June Holiday: English lessons

Over the school holidays, we did a few spelling activity and some English related lessons.

I took out our Melissa & Doug's spelling kit and let sonshine have a go (it was getting dusty!). Sonshine matched the letters to each board and wrote each word three times on his book. He learnt to spell a couple of words, thanks to this activity.

I also made him learn the spelling of some action words.

Our spelling lessons were too haphazard that i found a need to find some structure. I decided to go with Montessori's Movable Alphabet and use of phonograms. Yes, i said before i am not a fan of phonics. I am still not a fan. But i reckon that it would easier for sonshine to learn to spell if we follow phonogram by phonogram.

Nothing beats owning the original Montessori Moveable alphabet. I did think of buying it but the thought of storing yet another bulky educational kit was too much for me to take. Hence, i DIY my own. This one is much more storage friendly!

Our first structured lesson begins with 'ai'. He successfully learnt to spell words that has 'ai' in them including, 'train', 'pain', 'paint', 'wait' etc.

It turns out that the structured lesson didn't help sonshine learn his spelling any better. He is accepting of either way, a random list of words or words with the same phonograms. The good thing about him is that it doesn't take much for him to remember & retain the words he learnt. So i conclude the structured lesson is more for me! LOL.

As with Montessori's lesson, i also created a mini book.

This particular book contains words that has 'ai' in them.

We also played with Junior scrabble during the school holidays. I found it way too boring but sonshine had loads of fun.

One of the books sonshine loves to borrow from the library is a book on Homophones. After reading book after book on homophones, i decided to let him have a go at a worksheet printed from here.

A twist to 'Egg in a cup'

What was meant for babydoll to play, turned out to be a simple lesson for sonshine.

I prepared this Egg in a cup activity for babydoll.

Sonshine had other plans. I watched him took out each volumeric solids and tried to fit them into the cup.

He discovered that the cube and rectangular solids couldn't fit into the cup.

We discussed why this was so. I pointed to him that only the round bottoms would fit into the cup which had a circular mouth while the others wouldn't because they had  differing bottoms.

Isn't it amazing that the children can create their own lesson plans just by exploring and us just observing? It would have been a shame if i had stopped him and insist edthat he plays the way i had planned it. We would have lost a meaningful lesson!

Play with babydoll

Play with a tub of animal figurines. We call this 'Animal Kingdom'!

Practising her pincer grasp

My own version of Montessori 'Egg in a cup' activity. I happen to have a wooden communion cup (bought from Israel) and i just used one of my Montessori volumeric solids to act as an 'egg'.

Somehow, none of these could keep her occupied for long. There are too many distractions, too many things in the house to hold, touch, smell, eat, destroy!

The Hungry Caterpillar

I saw this template online and decide to print them out. Taking from an idea i read from a local magazine, i pasted each picture on an ice cream stick. I used these 'props' to re-tell the story of Eric Carle's 'The very hungry caterpillar'. N even got to choose his storyline! :)

Asia Map revamp!

I realised the map i made wasn't condusive for the boy. The word labels were too big to fit into the some of the countries. I used some toothpicks & blue tag to remake the labels so that N can place them exactly at the right spot! So far he's learnt where China, India, thailand, philippines, japan, indonesia & south korea, sri lanka are. I need to speed up, i have not made the rest yet!

Sandpaper Letters

Here's another montessori material i made. Its called the sandpaper letters. The purpose is to introduce phonics and writing. The alphabets are made of sandpaper (hence the name of the activity) pasted over a hard paper (blue for vowels and red for consonants). The child sounds out the alphabet while using his fingers to trace the letter. It cost me below $3 (i think) to make this. The paper i used wasn't cheap.

Moveable Alphabet

Any Montessori mother will know that purchasing the montessori materials can be very costly. I especially like the Movable Alphabet activity (so does N) but i cannot convince myself to buy a set. I used to just display the alphabets on the floor, but i soon found out that its very messy & disorganise this way. I was contemplating if i should get one. Until recently, i found the above trays from Daiso which comes with little compartments that can fit the alphabets nicely. Now, this activity is less confusing and more organised (and i need not spend on the expensive Montessori tray)!

POST NOTE I got to add that this activity is really great for teaching children the meaning of alphabets. I've never taught N alphabets- and deliberately so. The reason: alphabets are actually very hard to teach. How do you teach a toddler the meaning of say 'a'? Hence, i made sure that his first contact with the English language are the full words so that he understands that each word has a meaning & words are used to communicate our thoughts. Now that he knows this, and with this actvitiy, N has learnt and seen for himself (without me having to explain) that every word is made up of individual alphabets and hence understands the purpose of the alphabets.

Asia Continent

Since N has mastered the world continents, i decided to take another step and teach him the countries in Asia. I printed out the map free from a Montessori website (cannot remember which one, oops) and have it enlarged. I painstakingly colored the various countries to help N differentiate.

I've also cut out each country (but not perfectly, its very hard to cut along curved lines..especially tough to cut countries with small islands!) so that N can match them onto the map. Also, i did some word labels so that he can match the country name to the correct location. So far, he has learnt where China, India, Indonesia, Japan & Thailand are. My concern is if he'd be able to spot these countries from a real map & if he knows that this is Asia (though he is able to point to the correct continents on the map).

DIY MONTESSORI KIT

Since the kit that i bought does not include the entire range, i had to DIY some. One of the activity that i dont own is called the color box (3). It includes 9 sets of colors, with each set having 7 different shades of a color. I checked the website to see how much it'd cost me if i bought the kit- USD $60! So, i DIY using cross stich threads. I bought 7 different shades of red threads and roll it over cardboards like so.

The red color range alone cost me a mere SGD $5! If i did it for 9 sets, the total would be SGD$ 45...versus USD $60! You do the math!

The other activity is called Touch fabric. It includes different cloth textures; the aim is to awaken the child's sense of touch. I went to buy wooden plates from DAISO, the wooden plates are suppose to be built into a box. But instead, i cut out old clothes and past them over the plates- see above. This cost me about $5 as well.

Honestly, after doing extensive research, i found that most Montessori materials can be made at home. It takes a bit of creativity and cost alot lesser than the proffessionally made ones. I also noticed that N masters the activity (those that i bought) rather quickly and i have to put them away soon after i introduced it to him. So economically, its much more worth to make your own than to buy. But of course, purchasing the materials save one alot of time!

Teaching World Continents- Montessori Way

The sonshine was interested in world flags and looking at the world map. So i grabbed the chance to teach him world continents. I got this continent template from online and had it enlarged at a local printer. The word labels (see above picture) are movable. I used it to show the sonshine which label match which continent.

Ive also cut out each continent shape (see picture above) and have him match the continents on the map. Its easy because each continent is color coded!

This activity is easy to teach (and cheap, cost me only $6) and for the toddler to learn. The sonshine was able to identify each continent and its specific location on the map in no time.