My name is Cristie Vassilaros, sound familiar? That's because I am Krys's older sister and the co-owner of BLOP. Some may not know, but I was a teacher for over 10 years and I loved every moment of it. Now as a stay at home mom (that owns a small business), I find myself wanting to teach and explore with my two girls - Valentina (6yrs) and Maia (4yrs).
Safari Adventure
In this lesson, I used my daughters' favorite animals to guide the material. They happen to both love animals from the continent of Africa so it was super simple to add some extra elements to our work. They each received their safari admission ticket and we began our adventure!
We first looked at all the animals that live in the African Savanna - zebra, lion, giraffe, meerkat, cheetah, baboon, elephant, ostrich, rhinoceros, crocodile, etc. Then we explored the different biomes and really enjoyed learning about the savannah and rainforest.
Once we covered the more general topics, we then went in detail on each animal. We covered the anatomy of the elephant and the giraffe, noting the similarities and differences between the animals. We briefly touched upon the difference between the African and Asian elephants as well. Truly amazing that nature gave the African elephants bigger ears to fan themselves and keep themselves cool.
We also did a little math, as a former math teacher that is a MUST, by analyzing how much each animal weighs. We had a nicely illustrated scale and would play with which animals would make the scale tip further.
We closed the lesson by looking at the different spot and line patterns on each animal and discussed the purpose of camouflage for survival.
Mama Summer Camp has proven to be exciting for both! While the girls stay engaged in fun activities, mama is enjoying planning the adventures.
Next we are ... off to outer space!
Africa Series Materials:
Animals from Safari LTD. (use code BambinaDiaries for a discount)
Montessori Worksheets https://bundles.mymontessorihub.com/mmb-summer-2020
**Tip: Use HOOPLA and OVERDRIVE
These apps allow you to check out books from the Miami Dade Public Library digitally. I really don't want to spend much time in the library because of covid so i have been doing the usual of requesting books from the MDPL app to be placed on hold. When the books are available then I pass by, pick the books up from the hold shelf and check them out. Super efficient. But some books do you have a long waiting list.
Hoopla, will allow you to check out 21 digital e books and more every month. It downloads the content straight to your device and you access it through HOOPLA app. We really enjoyed the beautiful animations of Pete the Cat yesterday.
Overdrive, will allow you to check out books and send the content straight to your kindle app. I did this more for reading materials for myself. You have a month to read the book.
Out of This World Adventure
We were lucky enough to watch the space launch a few weeks prior and so we decided this would be the perfect for our next adventure. We read articles on the NASA website about astronaut missions, training of an astronaut and other fun facts about life on the international space station. We also started following Alyssa Carson, the youngest astronaut in training at @nasablueberry.
Materials for this adventured included:
- Worksheets from montessori hub bundle and NASA
- NASA has great activities, handouts and coloring pages broken up by ages: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/coloring-pages/en/
-some of the books in the picture above
-Safari space bundle (use code: BambinaDiaries for a discount)
The Start of Civilization
What a perfect way to kick off this lesson the week right after July 4th! We started from the very beginning to learn about ancient civilization. We used the book The Story of the World for our driving force. For my visual learner I created a big timeline for them to follow along. My oldest, Valentina, even thought of reading to her "class" (a.k.a. Fisher Price Little People) to teach them about it as well. We also drew up certain events that we knew played a huge role in shaping our nation like the Boston Tea Party. The Who Was? books were a huge hit and were filled with great information. Take a ride with us as we travel back in time and learn about civilization!
Materials:
Safari Figurines (use code: BambinaDiaries for a discount)
Presidents TOOB (use code: BambinaDiaries for a discount)