Here is our Spanish version of the letter crafts.

For this project you will need a couple of days. It’s better if you make a letter each day..like a week project!

Pinky liked it a lot! I am thinking about setting up a Spanish binder to keep all our future Spanish learning projects. Will see…

These are the pattern we used (click over each letter to follow the link to the 4shared website where I stored them). I have hand drawn everything and then cut over construction paper. For some we got creative and used felt, cotton and feathers. Sorry, but each vowel part is written in Spanish, just follow the next pictures in order to get an idea.

Letter A is for:

Angel- angel

Abeja- bee

 

Letter E is for:

Edificio- building

Elefante- elephant

 

Letter I is for:

Iguana- Iguana

Isla- island

Letter O is for:

Oso- bear

Oveja- sheep

 

Letter U is for:

Unicornio- unicorn

Urraca- Magpie

I hope you and your kiddoes have fun learning Spanish!

 

During our summer vacation, we got the tiny opportunity to learn a bit about our body. Pinky has been asking to do activities about this topic for quite a time now. However, it seems that something always got in our way.

 

Not wanting to keep it longer, here are a few things we did.

 

First, we put this skeleton puzzle together. I am not sure where’s from because I bought it at Goodwill a couple of years ago.

The next activity was to write the bones names on index cards and match to the correct bone.

Meet your bones!

 

So cute together!

These are other puzzles we got to use. The brain is from Staples, and I think the others are from a dollar store. I know for sure they were $1 each!!!

 

Then, I made some organs using felt. I used an Anatomy book as a reference and draw the organs by sight.

I used cheap felt (busted!) so I had to fold it in half and glue the sides together with a hot glue gun. As a result, the felted organs are stronger which I think is good if small and busy hands are the ones using them.

The stomach. As you can see, the felt sheet is folded in half.

 

Here they are!!!

(Brain, lungs, heart, liver, gallbladder, esophagus, stomach, pancreas, spleen, kidneys, urinary bladder, small and long intestines)

 

Another activity was to use doctor’s related stickers from Michaels to create art.

Isn’t that so cute?

 

We also watched a few videos from YouTube and the Magic school bus on Netflix (The Human body).

 

Finally, we read lots of books!

These books are ours. I mostly got them for 0.39 cents up to $1 at a Thrifty store nearby.

So far she just looked at the pictures and we read anything that called her attention at the moment.

We read the magic school bus (Spanish) and then watched the movie on Netflix.

 

Finally, no unit can’t be completed without some dramatic play time or field trip.

Actually, we have 3 physicians at home!

 

 

Visit our Pinterest board: Anatomy for more amazing ideas!

 

 

I believe it wasn’t a short unit after all!

Thanks to Pinterest, I got excited about making some wonderful and beautiful Bento lunches for Pinky. Well, that didn’t go well! One day she came back from school….I asked her why she didn’t eat her lunch….and then she said it! Mommy I don’t like when you do faces and stuff with my food.

Oh no!!!! I thought she would love it!!!….  

Well, the thing is that I wanted to do small things for her to remember how much I love her and think about her….

Then, I decided to make a few drawing on afternoon snack paper bag…..just a few!

The thing is that afternoon she came back home with such a huge smile……She definitely L.O.V.E   I.T!!!

Ever since then, I am getting crazy having fun making sweet designs on her paper bag.

The result: no more boring brown paper bags for snack and a huge smile on Pinky’s face when she comes back home!

BTW, the teachers love it, too!

 

Some of the paper bags in the pictures are wrinkle because she brought them home because she loved them. THE biggest photo are the bags for this week!

Here are a few other ideas over the internet which I am going to try for sure! Sorry, no more Bento at this house!

1. Printed paper bags- here from Perfectly Imperfect. Cute!
2. I am thinking about doing something fun like this for Halloween using construction paper cut out or Stickers from the Dollar store. Here.
3. For Christmas time; drawing Christmas lights….so cute. from Red ted art.
4. For Thanksgiving…I can do this turkey! 

 

What else can I do for making lunch/snack time fun? Ideas,please!

 

Linking to:

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?

After our long weeks with the Dinosaur unit, mommy was so tired and bored of the same but the little Pinky was not on the same path. She was still hungry for more learning about these amazing creatures. Therefore, I came with my last resources, thanks to Pinterest of course: Dinosaurs made with pine cleaners. I found them here. The post is in Spanish but it has Google translation application available. As for the T-rex and Pteranodon, I just followed the same rolling principle and my imagination. Sorry about that~!  My Apatosaurus wasn’t as cute as the one in the tutorial but I still think it is cute.

 

Aren’t they cute????

 

Pinky loved it!. She grabbed them as soon as I finished the assembly.  Unfortunately,  they didn’t last for so long in Pinky’s hands.

At least, I can reuse the pine cleaners and she had a fun time pretending different voices, roles, situations and sensorial stimulation while playing with them.

Awww! We love Dinosaurs…..they are really fun!

Found it on Pinterest…and we DID IT!!!

What else did you find at Pinterest and you had fun doing it???

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The weather has been Fabulous and Pinky’s new interest is all things POND. Since we have been doing lots of activities, I will have to divide them into several post. Let’s start with:

 

Our shelf set up

I try to set up everything into one shelf since we just do “school” after she comes home from Preschool. (BTW, she is the one that tells mommy what she wants to learn about! I just follow her desires.) As soon as she is done with one activity, I use the space for a new one or rotate them as soon as she lost interest.

Sensory Bin

We just have lots of plastic pond animals and beads.

 

Art

Handprint lily pads with fingerprint frogs. Aren’t they cute?

Footprint frog ready to eat a fly and a spider!

Pom-pom frogs…too cute!!! Found this idea here (you’ll need to scroll all the way until the end. There are more frog-related crafts.)

Completing the missing half. I found this beautiful frog life cycle picture and, when tried to print it out, I just got half of the picture. Therefore, why not to try to complete it? This was a mommy and daughter project! It was fun but next time I would have to draw it with pencil before giving it to Pinky, since she got a lil frustrated at the beginning  but then she did great.

 

Here are some great links for you, they got me inspired:

1- Living Montessori Now (as always!): Montessori-Inspired Pond Unit

2- Montessori Print Shop (awesome place): Frog Match up and Memory game, Frog Nomenclature cards, Frog Nomenclature Book (ALL FREE!!!)

3- Montessori Mom: Frog life cycle sequence cards

4- Squidoo: Awesome frog unit study. Here’s where I found the Frog life cycle picture.

5- Pinterest: I have a Pond board with PLENTY of great ideas.

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