Transportation theme - Week 1

Do you trip over hot wheels, get poked by helicopters while in bed, find Lego pieces in your purse?
Have vehicles, or transportation doo-dads all around the house? 
Think puzzles, toys, hotwheels, trains, tracks, building blocks, legos, car wash, remote controls...
Do I see some head nodding?
With two boys, and numerous birthdays and special occasions, I do. So why not make a theme out of it? 

We can combine numbers, letters, science, crafts, and good old fashioned fun! Win win for everyone!

Ever since Smelly Letters, Batman has been on a quest of trying to alphabetize everything! Wow, me the trend setter. So when he wanted to alphabetize our vehicle collection, I thought, why not? Might be fun!

 

 

 This is just a trailer. Stay tuned - Transporation A to Z is coming soon to a blog near you...

But while we find things inside our house for every letter of the alphabet, let's have fun with some other stuff!!  

How about Automoblox? Put the different parts together, learn their names, mix and match the wheels, rims, front and back ends, tops for cool cars, and shh, work on some fine motor skills. 

Or how about the Battat Take Apart vehicles? I have a 4x4, and both Batman, Superman and all their friends enjoy them! More taking apart and putting them together fun! When the drill runs out of battery, I just let the kids use the bits as screw drivers. Some lefty-loosy, righty-tighty review, and off we go...

The Geo-board set that I have (could not find it on Amazon any more) had template for quite a few that went nicely with our theme. After we made some impromptu sling shots with the rubber bands, we got down to business...

 

Spiderman wanted to soar into the sky as well. To infinity and beyond in the rocket ship with drill and design set...

 

 

And then Batman wanted wanted to do a Hovering Helicopter, because a plane/jet can't hover, you know Mamma? This a Quarcetti set.

Make some crayons for those spectacular drawing of the boat or train to follow. It helps that Spiderman likes to strip the paper. And of course, an exacto knife.

And then there are the classics, Legos!! We had plenty lying around to go with our theme...

Batman, my emerging party planner, commented - "with all the stuff we have, we can almost have a Transportation themed birthday party, Mamma. Remember, like the one we had for Spiderman last year, with small stations set up everywhere with all train stuff?"

But sadly, neither Batman nor Spiderman wanted a Transportation themed birthday bash, as "we already did all these stuff" ... 

Linked up to:
Link & Learn, Monday Kid Corner, It's Playtime, The Sunday Showcase, Montessori Monday, Tuesday Tots, We Made That 

Seven Segment LEDs

Isn't it amazing how much kids notice? And pay attention to?
We had a great conversation about something I never would have thought of introducing to a 5 year old - Seven Segment LEDs!!

Batman was checking the time out on the oven, and after a minute or so, he came and told me, Mamma, did you know there is an "8" behind all the numbers on the microwave and oven? But they are not all lighted up :)

How true! So I talked to him about seven segment LEDs, about how a "chip" controls which segments to light up to make the right numbers.

He totally got it. And then he wanted to make his own number.

He got why they are "seven segment" even before we started making our own numbers :)

Seven Segment LED 8

I cut up the coffee stirrers, and we went to work making the numbers with just seven of them. He was way ahead of the game, after making the numbers, he wanted to see how many letters he could make with them. 
 The "B" looks just like "8", so maybe we should display "b" instead?
 

Seven Segment LED "b"

 
Then we went around the house to check what else uses these LEDs.
Alarm clocks, DVD players, music systems....

One thing he did not ask me, was what LED stands for. When I told him about it, he said with a shrug, I did not know it was the short form of something :)
Duh, of course not, silly mom!

Do  you follow the lead of your child? What interesting adventures do you embark on with your child?


Linked up to:
Link & Learn, Montessori Monday, Eco-Kids Tuesday

Montessori Manipulatives - Master of manipulation!

It is very important to train the next generation of super-heroes who will open that stubborn bottle of pickles, or jelly.

And even more important, that they co-coordinate their hands and eyes, learn about concentration, and develop their fine motor skills, all while having fun.

I tried to come up with things that will appeal to the super-heroes in training, and will have different kinds of closures - such as simple lids on the boxes and bottles, screw on lids, snap on lids, zippers, drawstring, latches...

Batman zipped through everything, I did not even get in one click. Fortunately, Spiderman took his time :)

We opened and closed an assortment of boxes, bottles, and a few other what nots. Spider-man's favorite were the hermetic jars. Surprisingly, it was the small black netted bag with string closing that was the toughest for him. Maybe it was the tiny black box inside the black bag. The picnic basket was a hit. The handle has to be just at the right position for the lid to stay close. Few of the boxes had surprises waiting for him, to reward him for all his hard work, and to keep him motivated. He loved aligning the hands just so, to close them, and thought the surprise inside was "cute". He loved the smell of sandalwood from the fan inside the green box.

Spiderman also found a sippy cup, and opened and closed that a few times, all the better to spill the water next time if so desired!



  
After that, we hung some fairy clothes to dry on the wash-line. The clips are kid sized ones, with just enough spring action so as to challenge Spiderman. and went on to some manly work with nuts and bolts.

Batman gave braiding a try.

Water play is always welcome. Big dropper, and then the smaller dropper to transfer the water from one bowl to another.

We then decided to do some pouring with more colored water. Tiny and medium sized pitchers, colored water, and go.

Linked up to:
Tot School Tuesday 

Montessori Grammar Farm With Legos

Spiderman and Batman looove Legos. So instead of a conventional farm, I decided to set up the Lego Duplo farm for grammar work! Inspired, if I do say so myself :)

To make it more interesting, the boys added some construction vehicles, some rocks and pebbles for the vehicles (of course), and some brown crinkle paper as dirt. They are nothing if not creative, especially when it comes to construction work!

As we already had the pebbles, I decided to throw in some felt pond and stream. And some felt grass for the cows!

Wait, why not add the chicken coop, or the Lego stables?

How about some Playmobil additions from the toy bin? More the merrier!

 I think I had more fun than the kids setting up the farm! 
We need to add some crops and a scarecrow next. 

Grammar Farm

Batman had a lot of fun labeling the nouns. He created his own labels for nouns he could spell, and that were not yet prepared by mom, like pond, duck, hay, fish, well ......
We talked about adjectives used to describe the nouns. Some of the adjectives are quite simple to spell as well, like red barn, green grass, fat pig etc, so he made those labels as well.

Spiderman contributed by telling me the beginning sounds of the words.


As Spiderman is not quite ready for the grammar work yet, we used the farm to some other good use. 

Extension ideas for the farm

 

• Animals and their sounds
• Animals and their babies (hen-chick, pig-piglet)
• What goes with this animal activity: hen-egg, cow-milk, sheep-wool, dog-bone etc. I made up some more from the Playmobil additions: bird-nest, squirrels-acorns, fish-pond, leaf-tree, bunny-carrot etc.
• We talked about what kind of animals live in the barn. In addition to the ones that came with the barn, Batman thought of mice and spiders.
• What kind of animals might live in a tree? The Superheros came up with birds, squirrels, bugs. Batman mentioned in passing that a red-eyed tree frog might be in one, but only if the tree is in a rainforest. Hmm, another thread to explore!!
•  What can we find around a pond/lake?
• Batman came up with a mystery story of the missing duckling, solved by the crime fighting super-heros!
•  Batman wanted to know if the hens are carnivores or herbivores? The answer is omnivore, as they eat seeds and small insects!
•  This prompted a discussion about what the farm animals eat. Somehow, I remember some mention of organic in there...

 

How about some math at the farm?

 

• We had tons of fun with counting, additions and subtractions - with the apples on the tree and basket, the ducklings in and out of the pond, the chicken and hen around the coop, the guinea pigs, the pebbles in the dump truck....
• We came up with our own stories. Two ducklings waddled out of the pond,  how many were left?
• Five apples were picked from the tree, how many still on the tree?
• If six apples from the basket were used to bake an apple pie, how many are left?
• Some scary stories like if a fox came and ate a few chicken, (I think Batman was thinking about the Henny Penny story!) how many were left?
• Spiderman insisted the fox was friends with all the farm animals! 

The Montessori Grammar Farm does not have to be a farm.  It could be any small world play idea, like small sensory boxes, a dollhouse or a treehouse, a zoo, or even a Lego construction zone! 

These are some of the products you see in the post:



Linked up to:
Artsy Play Wednesday
Mom's Library
After School Link Up 
It's Playtime