Introducing the North American History

Based on my experience, the best way to teach kids about history is through famous landmarks.  I remember growing up with my father’s stories of Greece, Spain, Egypt and South America.  He has photos taken at the Great Pyramids of Giza, Sphinx, in Acropolis, Christ the Redeemer in Rio and more.  He’s telling me a bit about history through the landmarks in his photos, which fascinated me.  Since then, I’ve been very interested in travelling and learning about world history. I wanted to inspire Mavi in the same way.  I always start my history lessons with the famous landmarks using our travel photos and the Safari Toobs (Around the World, World Landmarks).  Recently, I purchased the Safari Supertoob USA (on sale) because Mavi wanted to know more about the US (inspired by our trip there last May).

So in this post, I’m sharing how we worked on understanding the history of North America through famous landmarks, figures and playsets that depict the life of the early people of North America.

Early Literacy with Beginning Letter Sound BINGO Game

Vito is 36 months old.

Hello everyone! It’s been awhile!  We’re having minor fixes at home thus, the lack of updates and posts.  But I am so happy to say, that Vito is FINALLY interested with letters! He’s currently showing eagerness in learning how to write and read letters.  You can check our updates and photos in my Instagram account.  So expect A LOT of letter/phonics/reading activities in the coming days… and months from us!

To start with, we played a BINGO game early this week and I was so happy that Vito loved and enjoyed it!

Highly Recommended Montessori Materials

Another feature for 12 Months of Montessori series! For November, I’m sharing our favorite Montessori materials that my kids love and have been using for years.  So to those who are asking me on what Montessori materials to invest in, here are my recommendations:

Teaching the Phases of the Moon to Gradeschoolers

Probably by now, you must have read my post on the Phases of the Moon for preschoolers.  If not, I highly recommend that you do for it will give you ideas on how to introduce the moon’s phases to kids from ages 2.5 years and older.

We’ve been discussing this topic almost every year, and for this year, I wanted to give Mavi something different. So here are the materials I prepared for him:  wall chart of the moon’s phases, a booklet for definition and nomenclature cards. 

Our Leaf Shapes Study

It’s Mavi’s midterm break this week, and I decided to have activities that both boys can do together.  First in mind is a leaf study since we are surrounded by beautiful and colorful leaves.  They are just too gorgeous when they change colors, and I don’t want to miss that opportunity!  We also used our Montessori Inspired Leaf Shapes printable for this activity, which you can buy from my shop.

The Owl and Other Nocturnal Creatures

With all these Halloween decorations, Vito became fascinated with owls. We’ve been reading The Owl and Owl Babies for days now, and he loves looking at the pictures matching his animal figure. He would also pretend to to have big eyes and pretend flying around the house and say “Im owl Mommy”.    So I whipped a few activities to help him explore this beautiful creature together with some night-time animals.

Learning About the Phases of the Moon for Preschoolers

The boys had a blast learning about the phases of the moon last week.  We worked on this during our Goodnight Moon Unit and even though this was mainly for Vito, I decided to include Mavi as well.  With this, I prepared two sets of learning materials:  one for a preschooler and the other is for older kids (elementary).  This post is on how you can introduce the moon and its phases to kids from 3years and older.

Before FIAR: Goodnight Moon Unit

My boys love Goodnight Moon (Amazon US) (Book Depository) and we have read it numerous times already. You can see our previous activity of the book from here, Goodnight Moon Storytelling Basket.  Now that Vito is a lot older, I assembled these activity trays for him to work on as a book extension.  I don’t have a guide for Before FIAR, so all of these activities are either sourced from the internet or invented by yours truly.

 

Note:   All of the printables here are homemade and you can find them in my shop:

• Goodnight Moon & Bedtime Themed Math Activities Learning Pack
• Goodnight Moon & Bedtime Themed Early Literacy Learning Pack
• Goodnight Moon & Bedtime Themed Bundled Learning Pack

Montessori Coloured Beads: How We Use It At Home

It’s starting to get chilly in our side of the world and though we prefer walking in the fields and in the forest during this beautiful season, the weather doesn’t seem to be in line with my plans.  So last week, I introduced Vito to the Montessori colored beads which I have for 3 years now.  But the thing about siblings, they just wanted to do what the other is doing.  Mavi insisted that I should give him some work with the beads as well, not just Vito.  In this post, I’m sharing how I made the boys work independently, but still supervising them as they work.

Writing Practise for Preschoolers

Vito had a sudden interest on tracing and writing letters last week.  I didn’t see it coming.  He knows all his letter sounds, but is not ecstatic over letter (phonics) activities like sorting objects according to beginning letters. So I’m shelving those activities at the moment.  Right now, he just wanted to trace and attempt (or pretend) to write letters.

Introducing Montessori Hundred Board for Preschoolers

I know that Montessori math should be introduced later on (language/reading should come first) but with Vito I just couldn’t resist introducing him to some traditional Montessori math materials as early as 35 months old!  You see, currently he just wanted to count.  Whenever we read books, he wanted to count the images first before allowing me to start reading.  If I ask him to make letter sounds, he would say “no, let’s count first” referring to counting the letters in a word rather than reading it.  We’ve done a lot of counting,  but he seems pretty bored lately.

So the other day, I was tidying up my storage shelf and Vito saw our Hundred Board.  He immediately took it out and excitedly said “Oh numbers! Let’s count!” and that’s what we basically did for the past few days. 

Preschool Letter B

A long overdue post of our letter B activities.  Vito is currently sick so I barely have  time to post.  We are not doing any “homeschool” activities except for reading books and play with his farm set.  Below are some ideas for learning letter B sound and prewriting activities. 

Life Cycle of a Pumpkin (Preschool Edition)

We are seeing a lot of pumpkins and though we may not be able to visit a pumpkin patch, we brought home a couple of pumpkins for exploration. I would like to share this very beautiful layered puzzle that I purchased in Amazon.  It’s the Life Cycle of a Pumpkin, beautifully crafted and illustrated.  There’s a guide for each layer on the left side so the child will know what comes next.

Activities for Toddlers (12-18 Months)

I’m often asked by my readers and fellow Moms for the activities suitable for certain ages.  So I decided to sum up Vito’s favourite activities since 12 months old.  First in the series, I’m sharing activities that Vito enjoyed when he was between 12-18 months old.   (Always supervise your child in each of these activities)

Basic Montessori Math Materials for Introducing Numbers

IT’s the 12 Month of Montessori Series for October and I would like to share the top 4 Montessori Math materials in teaching numbers to preschoolers.  I love sharing math activities because I love math, and Mavi is now appreciating mathematics because he can see its application to real life. 

I am absolutely a believer of the Montessori approach in mathematics, especially to younger kids as it provides a strong foundation in understanding numbers and quantity.  The use of tactile materials make it even more engaging to young children. And the best part of this, you can absolutely make a “poor man’s version” of the materials.

Without further ado, I’d like to introduce to you some of the Montessori materials that introduces the units of quantity from 0 to 10.

Halloween Preschool Unit

I’d like to share Vito’s top picks of activities for October.  These are the trays that he would select more often for “play”.    Links to the materials are provided, and feel free to ask questions as well.

Playdough Monster Faces

I managed to create a pitch black playdough and the boys had so much fun making “scary” monster faces with it! 

Introducing the Human Skeleton to Preschoolers

Vito is 34 months old.

It’s that time of the year when my kids get to see a lot of human skeletons hanging everywhere!  No wonder October is the best time to introduce the human skeleton to your kids.  Vito is in the “what’s that” stage and he’s been asking me a lot of questions lately about these “funny” costumes and the hanging bones.  So I gathered a few old and new learning materials for him so I can introduce these amazing body system.

Preschool Animal Habitats using Sensorial Materials

We were reading a lot of animal books lately that I decided to introduce Vito to animal habitats.  I have no idea how to do it first, but then I realised that I have kinetic sand, some synthetic grass and unused ice in the fridge… enough materials to present three animal habitats of the world.  Take note that there was no serious “lesson” in here.  Everything was spontaneous, like a storytelling of animal homes.  The concept was introduced as Vito and I played along.  Much of the time was spent playing pretend, feeling and touching the grass, sand and ice!

October Preschool Math Activities

I am so excited to share with you the fun preschool math activities I prepared for Vito! He saw me printing these materials and he kept on asking if we can play. Of course we did! We started using a few of these materials and will share his progress in the days to come.  For now, allow me to present to you our adorable and cute learning materials for the month of October.

Preschool Letter M

Vito is 34 months old.

Our letter M last week.  I should have posted this earlier but I’m having migraines so I wasn’t able to create a post.  Unlike with letter A, Vito was in the mood to work with our letter activities.  Take a look at the highlights of our letter of the week.

Color Mixing Activity for Preschoolers: Green, Orange and Purple

Vito is 34 months old.
After exploring colour shades and tints, we moved on to learning secondary colours.  We have a few books on colours but this book Colours My First Discovery Book got Vito hooked.  It’s the only book he ever cared about when were discussing colours.  I highly recommend this book for kids ages 1.5 years and older.  My first attempt of showing him the blue and yellow makes green was using tempera paints, but it was short lived.  His attention span was about 5 minutes and after that he wasn’t interested anymore.  So I went back to the one activity that he loves: colour mixing using water.

Animal Color Sorting with Montessori Color Tablet

Vito is 34 months old.

We started off our color exploration activity by sorting out some of Safari Toob animals using our Montessori Color Tablets (set 2).  Actually, it was Vito who gave me the idea.  He keeps on identifying the colors of the animal figures and he would match it to the color of his shirt.  With this in mind, I realized that that we have a bunch of Safari Toob figures and it would be nice to sort them out as Vito loves the figures tremendously. 

Color Tints and Shades for Preschoolers

Last week, I introduced the concept of light and dark colors to Vito using water colored solution. It was so easy to prepare and Vito had so much fun mixing and pouring water!

Autumn Themed Early Literacy Learning Pack

I’ve been getting a lot of queries on the learning cards that we are currently using.  Our Autumn Themed Early Literacy Learning Pack is available in our PDF Shop and contains 10 preschool printables that I am sure you and your kids will truly enjoy using.

Preschool Letter A

This was the week that Vito wasn’t in the mood to work on any letter activity. Yes, it happens.  You can see the result of it in his work, which you will see when you scroll down.  But anyway, I just wanted to share these activities and the materials we used so you will know where to get some alphabet sheets resources.

Easy to Prepare Apple Activities for Preschoolers

Vito is 34 months old.
Apple is Vito’s favourite fruit.  He had an amazing time exploring his favourite fruit last week, as we explored how the apples came to me, its parts and an instant apple counting (because he loves to count too!).

Autumn Nature Finds and How We Use Them

We’ve been blessed with a beautiful weather last week. It’s actually pretty warm and sunny for September in Ireland which is quite unusual.  So I grabbed the opportunity to walk the boys everyday and collect nature objects.  We placed them in a basket and displayed it on the shelf for exploration and learning.

Toddler Activity Trays (34 Months)

We are doing seasonal activities this week (autumn) so our activity trays, which are mostly for enhancement of fine motor skills are focused on shapes.  Below are the 6 shape activities for Vito.  Most of these are homemade and easy to setup.

Autumn Themed Graphing Game

We are loving DIY math games! The boys enjoyed our Race Game a few weeks ago, so I didn’t hesitate to give them our Graphing Game.  Not only can my preschooler practise his counting skills and taking turns, this is also a great opportunity to introduce date recording (and analysis) for older children. 

 

Pre-reading Using Montessori Language Objects

I’ve been showing you glimpses of our Montessori Language Objects for the past few months but haven’t published our entire collection. So for this 12 Months of Montessori Series, I’d like to showcase our Language Objects (beginning letters) from A to Z!  I’m giving you ideas on what to collect and where to get them (affiliate links). But before anything else, I wanted to give credits to Mavi for assembling most of these objects for me.  As young as 1.5years old, Mavi has this unusual interest with letters and reading.  He showed signs early on and by 36 months, he’s able to read CVC books.  Anyway, this “Montessori Language Objects” is the same method I used with Mavi 5 years ago and it totally worked for us. 

To those of you who are unfamiliar of this method, it’s simply a collection of 3-dimensional miniature objects with names that matches the beginning sound or beginning letter for each letter of the alphabet.  This is one of the most popular methods in a Montessori environment for early reading.  Vito is doing very well with his letter sounds using these objects!

Without much further ado, here’s my collection of objects which I started collecting 5 years ago. 

Cork Stamping Art: Trees in Autumn

Vito is 34 months old.

My youngest is not really the artistic type. But even though he’s not into painting crafty things, I make sure that these art materials are always available just in case they feel like doing some artistic pursuits. So imagine my delight when he decided to join me with this autumn trees painting activity.

Life Cycle of an Apple Preschool Unit

Vito is 34 months old.

I am so excited to share this with you! Last week, I set up an apple life cycle to Vito (and Mavi on the background) for a little science exploration.  Apple is his favourite fruit and he was so delighted to see these materials in our shelf!  Now if you take a look at our activity and materials, they’re pretty simple and easy to follow by a young preschooler. I assembled it in such a way that it’s not too overwhelming for him, yet enjoying and engaging. 

What is Montessori “Cards and Counters”?

Vito is 34 months.

“Cards and Counters” is a Montessori math activity that introduces the child to the units of quantity.  This is to reinforce the sequence in numbers (one to ten) and to give the child a visual experience of quantity.

Vito loves to count.  He counts pictures, objects and anything that interests him. So for his preschool math, I decided to give him a jumpstart on cards and counters. Take a look at the different ways we explore counting using Autumn-themed objects.

Magnetic Alphabet Sorting Activity and Sensorial Play

I couldn’t resist getting these magnetic letters from Early Learning Center because they were on sale and its the only magnetic set I found that’s using the Sassoon font (text standard in UK and Ireland).  With these on hand, I set-up a sorting activity of letters for Vito.

Preschool Letter R

We started our preschool unit with letter R and I divided the activities into two:  (1) phonological awareness and (2) pre-writing.  The pre-reading activities is scheduled on Mondays and pre-writing on Tuesdays.  Vito does no more than 20 minutes of “school” per day.  The rest of the activities, Vito considers it as “game” or “play”.  During “school” time, I would quit the activities once I see that he’s bored or not interested.  My experience has taught me that it’s not about the quantity of activities that I give to my kids that matter.  In fact, they get tired so easily and bored when I do that.  Especially with Vito, I learned that I should do things slowly with him, and that I should respect and follow his own timeline of learning.  Mavi was different, he absorbs anything… he’s always interested, Vito is very choosy.

Going back, this week we’re starting with the letter R. Vito can name the letters of the alphabet if he’s in the mood so I decided that I should be giving him pre-reading activities so he won’t get bored.  Below are some of the activities this week for pre-reading and pre-writing.

 

A Math Racing Game for Preschoolers

Vito always wanted to join us whenever we play board games but we don’t allow him because it’s too much for him.  Too many cards (and paper money) to scatter, dice which he couldn’t figure out how to use and what to do with it and so much more.  So when I was making Autumn-Themed Math Activities, I made sure that I include a game that’s suitable for his age. 

Autumn Themed Preschool Math Activities

Vito is starting “preschool” math this school year and we are not using any curriculum.  I guess it’s not necessary in our case.  I will be using my experience with Mavi and with the thousand ideas online on setting up “play-based” and Montessori-inspired activities for Vito this school year.  So in order for me to be able to organize and prepare materials ahead of time, I decided to come up with seasonal-themes for the upcoming months.

Beginning Letter Sort (R and A)

It’s been awhile since my last post!  Sorry for not updating. Vito is starting “preschool” at home and I’ve been busy planning for his curriculum and preparing materials.  Actually the curriculum is just a guide, everything will still depend on how he progress and what’s his current interest. 

Anyway, I gathered some of Mavi’s old language materials and assembled a letter sorting activity for Vito next week. You’ve seen this a lot, like the booklet, the matching of pictures. But this time we’ll be working two letters a time and sort out objects that matches the beginning letter sound.

Rocks and Minerals Learning Activities for Kids (with Free Cards)

The summer break gave us an opportunity to explore sciences that Mavi loved to learn but couldn’t because of school.  After our trip to the Wicklow Mountains last month, he’s been asking  if we could learn about rocks and minerals.  He plays Minecraft so he wanted to understand the building blocks he’s using.  I started making the materials last month and it was just a few weeks ago that I finished the entire set and we were able to use it together with our rock collections!

Activity Trays for 33 Month Old Toddlers

Hello everyone! We only have two more weeks before school opens so I decided to postpone Vito’s Fruits and Art Unit for the rest of the month so I can spend quality time with the boys and not think about activity preparations.  With this I’m sharing Vito’s activity trays which he started working on early this month. Vito only spends about 20 minutes for our “themed units” and the rest, he would either do free play or work on these trays.  These would entertain him while I do house chores, sometimes I supervise especially if we use glass bottles.

Activity Using Our Water Cycle Learning Pack

We finally concluded our Water Cycle Unit (for Mavi) and he had a blast!  It was timely because it rained for the past few days so we spent most of our days outdoors, observing the nature for the process of water cycle.  Now I’m sharing here the materials that we used and the extension activities that we did.

FREE Printables for Alphabet Learning Sheets

Hi everyone! I’m often asked in my Instagram account on where I get our printed learning materials for learning letters (letter recognition and pre-writing) so I’m going to share with you the links of my sources here as it’s difficult to do that in IG.

Teaching Toddlers How Plants Grow

After our watercress activity, I introduced Vito to the life cycle of a green bean plant using Safari Ltd Life Cycle of a Green Bean Plant and the cards from The Wise Owl Shop.  Check out some of the activities that we worked on during the past few days that demonstrate how plants grow to toddlers.

Growing Watercress with Kids at Home

Vito is 33 months old.

For the second week of August, we’re learning about plants!  So to start with, the boys and I grew watercress at home and they totally love it!  Another activity that is suited for siblings!  Take a look at how Vito and Mavi worked on this together.

Montessori Shelves Organization for Small Spaces

For this month of 12 Months of Montessori Series, I’m sharing our simple shelves organization at home. I’m sharing our set-up at home and what works for us.

Introducing Toddlers to Animals in Land, Water and Air

I had two presentations for the land, water, and air animals.  I first showed Vito what’s land, water, and air animals.  We worked with action songs to demonstrate how animals move in land, water, and air.  After I presented the pictures and the trays, Vito sorted out the animal figures I prepared for him.