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Teeth Activity for Toddlers!

Vito is 29 months old.

Another fantastic activity I got from my Pinterest board!  This the perfect activity for toddlers to explore their teeth as they can’t usually see it.  This is so easy to assemble and will keep your little ones engaged!

Fun Sifting Activity for Kids

Vito is 28 months old.

We were reading the Under the Ground book and chancing upon the page of mining, I decided that we should play pretend to look for jewels in a tub of gravel!  As you can see, this activity was intended for sifting the gravels and later on discover the jewels but I realized that that gravel is quite big so our sifter wouldn’t work.  Thus, I added the scooper from Learning Resources, it has bigger holes in it so it can sift the gravel effectively.

Earth and Land Unit: Magnetic Earth Worms!

Vito is 29 months old. This activity was inspired by Simply Learning.

You can find lots of Earth worms under the ground! The main idea here is to search and collect all the Earth worms under the ground (oatmeal) using a magnetic wand. Fun activity for kids that both siblings can enjoy!

How to Introduce Space and Planets to Toddlers

Vito can finally identify the sun, moon and earth, and can’t stop saying the word space whenever he sees a rocket ship!  With engaging activities, you can definitely expose your kids to the of concept space and planets, and I assure you they’ll get hooked! 

Tot School: Letter ‘Rr’

Vito is 28 months old.

Vito is currently in his sensitive years and I am taking advantage of this period as he’s really into ALL our activities, positioning himself in his table asking for something to “play”.  So this week, we started with letter R. Why letter R and not A? Well, I decided to follow the RAMFBITG method of introducing letter sounds to Vito. To know why, read about it here.

Collection of Easter Activities

How do you observe the Lenten season? I was raised in a Catholic family and growing up, I participated in a lot of church and community activities tied to the observance of Lent.  The activties has helped me understand the meaning of Lent and the celebration of life on Easter. 

 

Last year we observed the Lenten season with some religion study, identifying their traditions and practices to understand their faith.  I find it important that we must introduce our kids to the different religions of the world not just ours, to be able to appreciate and respect everyone’s belief. 

 

The Rainbow Clouds Craft

I saw this beautiful rainbow craft a few weeks ago in Pinterest and I totally forgot the main site, so please if you own this craft leave a message and I’ll include the credits. 

I’ve been introducing Vito to the spring season using our Spring Season Picture Cards, books and outdoor activities.  Today, I’m sharing the rainbow clouds the boys made last week.  The weather was terrible at that time  and we couldn’t explore our yard so I made use of their free time doing crafts at home.  So I tried to scan through Pinterest in search of simple crafts that BOTH of my kids could work on, and this is one of them!

Crafts projects allow children to exercise their fine motor skills, improve manual dexterity and understanding of visual-spatial relationships.  They provide opportunities to use their imagination as well.  Just be vigilant when using small items and sharp objects like scissors.

Sensorial Play Kinetic Sand & Geometric Shapes

Vito and Mavi are loving our Kinetic Sand!  In all honesty, I’m hesitant to purchase the sand because of its price.  Growing up in my homeland, sand was free and I could play with it day and night with my mother not shedding a single cent.  So the thought of Kinetic Sand costing more than my monthly college allowance is just crazy.  When it went on sale (70% off!), I knew I just have to get one because I wanted my kids to enjoy sand all year round just the way I played with it.  It was worth-it!

 

Montessori Books for Older Children: The Universe Story Trilogy

It’s time for another 12 Months of Montessori Series and today I am sharing Mavi’s favourite book series.  We have been using these books for years now.  The books are all about the cosmic history to the evolution of man.  The stories are accompanied by stunning images and time-line to follow.  Everything in these books are just too magical and enlightening for him!

About the books:

There are three books in the series and each tells a certain period in time.  Here are the details of the books which you can purchase from Amazon:

• BORN WITH A BANG.  Story of the universe from the Big Bang to the formation of the sun and solar system.
• FROM LAVA TO LIFE.  Story of Earth from the appearance of the first life forms to the extinction of the dinosaurs.
• MAMMALS WHO MORPH.  The story of the first mammals to the story of humans.

When I asked Mavi how we’re going to showcase his books in today’s post, he suggested that we should make some kind of “interpretation”, similar to a museum but only in a series of activities.    So I scanned and laminated  his favourite parts in each book so we can do our “interpretation” of the story.

BORN WITH A BANG:  how the universe was formed.  Seen here, we replicated the bursting of lights in the universe forming into galaxies, stars and planets via the milk/soap/food coloring science activity.  This was performed by Mavi and Vito.  The mixing and contrast of colours looked like the big bang!

Our Spring Season Picture Cards

Spring is just around the corner and I’ve been thinking about the activities that the boys and I can do. I was very much inspired by Deb’s post on Spring Season Cards, so I borrowed the idea of printing pictures that relates to spring and we will be using them for the follwing:

• introducing the season of spring to Vito
• creating stories using the picture cards
• inspiration for crafts
• inspiration for outdoor activities
• St. Patrick and Easter activities
• farm animals and their babies
• animal life cycles

Imaginative Play: Australian Outback

We are currently looking at the different biomes of Australia and Mavi wanted to recreate the Australian Outback at home.  As you all know, I started putting up small world, sensory tub  trays  for imaginative play this year.  It’s a favourite learning tool in the house and can engage both of my boys hours of play (and learning too!)!

Materials used:

• brown kinetic sand
• Playmobil Hyena
• Playmobil Fairy
• Desert Safari Toob
• Safari Toob Down Under
• Crafts tray (large)

I’m glad that Mavi can set this all up by himself. He loves putting together our small world trays (previously we made the Polar regions) for  them to enjoy.

This is how it looks like when he was done. I had to assist him in placing the animals, to make sure that the platypus and crocodile belongs to the water, and that the koala (forest) should be in a tree not in the desert. 

Vito loves this tree for some reason. He puts sand on it and enjoys watching it fall off

In the morning, Vito automatically goes here and loves identifying the figures.  Most of the items here are not suitable for younger children, so make sure that they are ALWAYS SUPERVISED. 

I added a picture booklet beside it for Mavi to read whenever he plays with our tray.  This way, he learns as he plays and get information about Australia and its inhabitants.

 

Benefits of small world play:

• sensory
• imaginative play
• story telling
• expanding vocabulary
• learning about different habitats
• discovering the animals that lives in he desert

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