Montessori Teens and Tens

We've done a lot of Montessori-Inspired Math activities before and this is my first attempt to apply Montessori method in our lesson at home using KHT Montessori Math Album.

Last year, I purchased a few Montessori materials and one of which was the Decanomial beads which despite its price was worth it.

 

I started the lesson with the "teens" first. I am using my homemade large number cards.  I followed the procedure in the KHT Math album and after the presentation and 3 lesson period, I asked Mavi questions like"

• 10 and 9 makes?
• 10 and 2 is?
• To make 18, you need?

Of course, he has to answer these questions.  If not, I would go back to the cards and beads, and show to him the answer and why.  I find this lesson very effective as it is a hands on activity and visual.  Children would immediately associate the number symbol to the quantity it represents.  This is also a good start of showing the difference between units of tens and ones.

The second time we did this, I asked Mavi to do all the presentation by himself of which he obliged happily.

Then we moved to the "tens" lesson. Same procedure of presentation and same flow of asking questions like "How many tens are there in 70?"  Again, this is a perfect way of associating number symbols to the quantity.

Then our little game began.  I formed 10 random numbers using the cards, and Mavi has to give me the correct quantity using the beads.  This was something that he really really like doing :)  We'll be having more exercises on this. 

 

For advance exercise I plan to do the said activity on the other way around, that is present him the quantity using the beads and he has to give me the correct number using the cards.... hmmm that sounds challenging! We might try it later :)

And we also did a little "100 - 1000 Bead Chain" activity.  Will give you an update on this soon! As of now he just finishes up to 590, but I'm happy that he now gets the pattern of counting from 100-500.

 

 

Aside from counting we also practice writing the words of the number "tens" and associate number symbol to the words.

And that's all for our Math activity last week. Tune in for more updates this week!

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!

Chinese New Year Unit (with FREE Printables)

Hello!  Chinese New Year is just around the corner! And for someone who celebrates Chinese New Year (most Asians) and observes some Chinese traditions and practices,  I prepared these materials to go along with the upcoming celebration.

What's included in the file?

Well first, there's the 12 animals of Chinese Horoscope and Zodiac.  Printables included are:

• Silhouette matching
• Reading and spelling cards
• Control, picture and label cards,
• Information Cards
• Memory Game
• Patterning

And.. of course, there's the Chinese themed cards like:

• Uppercase and lowercase letter matching
• Number cards when using counters
• And counting cards where you can use pegs, clips or counters to mark the objects

 

And you can get all of these for just about 2.50USD all 60 pages of activities! How cool is that?! For the link just click any of the pictures above.

Now for the FREEbie.... you can download these printables for the Horoscope theme for your personal use.  If you wish to share it with anyone, please link it up to my website, to my blog or on this post.

• Reading and spelling cards
• Control, picture and label cards
• Patterning template and picture chips

Download the FREEbie HERE.

For more FREEbies and learning aids, please check The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads.

Thank you!!

Afterschool Activities for January

When it comes to planning for our home schooling, I make it a point that I don't put too much on the amount of activities we need to achieve in a week. 

So what I do is to allot one goal per subject in a month and if we finish early and still have some spare time, we would just revisit our past lessons or start the next month's lesson.

We only have a few more weeks left and I wish to finish these all up.

LANGUAGE 

• Reading analysis using a workbook which I bought locally.
• Blue Series

We are wrapping up our Blue Series review using moveable object and our tracing and spelling worksheets.

MATH

• Montessori Tens and Teens

We will work on this for the entire month including word association and more.  Will talk about it on my next post. 

 

SCIENCE/THEME

We are currently doing an Arctic and Antarctic theme.

 

ART

I have to admit I have no idea on what to do next on this subject.  Right now, we're just reading the Katie series book which my son and I love.  These are wonderful books for introducing artists and their works for little children.

Because I am still contemplating on what to do, I will be using these books for planning our monthly Artist Study.

 

FAITH FORMATION

We are using this book which I read at night.  Homeschool Creations has a fabulous printable packs that is in line with the book. I have to find time to download and print those!

My son attends a Catholic school so I'm happy that what we're teaching him at home is in line with the learnings he receives in school.

 

And these are the things we're doing as of the moment.  Will be sharing my plans (and online resources) for the month of February next week. Stay tuned!

Our Polar Expedition

For this month's themed activity, we'll be having the polar regions.  We've done a couple of these before, but my son wanted to revisit it as they are talking about penguins in school and he has been asking me about the North Pole for some time now.

For our past activities, please visit any of the links below. 

The Polar Lands

Antarctica Unit

Antarctica Unit: Math

Aside from the existing materials that we have, I added a few for this year:

Map of Antarctica and the Arctic. By showing Mavi the difference between the two he will have a better understanding of these places. At least now, he'll know where the North Pole is located (and where Santa lives!).

       

Reindeer(Caribou) Nomenclature Card.  We worked on penguins before, so I decided to do something different this year.  You can get the nomenclature cards and booklet of the Reindeer here. The file also comes with a definition booklet.

For the miniature,we used the Caribou (Reindeer) in the Arctic Safari Toob.

         

I love that mini figure is very detailed.  Here's Mavi identifying the tail!

Animals of the Arctic and Antarctica.  My animal collections all comes from Safari Toob(Arctic, Penguins and North America).

             

For Antarctica, talked about the 6 species of penguins that live there (not all species can be seen in Antarctica).  I made some cards and fact cards for each penguin.  We differentiated one from the other according to their physical appearance and sizes.

For the Arctic, we also identified the different animals that lives in that region and I made some fact cards to learn more about them. 

My Arctic and Antarctic Printable Pack also comes with fact cards for the Arctic and Antarctic animals.  To know more about please read my post about it here.

For letter sounds and spelling, we worked on these printables (all in my file).

               

Here, Mavi is identifying the beginning sounds of the animals using transparent counters.

            

For the language lessons, we used these reading cards.

We used both the moveable alphabet and mini white board for spelling and writing practice.

       

 

 

For more FREEbies and learning aids, please check The Pinay Homeschooler Shop and Downloads.

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me
Preschool Corner
Teaching Mama
I Can Teach My Child
Home + School = Afterschool!

The Arctic and Antarctic Printable Pack

This month, my son and I will be doing a Polar Region theme.  And because of adrenalin rush and with much inspiration, I was able to create these printable for us to use.  My son loves it and I am so happy and proud of how it turned out!  And yes, it is suited for preschoolers as well.  When I created this, I made sure that the little brother can also use this in the future :) 

So what's included in the file? 

First, there are activities and printables for the the six penguins of Antarctica.  Activities include:

• Beginning sounds
• Matching cards
• Reading and Spelling cards

 

Second, the activities for the animals of the Arctic Region. Activities include:

• Beginning sounds
• Matching cards
• Match the silhouettes
• Reading and Spelling cards

I also pre pared Math activities to go along with the Polar Regions theme.  Expect:

• Counting cards
• Matching numbers with objects
• Patterning (templates and picture chips)

And lastly, there's the fact cards that most of us parents love! 

So in case you'll be doing some Antarctica Unit for geography or doing an Arctic theme... you know where to look!  The file is 30 about 30 pages with more than 10 activities for the price of 2.50USD.  How cool is that?

Just click any of the pictures for the file's link.

Thank you!

Thoughts on Reading

Caught my son reading the Polar Express early today before he goes to school.  I am amazed on how far he has taken off from the the time he was able to decode the blends.

My son started reading books when he was 3 years of age.  That time, I have a good supply of books with lots of CVC words (beginners) and sight words and that's what he would read. And surprisingly, he can read and spell complicated words as well. And I believe that the secret to this success was reading lots and lots of books with him from an early age (months old!). 

So to those who doesn't know where to begin, my advice is that... start reading books to your kids.  Do it on a daily basis.  Make it as part of your routine. From here, you can start learning phonics or any available program/technique suited for you.

For my son, there was no fancy program... I just  used the concept of Montessori when I was teaching him the phonics and how to start reading.

For reference, here are some of the activities we do at home to learn how to read:

Blue and Green Series

Language lessons

Spelling

Montessori Green Series

Beginning and Ending Sounds

Montessori Pink Series

Update on Pink Series

Word Family Strips

Linking to:

Montessori Monday
TGIF Linky Party
Teach Beside Me

New Beginnings for 2014!

Happy New Year to all my readers! How were the holidays like for you?

As for me, my December vacation was all about fulfilling my duties as a mother and wife.  Everyone in the family got sick and the baby and I were the only ones spared by the flu, which left me taking good care of everyone else.  It was so tiring but nevertheless we were still able to the New Year bug-free. 

But my blogging hiatus gave me the chance to contemplate and plan for my activities for 2014.  Oh I am so excited to be back in the blogging world and back on our daily routine of doing interesting stuff at home! I just couldn't figure out yet how we could have afterschool activities now that we have a new baby to care for as well :)  I guess, Mavi and I will eventually adapt and discover a routine that best suits us. (So expect some rants of handling two kids in my future post LOL)

To each and everyone, I thank you for a wonderful 2013! Thank you so much for participating in my blog, leaving comments, appreciating what I do and sharing some of your ideas as well.  Thank you for those who support my little shop and I promise to come up with more affordable learning materials this year.  And to show my appreciation, I will also be sharing a lot of freebies!

So cheers to new beginnings! And I am wishing you all a fabulous and productive New Year!