with our bird figures (Safari Toobs and Schleich). 

 

We also used them to discuss the different kinds of birds.

And the booklet comes in handy when we discuss the different parts of the bird.  As we talk about each part, we place a label on the bird puzzle as shown on the picture below.

Hope you like it! Enjoy!

Working on Spelling

My son is currently obsessed with these Trace and Spell Worksheets that I made for him.  He's been working on them for days and loves to do them all over again.

I first gave him just four sheets to work on, but when he's done he said "Are there more of these Mom? I want to do them all!"


The file is available here.

I don't want to tire him so he worked on with the rest over the weekend.  I'm surprised he did very well with the CVC spelling. We're impressed! Husband said that I should give him the 4 letter words or the blending consonant words.  We might do that next month!

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
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Happy Mother's Day!

Alphabet Sound Cards and Tracing Cards

I am often asked I did I teach my son to read.  As some of you who might follow my blog religiously, I mentioned that at 3.5 yrs, he started reading books on his own. 

Well, there's no shortcut really.  It was a long process and I will give details on it if I have the time.  But I also advice my friends to read books to their kids and by the time they'll learn about the alphabet, expose them to gazillions of phonic activities.

My son's favorite was sorting objects/sound cards according to their beginning sounds.  Well we sorted with printable cards at first. I came across printables that were free but they were all in cartoonish form which I didn't think was appropriate because some of the images were difficult to identify.   I really prefer "real" images.  So what I did was make my own.

(Please click the image for the link)

The file includes:

• 8 pictures per vowel (only 4 pictures for letter u)
• 8 pictures per consonant (only 4 pictures for letters q,x,y,z)
• 26 upper letter cards
• 26 lower letter cards
• 26 tracing cards for upper letters
• 26 tracing cards for lower letters
• FREE ALPHABET PICTURE BINGO CARDS

Here's how it looks like in action.  I still have them and my son still loves using them!

(Laminated sorting cards)

And because tracing cards are so pricey, I also created my own version.  Here I printed them on an ordinary paper, put them on a cardboard and covered it with a contact paper.  Then I purchase a bunch of dry erase marker to use with my homemade cards. (Please click either of the images for the link)

                 

This is how I made him practice writing aside from using the sandpaper letters.  Hmmm which reminds me to share how we do about our language and writing lessons when he was just about 2 yrs old!  Will definitely do that one of these days.