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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Playmobil Native American Superset Review

Oh my goodness, this is awesome! 

I was able to get some really deals during the Black Friday sale. One of which is the Playmobil Native American Superset.  As I mentioned earlier this month that Playmobil is one of the open-ended toys that we consider “educational” due to its historical figures and environment.  This Playmobil set will be perfect for our American history study next year

These are the contents upon opening. As you can see, the packaging and organization of the items is very much similar to LEGOs.  The Playmobil boxes are resusable as well. It is sturdy, perfect for storing your sets when not in use! 

Though it comes with an instruction pamphlet, Mavi still needs assistance setting up the environment.  I love the Playmobil sets! Most of it comes with a base which gives the child a real feel of the environment. Perfect for habitat bins (with extra materials of course!).

And once done, here’s the actual setup. I AM SO HEAD OVER HEELS INLOVE WITH THIS!! How beautiful! You can’t have a toy that’s as detailed as this these days and that depicts the life of Native Americans!  The attention to details of Playmobil is totally impressive! 

Mavi decided to paint a backdrop and this is how it looks like.  The playset comes with a totem pole, a beautiful teepee, plants, tree, a horse and a beautiful canoe.

It has 3 native american figures: a tribe chief, and two tribe members.  Look at those bodypaints and the details of the costumes.  They come with accessories too!

I love that they have a tribe chief, and the his headdress is super cool!  Mavi was like “so they made that with feathers? I’d like to have one!”  He has a staff with feathers as well, and figure sits well on his horse.

Vito’s favourite is the canoe and he loves playing with it while singing the “Row row row your boat” song.  My husband thinks that the best in this set is the canoe, the shape and the design is totally awesome!

The figures snap on the canoe so you need not to worry if they’ll fall out.

I love the art details in the teepee cover.  The teepee is made up of a cloth-like material, which I can guarantee you that it won’t get ripped easily. It is securely fastened in the bars, thought it was a bear to assemble it.

Here’s Vito playing, as I took this picture with Mavi in school. 

I’m naming ALL  the objects in this set for his vocabulary and here he is enjoying the word “skull”.

He calls this figure “Daddy”.

The Verdict

SO WORTHIT!!  I highly recommend this set! It also comes with a lot of accessories like pipe, bow and arrow, oars, head dresses, bonfire, shield and a lot more!  The material is just exceptional!

How I Organize and Store Materials

I’ve been receiving requests from readers asking me to share some tips or at least share how I organize our materials at home.  To be honest, I haven’t found the perfect formula for organizing materials.  I find myself experimenting on what works for me and for the kids.  So instead of giving advice on what to do, allow me to share with you how I organize our things at home. 

We live in a small apartment… as most European homes are!  So our sitting room is our playroom which is also our “home” school room. Except for painting and messy play, this is where all the actions are taking place.  So to make it “conducive” for the boys, husband and I purchased Ikea shelves and inserts so I can organize learning materials, mostly of Vito.  Mavi’s stuff are in his room including the Montessori materials that we own.

This is the  main shelf, the upper layer is for the working trays and the bottom layer contains the inserts.  We bought a sturdy insert from Ikea as well, they are really really good, quite heavy so Vito can’t just push and pull them.

Daily Activity Shelf

The inserts contain all the learning materials (non Montessori) of Vito, including the puzzle boards. Surprisingly, they fit!  So convenient because whenever I needed to change my materials, I just remove them from the insert and place them on the tray. Same thing when Vito is done working with them, I just put them back on the insert.