Continuing with our geography study, we did an Animal Habitats activity. I wanted to do a “formal” presentation for Pinky a while back; however, I never got the opportunity until now. My goal with this is to settle down the basic knowledge before starting to “formally” learn about each one of our Continents.

*Note that I wrote` the word formal between (“)…..this is because she had been exposed to these themes for quite a time now but we didn’t discuss, explore or manage them individually.

First we talked about land, water and air.

Then, we continued with the Biomes and the animals we find there. At Montessori Print Shop you can find a short description about each biome plus great animals photos that live in each. (link below)We have multiple atlas books that we used as a reference.

Pinky classifying her animals cards (from MPS).

 

Another activity we did was to classify our animals figurines by their habitats using a 8x 11 printable of each one. (So sorry I can’t remember where I got these. They are in French. However, they are easy to make just printing a 8x 11 photo from Google.

 

Animals Habitats

 

House (Safari pets toob)

 

Farm (farm animals toob)

 

Desert (Safari desert animals toob)

 

Ocean (ocean animals)

 

Rainforest- Jungle (rainforest animals toob)

Grassland (wild animals toob)

 

Tundra (Arctic-polar animals toob)

 

Air- Birds from our Bird unit (link below)

The last activity we did was one of Pinky’s favorite ones: using Stickers!!! She LOVE stickers and make up stories with them.

 

Check out these links for more activities or great printables:

• Animal Habitats cards from Montessori Print Shop.
• Animals habitats-Biomes from the Homeschool Den for free.
• For toddlers here is an animal habitat felt matching activity that is soooo cute!
• Free animal habitat printable activity with clipart.
• I found our animal habitats cards at Early learning with Marta and Eaton.
• Our Farm theme unit fun here.

                                     

• Our Birds theme unit over here.

                                     

Have fun!!!

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Pinky (4.4 years old) is getting more interested about the world around her. She has been doing some works at her school like Pin pocking the continents. However, at home we love to learn different things. That’s our Mommy-daughter time and we LOVE IT!!

We started learning about the Compass. Daddy and Pinky bought me this beautiful compass as a birthday gift a while ago (Pinky thought I would need it…lol).

We talked about how and why we use the compass.

For activities like this,  is my goal to keep it simple for my daughter introducing just the concept or new vocabulary. I got the beautiful printable at Montessori Print Shop, talked about the cardinal directions and colored the compass rose. From the MPS free printable we just used the ones with the basic cardinal directions (N,S,E,W): one with the whole word and the other just with the initials.

Then, we found the compass rose on a real map and played a game: where is this country in relation to the USA (like Puerto Rico is East, Canada is North, etc.)

Our last activity was a treasure hunt (playtime is our way to make sure that she understood the concept plus that’s the best part!). We made our own maps simulating Egyptian hieroglyphics from our current unit Africa. She held the compass and the map and direct us toward the treasure: homemade Gold.

There are many resources for geography around the web and Pinterest is such a great help; however it can be overwhelmed when you are just after schooling. I am trying to fulfill Pinky’s interest by introducing the concept with an easy explanation (mostly short Montessori-inspired activities) followed by lots of dramatic playtime. We just let our imagination and creativity to flow at the moment and, so far, we LOVE IT! Zero stress!!!.

Here is a post from To the lesson with amazing and easy activities to try.

How do you approach Geography with a preschooler?

 

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Tonight we get to know who is going to be the President of the USA for the next upcoming years. Last election, Pinky was just the cutest 4 months old princess helping mommy to vote. This election, Pinky is a curious 4.4 years old excited to learn more about these “election-vote-campaign-presidency” terms.

Yesterday, after I picked her up from school, she reminded me about voting the next day. On our way home, we had to stop at the library, and, there, looked for election-related books (luckily I found two). I didn’t have anything prepared, and to be sincere, I didn’t planned to talk about it (I mistakenly thought she was not ready for such a complex theme). Oh boy!!! I was wrong…..she is very into it!!!

Here are the activities we came up in such a short time:

Books: Grace for President, If I ran for President, A picture book of Abraham Lincoln

Math game: Rolling a dice and then recollecting the data on a table under each candidate. It isn’t just a fun activity but also it can be adapted into addition, more/less topic and simple graphing.

Painting the candidates party colors: President Obama (blue), Miss Pinky (pink and purple) and Gov. Romney (red)

It is time to vote or, maybe, roll the dice???

Recording the votes for each candidate.

We have a winner: Here’s our President #45: Pinky!!!

She is really HAPPY!!! (Don’t you love pretending games????)

Presidential Oath of Office:

Ok….I have an explanation for this photo!!! lol

We talked a little about the past Presidents using a poster with their pictures, she realized there were not any woman, so at the moment before taking the oath, she asked me to dress-up accordly to the event: using Daddy’s clothes!

Here’s the prove that I have won!!!

Here is a pick of our make it fast Presidential Election Unit study:

Printables: Candidates coloring pages, United States map, Flag’s song, Presidential Oath, AND the White House coloring page.

Books.

Target’s presidents, states and landmarks flash cards. USA puzzle (we are adding souvenirs from some states), Presidents and First ladies posters.

As the new elected President of the USA, here is Pinky’s new “Home”……too bad she doesn’t want to take me to live with her because, as she says, the White House is just for the President.

Her campaign poster (Vote for me!), the prove that she won the election and her Voter registration card ready to vote today November 6th, 2012!!! What an excited day!!!

Pinky had lots of fun learning about the voting system and the US Presidential Election. And, for this mommy, the best part was the time shared with her learning, discovering, having fun and just dreaming!

Priceless moments!

Check Living Montessori Now for more great ideas for a Presidential Election Unit here.

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Here is another great giveaway from Montessori Print Shop: World Maps Bundle

 

Each of the 9 sets of Maps includes:

• 1 black and white blank map
• 1 color map
• 1 black and white labeled map
• 1 colored and labeled map
• 2 sets of map labels (1 set has color-coded borders, 1 set with no borders)

And also Win the Pin Map Flags Bundle:

 

Two lucky winners will received both the World Maps Bundle and the Pin Map Flags Bundle.

These are digital files in PDF format.

Open worldwide to anyone over the age of 18 years.
You just have until tomorrow!!!
Ends: 12:01am Tuesday Nov 6 2012

Here we have the last addition to our geography corner. I found these a long time ago, saved them and then forgot about them Since I have been doing some cleaning around, I ‘d found them with other un-done projects (tell me I am NOT the only one!). Well, I decided it is time to finish the project and let Pinky explore, play learn and have fun with them.

Sorry, I can’t remember where I found these. (Arrgg! It was BEFORE Pinterest lol)

Thanks so very much to SteveH for letting me know where to find these beautiful printables.

They are from KizClub.com (Kids around the world) plus you can find the flags, too.

If anyone knows the webpage, let me know in order to give credit!

I think she liked them!

I am planning to use these as a matching activity with the Flags around the World project I did a few days ago.

Also, we are going to classify these by Continents, talk about differences and similarities among people, explore our Continent boxes, or just have a fun puppet show.

 

Our Continent Boxes (not perfect unfinished, as always lol)

Upper shelf: Antarctica, a blue bin with general activities about the world like maps, puzzles, flashcards, Europe.

Middle shelf: Asia bin and Africa

Lower shelf: North America (I have another bin just for USA, so in this one we have general aspects plus the Caribbean), Australia and South America.

 

I will try to do a post about what’s inside our boxes. The only bins that need some help are Australia and South America (but it is just about time!)

Disclaimer: I know it is better to keep just a few things inside the box at the time and just rotate them.

However, we are just taking the Montessori idea and applying it the best we can to our situation.

Pinky goes to a Montessori school full time, we still love to learn and have fun at home, she is the only child and we live in a rented apartment where I am trying to keep her “learning tools” available while keeping the home environment.

 

How do you add a learning space for your child at home while not changing it into a classroom???

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For quite a time now, we have been saving books, flashcards, postal cards, flags, money and everything we could add to our Continent Boxes. I am not doing any formal presentation with Pinky. From time to time she takes whatever box she wants that day and start discovering its treasures. We love to freely explore, talk and learn together.

Ooopsss! Talking about our post title, we added a flag recognition activity. Even that there are beautiful and perfect materials to buy, I did our own. Pinky will have pretty ones at her new school to use; therefore, we just need something related to have fun at home (mommy-daughter fun!). Well, I am intended to use them as a Pin Map lesson but that’s still in the process.

(Flag Stand World Map with Flags)

Mommy’s version!

What do we need?

• Flags printable: I had to do mine (color-coded) because I wanted to match the flags to some traditional clothes printables I already had (sorry, I can’t find the link) Mommy is always trying to get the most from one activity!
• I used bamboo forks, found at Target because of their flat shape and because I know they are going to resist better on Pinky’s hands
• Then, you better follow Montessori Print Shop tutorial (see link below!)
• Finally, enjoy!!!

 

If you are interested on this printable, here’s the link (PLEASE share it but DON’T sell it!!!!)

Folding and gluing the bamboo fork, add a piece of tape to secure the side. I didn’t laminated them but MPS shared the idea of using packing tape to preserve them.

Continent color-coded back with the name of the country.

The result!!!!

Isn’t it great???

 

 Here are some great links about Pin maps:

1. Early friendly mama: DIY Asia Pin maps
2. Montessori materials: Cultural/geography materials printables
3. The helpful garden: Parts of the Flag Nomenclature Cards and Little Booklet (FREE) and here is the link for all her great geography free printables .
4. The homeschool den: How to make a Europe pin map
5. Montessori Print Shop: World Continents - Pin Map Flags and Map (FREE), an amazing tutorial about how to Prepare Printable Geography Pin Maps and Flags, and Printable Montessori Geography Materials where you can order the flags for each continent.
6. Living Montessori Now: Montessori-Inspired Olympic Opening Ceremony Activities and Olympics Blog Hop (learning activities to implement this material)
7. Making Montessori Our: has such a generous list for making your continent boxes and flags.
8. 3 reader’s blog: Free Continent Pin Map Supplies
9. Video about how to do the presentation (it is for upper elementary but we could adapt it to the kids age/interest).

 

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The new school year is almost around the corner. My little big Pinky is just so excited to start a different experience: the transition from a traditional preschool classroom into a Montessori one. We have been so blessed to be able to cost this education for our Pinky. In preparation for the change and just because she is such a big girl (she’s very into acting like a grown up, most of the time), she have an important chore: setting up the table.

My amazing talented friend Monica made these cute and sophisticated placemats for me (I don’t know how to sew just because this dump idea that I will get my fingers caught in the needles way..lol). I wanted something useful for my teaching purposes and cute to be used for everyone. She made 4 of them in NO TIME!!! Isn’t she amazing???  

 

I am really in LOVE with my placemats!

Back to our activity; here is my beautiful princess doing her chore:

Now I just need a beautiful dinning table

Pinky is very serious about her job!!!

Yum!!!

Buen provecho!

Here is a great post from Living Montessori Now about table setting.

If you need more ideas around the web, check these amazing moms:

1. Harvesting Kale: Montessori Monday: Table setting
2. The Mary Frances project: free printable
3. Acquiring a Life-long PhD in Cross-Cultural Homemaking
4. Montessori for learning: Mindfulness Lesson 1: Lessons of Grace and Courtesy - Table Manners
5. Milestones Academy Montessori Folding and Setting Lesson: Video (if you want to do a presentation at first)

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