In our class this week...

 

 

I have decided to pursue copywork as part of my homeschool curriculum. There are too many benefits of copywork to give it up though its boring. You can read more about copywork here. But to each his own. Before you jump in, i suggest you take a second to think if it suits your child's learning style. I don't think every child will benefit from this style of learning. For sonshine, i think he needs this type of drilling to help highlight the sentence structure, punctuation marks, capital letters etc.

 

 

I gave him a simple book to copy. The key thing i was looking for was minimal punctuation marks (just commas and periods) and repetitive sentences (hoping that he can magically learn the spelling of the words he wrote several times over). Pelangi books are right up my alley for this purpose.

 

On a separate note, we had quite a frustrating time doing this on one of the days. I had him re-write some letters because it was not written accurately (he wrote '0' like a '6'). I ended up scolding and caning him. Not because of his error but his 'i can't do it' mentality which made him cry in despair. I didn't like that he cried over such a small matter (not the first time) and told him that it is okay if he doesn't know or needs more time but its not okay to cry and give up! 

Do you have days like these? I do! So, don't ever think its all bed of roses for us. Just keeping it real.

 

 

He did some Maths on calculating money. I had him do this since he was taught this in school last week.

 

 

He continuously surprise me with his ability to understand and solve mathematical questions. For instance, a question he encountered was  "Jim had 3 five-dollar notes. He bought something and left $3. What did he buy?" I was certain he needed help and was just about to explain to him when he said 'car' (see diagram above).

 

 

As for the girl, she did some sensory play. Squeezing sponge and spilling water all over herself and the floor. She even used a towel to wipe herself and the floor with each spillage. It was very amusing to watch to say the least.

 

 

She enjoyed this scooping activity. Actually, she is able to handle the utensils and self feed very well. Now when we are out eating, she would insist to feed herself and i am proud to say she is getting quite professional!

 

 

I secretly think she loves the scooping activity because she loves the beads. She poured them in a tray and decided that it was more fun to step on it.

 

 

Oh, how about 'bathing' in it?

Playtime with babydoll

Here are more activities i did with doll.

 

 

 

Before you throw away that empty tissue box, ask yourself if you can convert it into a plaything for the tot! It was "All things round" theme, i dumped anything with a circular shape in the box for doll to dig her puny hands in.

 

I made a sensory bag using zip lock bag.

 

The bag lasted to a ripe old age of ... 60 minutes. That's when babydoll decided it was way more fun to poke the bag with a pencil causing mini holes to appear on the bag.

 

Playing with big brother's marble race and watching the ball roll down the structure.

 

 

Her daily activity. The crayons and pencils are readily available and well within her reach. She goes over to the table anytime she wishes.

 

 

I thought it was time to take out my montessori kit for her. Here, she is matching the shapes. Not wanting to overwhelm her, i took out 3 shapes only.

 

She blew me away with this one. Her visual perception is really good. She is able to match most of the cylinders into place at one go.

 Sorting Melissa & doug shape  blocks by colors. I am pleasantly suprised she could match the colors though she tend to get confuse purple for blue.

 

Of course, she gets lots of nature & outdoor.

 

Not forgetting sand play!

"Mess"-merize

 

We had a bit of spare time before her nap today, so i decided to give her some sensory play- with paint!

 

 

 

I poured some (washable-of course) paint on a tray and gave her a paint brush.

 

 

She was cautious at first, just doodling with the brush. But the moment i threw an ice, yes ice, in the tray, her fingers dived right in for the colored ice.

 

 

And then she got really friendly with Mr paint, while mummy was cringing and trying very, very, very hard not to be bothered by the mounting mess.

 

 

And then she got so chummy with Mr Paint, she decides to smear her arms with it. Meanwhile, mummy's face became more crumpled as she stifles a "aaaAAAAaaaahhhhh...noOOooooOOooooOOoo!!" 

 

 

 

Really enjoyed herself all at the expense of mummy. At least this mom had the wisdom to do this while big brother was at school. Otherwise she would end up with twice the mess!

 

And then doll decides to walk around the house with her newly painted blue arms. That's when mom said 'Show's over honey!'.

 

Curtain closed!

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!

Love is in the air

We played some Valentine theme activities today!

We learn how to spell 'love'.

Valentine's puzzle!

I created this puzzle especially for Valentine's day. It's actually a bible memory verse. I thought i should kill 2 birds with 1 stone. This way, sonshine boy can play and learn a verse all at one go! I chose this verse because i wanted the boy to know that God's love for him will never fail.

Here's another printable puzzle i made. These are heart shapes with varying designs on them.

Sonshine boy had to match the hearts. I deliberately made it a tad challenging by creating similar but different designs on each heart.

I can't seem to find a book on counting by threes. So i cut out heart shapes and wrote the multiples of three on each heart, from 3 up to 30.

Sonshine boy unfolded and arrange them from the smallest to the biggest number. When the hearts are in order, we recited the multiples of three together.

Another printable that i made. Tracing heart shapes!

Once again, i will be happy to share my printables. It's only meant for home use, so please don't put them up for sale. If you decide to blog about it, do link it back to my site. Email me for the printables.

Happy Valentine's day!

Sensory TUb- Animal kingdom

This is a variation of this activity

I filled the tub with N's Animal toys.

As he picks them out of the tub, he sorts them by the places they live.

He had to decide which animal live in the tree, farm and jungle.

Sensory Tub

I saw this sensory tub activity all over other Montessori Mother blogs and decided to try it myself! I filled the tub with some cotton balls and stuff some puzzles inside for N to discover.

N enjoyed digging his fingers in the tub and discovering the 'treasures'.

A bit of this and that

We have been experiencing 3 weeks of drought in terms of our homeschool hour. It was interrupted by family trips and visits from relatives. But it was all good!

This week, we can finally resume although i think i may be losing steam- im running out of ideas!

Once again, i depend on my old pals- puzzles! This is a set on What animals eat. This week, N is learning that Panda eats bamboo shoots, Caterpillar- leaves, frogs- insects and Snake eats mice & eggs.

Last week, we read on a book about the sounds different animal makes. As a follow up, i created this activity to revise what we read from the book. I wrote the different sounds and had N match to the correct animal, i.e. Owl hoots, frog croaks etc.

Since we read that lion roars, i decided to teach N how to spell 'lion'.

Practising his pincer grasp. N had to remove the cloths pegs from the namecard and clip them back on again.

Another revision. I wanted to check if N still remembers the name of the different shapes. Well, he mixed parallelogram and trapezium up but everything else he got it right.

Matching Color shades

N's pretty bored with his color box activity and i was struggling to make it more interesting for him. Then i had a light bulb moment!

I took out 3 different shades of green, blue and yellow plates from my Montessori color box as well as the 3 mathematical cubes of the same colors. I got N to match the colored cube to the closest shade.

Sort Money, Save money

Since we were on the topic of money/coins. i grabbed a handful of coins and got N to sort them out. I took the chance to tell him the value of each coin.

After which, we slotted all the coins into our cute 'hippo' bank. Good activity for fine motor skills!