Animals Around the World (Free Montessori 3-Part Card Download)

Tuesday, May 21st, 2013

As I mentioned on Friday, ED has been working on her world geography. She has spent a couple of weeks going over the 7 continents again and working with some Montessori 3-part cards I made for her.  They are probably available elsewhere, but I wanted both small cards to place on each continent and some larger ones so she could work on word-matching.

As she sang the 7-continents song (that I mentioned on Friday), she looked at the animal cards for each continent and placed them on the proper continent.

She did this with a large world map we have:

Another day, she identified and set out the satellite photos we have of the continents (they were free, but are no longer available where I got them a few years ago). You can probably google continent satellite photo and find photos you can print out.

Once she was pretty familiar with the animals on each continent, I brought out the Montessori 3-part cards.  I printed out two sets of each and cut out the animals and word labels. She had to match them to the picture.

At the end of the week, I challenged her to match the word to the picture (without the control card)!

We also brought out all our plastic animals and she spent a couple of days sorting those onto the world map as well:

She also did a sticker activity of the world animals. We got a set of 12 from Oriental Trading:

If you are interested, you can print out your own world animal cards.  They come both as large cards and as smaller versions of the same cards. I’ve been doing this activity with the kids since they were about 3 years old.

Here are the  free 3-Part Montessori Cards — Animals of the 7 Continents:

If you found these useful, I would love to hear from you either here or over at my Homeschool Den Facebook Page! That’s also a great place to go catch up on some of the posts you might have missed lately. I keep a running list of all our posts there.

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Related Posts:

• You might also be interested in last weeks post where I shared the free Montessori World Pin Map.

• Rainforest Plants (from around the world)

• World Biomes Pin Map

• Preschool Geography: Where I Live

• The Seven Continents and World Landmarks

20+ Board Books Recommendations

Saturday, May 4th, 2013

We love books! When we lived overseas, the local library was quite lacking and we wound up with quite a collection of board books by the time all three kids were born!  ED still looks at these books pretty regularly and we’ll keep them around as she becomes a more confident reader (she’s still just reading simple 3 and 4 letter words). We actually have gotten rid of lots of board books already, but these books are keepers!

I’ll share a bit about them with you below:

I Went Walking is in the same style as Brown Bear, Brown Bear. I read this over and over when the kids were tots.

The Napping House and Guess How Much I Love You were especially beloved when the kids were around 3 or so.  ED still really loves Guess How Much I Love You — and she chooses this once every few weeks. She’ll often say I love you all the way to the trees and back… alluding to the lovely message in this book!

Mr Brown Can Moo! Can You? and Put Me in the Zoo were never the #1 favorites of my kids, though we read them pretty regularly.

This row of books, were ones I read to the kids SO SO SO often when they were babies! The rhythm and rhymes of Sheep in a Jeep and Jamberry are really appealing.   Baby Chick’s Day was the favorite of all three kids when they were 9-18 months old or so. All three of my kids learned to sign “bird” because of this book! It has a lovely little story and the tummy makes a little squeak. The kids also loved the textured books at that age like Touch and Feel Wild Animals, but they were so well used and loved, they got worn out and passed along. Big Red Barn is by the same author as Goodnight Moon.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear is the same basic storyline as Brown Bear, Brown Bear. For some reason, Brown Bear didn’t make it into this set of photos (it must be hidden elsewhere in ED’s room!). We still have these around because ED will “read” them aloud to herself!  Crazy Colours (obviously I bought that in Australia (where all 3 of my kids were born), right?!!) was another favorite of the kids when they were tiny tots (9-18 months) because they lifted the flap as we read.  I remember reading I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly to LD every single day,  3-times a day when my son was about two!! Sometimes I thought that book would never end because I was so tired (I was pregnant with DD at the time).  The Owl and the Pussycat has lovely pictures (by Jan Brett). And Go Dog, Go! was another must have. Our first copy was loved and gnawed on (by LD) and we got a replacement copy somewhere along the way.  My son loved, loved that book!!

All of these books were winners. We did baby-signing with our kids and I signed a lot of the words in Goodnight Moon! Good Night, Gorilla has no words, but I had to “read” it to the kids very, very regularly. My kids loved the books I Don’t Want to Go to Bed and I Don’t Want to Take a Bath. And–who doesn’t know (and love?!) Wheels on the Bus?! I used to read that one with the kids on my knee and would bounce them “up and down, up and down, up and down…. the wheels on the bus go up and down all around the town!”

Eric Carle’s books have been well loved here at the Homeschool Den… and we’ve even done a number of crafts based on his books:

A Chameleon Craft based on Mixed Up Chameleon.

That post shares a slideshow at Eric Carle’s website that I watched with the kids (click on the picture to read more)

Seahorse Craft based on Mister Seahorse. 

And a very simple tissue paper craft when ED was about 18 months and DD was about 3 based on Eric Carle’s books:

 When friends and family are expecting, these are wonderful books to give as gifts!

What board books would you recommend to other families?

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 Related Posts You Might Enjoy:

• Ten Books My 4 and 6 Year Old Love
• 14 Picture Books My 4 and 7 Year Old Love at the Moment

Preschool at Home: Science for 2-5 Year Olds (and Up!)

Friday, May 3rd, 2013

Amazing, Fun Science To Wow the Little Ones!

One of the wonderful things I love about homeschooling is all the hands-on activities you can do with kids.  In the preschool years, I scoured the Internet and various science experiment books to find things that would intrigue and excite the kids… and that they could have a hand in doing.  Most of the things we did were done using household ingredients. 

As you can see from the previous posts in this series, we did do some more traditional preschool activities like learning letter sounds and learning about numbers, but my main goal in the 2-4 year old age range was to keep the kids intrigued and engaged.

So how did I fit science in when I had a newborn, 2 and 4 year old?  Well, I generally planned things out on a Sunday night. Mondays were usually our science experiment days. I usually covered over the tray so the kids couldn’t see what we’d be doing to add spice and excitement to the activity!  These activities really only lasted 10-20 minutes (plus clean up), but seeing the kids so engaged made that extra effort worth it.

Here are a few examples some things we did when my kids were 2 and 4 years old…

One day we talked about liquids. We learned that some liquids are more dense (heavy) than others. We put oil and colored water into a bottle. Then we added honey and watched what happened. 

If you’ve glanced through various Montessori blogs, you’ll see that pouring is wonderful skill to build dexterity, hand strength, fine motor skills… what better practice than to enjoy some science along with it!

Then we wanted to see what would happen when you add milk to oil and water. If you pour slowly and carefully, the milk will form droplets within the oil. You might pour the milk onto a spoon and gently let one drop go at a time or use an eyedropper to squeeze out a drop at a time.  The kids loved the way that looked!

Exploding Volcano: Another very fun activity to do with kids is to make a volcano.

We made a paper mache volcano with a plastic soda bottle as the base.

Paper mache:

• 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup  water.
• Stir in 2 cups boiling water.
• Mix. 
• Put newspaper strips in the mixture and glop it onto the plastic bottle.  I think their projects were more charming being slopped on haphazardly!  Once they were dry (it took several days in dry conditions), we painted ours brown.

Then comes the fun part!!  Get your lava ready!

Lava:

• 1/2 cup baking soda into the volcano. 
• In a pitcher mix 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup vinegar, 1/4 cup dishwashing liquid, red food coloring. 
• Pour the vinegar mixture into the can and watch the lava flow!

 TaDa!

Make Your Own Fossils – The kids made their own fossils several times over the years. The picture below includes some are impressions from LD’s Thunderbird rockets which he was really into at the time (age 4 or so). DD made dinosaur tracks and impressions of a beetle, dragonfly and fly.

The recipe for making fossils is pretty easy:

• 2-3 Tablespoons used coffee grounds
• 2/3 cup salt (a little less)
• 2/3 cup flour
• enough cold coffee to make the mixture dough-like
• Make your impressions and then bake in a low heated oven for a while (an hour on one side, an hour on the other).

Preschool at Home: A Few Math Ideas for the 2 1/2 to 3-Year-Old Crowd

Friday, April 26th, 2013

The last few weeks I’ve been trying to put together some posts for those who are interested in doing some preschool activities at home with their kids. Today, I thought I’d highlight a few things I did with my kids for math in the 2 1/2-3 1/2 age range.

Here are some activities I did with ED when she was 2 1/2.  She was just learning to count up to 4 objects at the time. You could do this with any theme — flowers, ladybugs, trucks or whatever your tot is interested in:

One-to-one correspondence, counting out objects:

For this activity I made lots of black strips with numbers and crayon-drawn snowflakes.  ED really enjoyed using the snowflake stamp to punch out the snowflakes from the strip.  I told her she could also glue snowflakes onto the strip, but she wasn’t interested.

For the last activity I glued very small homemade snowflakes onto Popsicle sticks.  I covered a cereal box with aluminium foil and contact paper and stuck on numbers (again from our mailbox set).  Then I used a knife to put slits next to the number.  ED LOVED this activity! She did it over and over.  After a while I held up 4 (and 2 and 3, etc) snowflake sticks and asked her how many there were. She was correct each time!

Simple counting with any object on hand:

Number recognition with Fly Swatter Math!

I called out a number, she swatted the number as fast as she could!

Clothes Pin Counting Cards like these Dinosaur Egg Counting Cards from Making Learning Fun. The child puts a clothes pin on the correct answer.

Numbers and stickers:

Math Links:

Counting (you could do this with number recognition):

This counting Pete the Cat button counting activity was so cute, it’s also worth a mention!

ED loved this button activity and did it independently several times while I worked with the others. It was made by Heidi and she offers it free over at Heidisongs Resources:

You’ll find lots of other very cute Pete the Cat resources at this post about our Pete the Cat unit and More Pete the Cat Resources.

Grid Games:

I’ve used lots of the math grids made by Karen over at PreKinders.com. We took turns rolling a die and covering a square with that number of tokens.

Here’s a link to the squirrel grid game you see below or here’s another link to a cute puppy grid game. She has a good selection of themes and printable to choose from. Be sure to check out her website.

Here are some counting kitty pages I made for ED a year or so ago:

ED has been asking for her own independent work while the older kids are working on their studies. This is an activity she has no problem completing on her own… if not a bit on the easy side. She practices writing the number as well as filling in the bar graph.

I drew the kitty myself using a computer drawing pad Hubby got me for my birthday.

Click here to download the Counting Kitties Activity Sheets (there’s a total of 9 pages):

Teen Numbers:

Here is an activity I made for ED when she was ready to tackle the teen numbers.

When ED is counting, she often skips some of the numbers after 13. I am using a homemade version of the Montessori seguin board (download the packet I made here).  It’s a board with lots of 10s in a row. The child then places a digit over the zero to make 11, 12, 13, etc.

1) First ED counted the number of animals on the cards I made.
2) Then she pulled out the same number of beads-one golden bead bar (10) + single beads.  I made a big deal about the group of 10 beads being called her special ‘golden beads.’ She promptly fell in love with them!
3) Next she chose the proper digit and placed it in the ones column to make it “one ten and one” (for 11), “one ten and two” (for 12) and so forth.

If you’re interested in the printout packet I made of the seguin materials you can download them here.

You can also buy a proper wooden seguin board (such as this (from Alison’s Montessori) or  this teens and tens board from Kid Advance), but I never used them enough with my older two to warrant the price.

Other resources:

I got a great question about how to learn more about Montessori method of introducing the teens and tens to your 3-6 year old.

There is a series of videos at ehow that shows a teacher using the seguin board and Montessori beads.  Teen Board-Montessori video  In the sidebar you’ll find related articles and links.

Another fabulous resource is the online Montessori album (teacher’s manual for ages 3-6) at moteaco.com. There you’ll find a whole series of lessons on how to introduce the  teens and tens to your preschooler.

Other Posts in This Series:

• Preschool at Home: Activities you can do with your 2-4 Year Olds, Fine Motor Skills
• Preschool at Home: Learning Letters
• Preschool at Home: Handwriting

Easy Sparkly Winter Playdough

Friday, January 18th, 2013

We made some play dough together at the beginning of the week and ED has been playing with it every single morning!  Play dough is really easy to make and has a wonderful consistency.

Here’s how we made made ours:

• 1 cup flour
• 1/3 cup salt
• 1 Tablespoon Cream of Tartar (in the spice aisle of your grocery store)
• 1 Tablespoon oil
• 1 cup of near boiling water
• almost 1 teaspoon of glycerine (this isn’t necessary, but it sure makes the play dough feel smooth.  I had to hunt around for ours. I got it at a local pharmacy.)
• 1-2 teaspoon silver glitter

Place all the ingredients in a saucepan.  Mix. Then heat until the dough thickens.

The kids all played with this for quite a while. They all spent a lot of time making snowflakes, but I got involved in other things and never came back to take a photo!

Yes, I do still need to change out our Christmas table cloth (haha!!), but honest all the other stuff is put away!!