Here is our second continent box: Antarctica plus the Arctic, just in time to wish you a Happy World Penguin Day. I have decided to include activities about the Arctic and tundra in general in this box because of lack of space available at home. However, this creates a great opportunity to talk with Pinky about the North and South pole and their differences/similarities between them.

Photo: Our continent Box plus a green bin where I keep the books available. After we finish the Continent unit, everything goes inside the big bin. The lower photo is another sensory box with white felt, packing peanuts, white flower petals, scrap paper and aquarium marbles and rocks (for the penguins to build their nests). The photo on the right is our version of the Scrimshaw (ivory soap carvings).

 

For this box, we took advantage of the snowy Winter days and the snow just to re-create a mini-world. If you doesn’t have the snow factor advantage, you could recreate a sensory box with ice…or shaving cream….or white/blue play-doh….There are many available options all over the Internet!

Let’s see what did we learn with the Antarctica continent box:

Books

We explored books about: Atlas, The world, Arctic (Balto, Inuits, canada, alaska, iceland, etc), penguins. We LOVE books in this house!!! In the last photo, Pinky is playing after we read the Magic tree house chapter book: Polar bears past bedtime.

Sensory Box with Ice and Snow

Pinky played with different sensory box set-ups using water, snow, ice, scrap paper, packing peanuts, etc.

3 part cards

Parts of a Polar bear.

Parts of a penguin

Arctic animals….cards-objects matching activity….on the back of the card we have some information about the animals.

Clothing

Antarctica scientist clothing and Frosty the snowman clothing…..both need lots of clothes!!! lol

Inuits- Balto story and movie time

We don’t usually watch t.v.; however, comparing a book and it’s movie was such an interesting activity. She amazed me!!

Penguins!!!

Puzzle from Dollar tree store!

 

Hold your egg like a Penguin! Too funny and hard!!! lol Excellent for the snow storm lockdown…

 

7 Penguins of Antarctica craft. Idea from Montessori Tidbits (link below)

 

Check out these great sites for more activities to include in your Antarctica or Arctic unit study:

1. Living Montessori Now: Montessori-Inspired Arctic and Antarctic Unit
2. Joy of Kindergarten: Getting My Penguins In a Row
3. Parent, teach, play: Penguins – Play & Learning!
4. Trillium Montessori: Antarctica: Overview, Antarctica: Penguins (free Penguins and Their Chicks printable), and Antarctica: Whales (How Long is a Whale? free printable cards)
5. Jojoebi: Penguins 3 part cards free
6. Kingdom of the three princesses: Our Continent Boxes – Antarctica (lots of resources/links about transportation, food chain, clothing, etc.)
7. Mondorfment: Mondorfment Continent Swap Hop and Giveaway (free life cycle of the Emperor Penguin)
8. Montessori Tidbits: Penguins of Antarctica craft (from here comes the 7 penguins of Antarctica craft idea)
9. Scholastic: Lesson 2: The Extreme Antarctic 
10. Counting Coconuts: Our Continent Bags - Antarctica
11. Discovery days and Montessori Moments: Antarctica Box!
12. Montessori MOMents: Antarctica Cultural Exchange Package
13. What did we do all day?: Continent Boxes: Antarctica
14. The Pinay Homeschooler: Continent: Antarctica Unit, Arctic Animals Control Cards (FREE PRINTABLE)
15. Little things: Very Last First Time (Arctic unit)
16. New bee homeschooler: Serie of great post about the Arctic.
17. Learn, create, love: { Arctic Animal Crafts }

 

Visit our Pinterest Board: Continent Box: Antarctica, Arctic, for more amazing ideas!

Thanks for visiting!!!

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My little princess is very aware of her surroundings and the beautiful mix of cultures in this planet. Most of the time when there is a holiday celebration, she comes home after school asking for more. Well, are those request the ones that makes my life happy and easy. Why???

• My daughter trust me
• Special mother-daughter bonding time
• She LOVES to learn….(real value of education)
• I don’t have to get crazy looking for possible themes to teach her about.

As you would see, I am trying to incorporate more hands-on-activities (dictionary, kids encyclopedias, chapter books, museums, trips, etc.) and less printable units. I think this will help her to learn while creating real memories and experiences and to focus/concentrate for longer periods of time. (Ok, I am not a teacher, just a mommy who loves to learn new things with her precious daughter.)

Here is what we learned about St. Patrick’s day:

Field trip: Boston’s big parade

What was I thinking? It was kind of strange to be walking between a bunch of college students……I felt sooooo old!!!! At least I remembered  those amazing times back in college. She took her baby daughter with us (so a great mommy already!!!) and dressed-up in GREEN, of course! Sadly, we had to walk for so long; therefore, when we got to the point that everyone was walking towards (I didn’t have any idea where we were lol), the parade was gone….we got there 15 minutes late….lol…..maybe we’ll try next year!

 

Where is Ireland in the world????

We read our Atlas books and found Ireland on the map. I printed an Ireland map for her to color and paste small pictures related to Ireland like: Vikings, St. Patrick, a leprechaun, flag, etc. (If you want to make this activity, just open a blank page in Microsoft Word, Google pictures either to color or colored ones and just copy and paste them on your blank page…you can re-sized them at your convenience). The red colored map is for her to see that Ireland (green) is part of Europe (Montessori-colored: red)

 

Book: Leprechaun in late winter from the magic tree house

The magic tree house books are our favorite ones right now! A little of fantasy with real facts. The booklet is from their website. There are more activities about the book in my Pinterest board, below!

This book comes with some stickers, which mommy made into magnets manipulative for some imaginative play (before Pinky take them lol). I added a boy, girl and woman with Ireland’s traditional clothes and St. Patrick’s picture. I found these picture using Google.

 

Sensorial/Craft

Re-using/recycling those wires that hold new dolls inside the box (Pinky’s grandma had send her a beautiful Cabbage patch doll from Puerto Rico days before). We made a few bracelets and a clover. Good activity to practice concentration, patience, patterns, counting, fine motor practice, colors and be good to our environment).

 

Math

From necklaces (Dollar tree):

To: count by ten with gold coins (Now we don’t have to expend lots of money in Montessori beads. I know they aren’t beautiful but get the job done, though.)

 

I have lots of more ideas that wanted to try in my Pinterest board but I always have a problem with the holidays: The past on so fast!!!! So, I am always LATE celebrating and let’s not talk about blogging it! lol

Well, maybe next year!!!

 

 

Are you like us; always celebrating late?

 

I wanted to share, for a very long time now, how we learn at home AFTER school time. Besides from weekends, holidays or vacations, we have just 3 hours and a half to motivate Pinky’s learning. As you can see, just a few hours can make a difference in your child’s life.

Everyday, after school, Pinky comes home eager to do activities about a new theme (mostly one that she studied at school) or to continue any work about an old theme. Because of the lack of time, I try to do short activities re-using old materials into hands-on-activities. Sometimes, I print out worksheets but they have to be in relation to the theme of interest and be able to be used in an interesting way.

Just following my child interests, as one of Maria Montessori believes (the one I LOVE the most!), I am helping myself to give my daughter:

1- An special mommy-daughter bonding time.

2- Confidence in herself- she is learning to identify her interests or doubts about any theme and to request further learning. She is learning about not staying with any doubt! She learns to speak for herself.

3- Research time. She is learning about where to look for anything and how to ask for help. She is very aware of the Internet, specially Google! Also, and most important, what are a Dictionary and an Encyclopedia and how to use them. Well, that was the way before the internet and I want Pinky to learn it, too!

4- Concentration. Because we study themes that she asked and I was not the one to impose, her concentration time into certain activities has been increasing. Sometimes, I have to stop her because is past bed time!

5- Joy. She has been finding joy into learning! Isn’t that the best reward?

6- Memories. We are creating beautiful memories, not only for Pinky but for mommy, too!

7- Simplicity. This one is for mommy! I don’t have to get crazy looking for themes, activities or crafts in a random way. I don’t have to get disappointed after expending time creating a masterpiece unit just to end with a “I am not interested kiddie face” (lol I had been there!!!).

8- Satisfaction. Both for mommy and daughter. Even if it was a one day only theme, Pinky is happy because I’d listened to her curiosity and took the time to look it up. As a result, mommy is happy, too!

 

Sorry for the long post! Just wanted to share in case there are more moms getting frustrated because they want to give more to their schooled kids but think it has to be all the way into homeschooling. Now you see there’s an easy and satisfactory way for both mom and kid. Just follow your kid: Listen to them!

 

Ok, continuing with out post tittle…..this is the time Pinky came back home wanting to learn more about the United States! Well, this was my easy and fast way to expend two afternoons:

 

Activity #1

Melissa & Doug USA puzzle 

 

Montessori-Inspired activity: from the classic Montessori activity of matching objects to pictures. We built the puzzle and them matched some objects to the pictures on the puzzle for each state. For example, Orange picture over Florida state and she added Minnie Mouse because Disney World is located there, too!. Cactus for Arizona, Golden gate bridge for California, Pineapple for Hawaii, car for Ohio, Lobster and Lighthouse for Maine, Statue of liberty, yellow taxi and Empire State building for New York, etc. We found an object to match to most of the states. This is really an easy, fast and fun activity with lots of possibilities!

 

Activity #2

United States floor puzzle

This puzzle I found it at Goodwill for $1.99. Good deal!!!

We love that it is so big! She decided to use her USA placemat to make sure both were the same! lol

Maybe we could add some postcards from each state to do with this puzzle? souvenirs? flags? states birds, animals, flowers? Presidents??

Too many possibilities!!!

 

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Wao, it has been a long time since we started studying about Africa. With the holidays preparations, the ballet recital, our Christmas vacations to Canada and then the New Year’s cold, we didn’t have time to finish our African exploration. Here’s our last post about our Africa box.

However, better late than never! So, what’s in the box?

The envelopes have the flags, landmarks, animals and instruments cards. Our Africa box is kind of full thanks to Daddy and….MOMMY, of course!!! lol

Goodies- souvenirs: Daddy brought these from his trip to South Africa.

Wood spoons, Mandela’s quotes cards, Apartheid’s museum magnets and pens, necklaces, candles, keychains, Cape point’s magnet.

 

Landmarks cards

I made a few Africa landmarks cards (has a picture on front and a description on back), Postal cards and magnets Daddy brought from his trip.

 

Currency

Daddy brought some money making sure we’d have a representation of each one of the Big 5. We save it inside this beautiful Africa-shaped box.

 

Animals of Africa

I made these cards to match our plastic figurines. We are still needing a representation of a Meerkat, hyena, gnu and African wild dog figurines. And I forgot to make a card for the Pelican and Warthog! If someone need the cards, for personal use ONLY, please!, here’s the link. Also, Montessori Tidbits has some animals cards for free.

Parts of an Elephant cards

Here’s Pinky making sure her elephant figurine has all the correct parts…lol I made this Elephant cards (here’s the link but please just for your personal use and sorry they are NOT perfect). However,  Montessori Print Shop has beautiful ones plus a booklet.

Parts of a Flamingo cards

She checked the flamingo, too! The flamingo cards are from Montessori Print Shop for free!

 

Books, games, puzzles, music Cd

 

Instruments of Africa cards

I made these cards to complete ones I found at Montessori Tidbits for FREE . Here’s the link (Please these are for your PERSONAL use!). Just a few instruments to compare/contrast the ones we know.

 

Math

When Pinky was just a toddler, I made these cute Elephants out of a stencil and foam. We loved to sing the 10 elephants song balancing on a spider web, but in Spanish! Then, my mom came for vacation and made giraffes to join the elephants. Yesterday, we found them inside our Africa box. After singing the Elephants song (in Spanish, of course!), and Pinky improvised a giraffe version of the song , we did some math practice. I love the moments when our brain lights up! jajajaja

First, some addition! (the cards are from the Dollar store!) The number eight card is part of a few number cards I made with cardstock a while back! RE-CYCLING!!!

 

Then, some subtraction!

Oh my!!! She is REALLY excellent!

Hard work pays off!!!

Now that we are having a cold weather plus the flu season is picking up, I think that learning about our World is going to be lots of fun!!!

So, where are we going next???? Oops, wait, I still have to post about our art activities…..after all, Pinky is just 4 years old and to get messy is a must!

 

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