Science Sorts -- Our Montessori Science Work, Fall 2011

Over the past few years, we have done a lot of Montessori science work.  This year I compiled a review notebook and will let DD and LD work on this as they are interested (ED will be introduced to these for the first time this year).  Mostly I expect the older ones to cut out pictures from magazines and write on these sheets (pages 5 and beyond in the pack).  At the very least, it's organized for my own benefit!  There are lots of free 3-Part cards 'out there' that go along with these. I'll share a few links below and will share more as we work through these this fall.

Montessori science sorts -- there are 30 pages or so
This just helps me organize the many activities we've done so I have it compiled in one place... things like
     living-not living
     vertebrate - invertebrate
     solid, liquid, gas
     and so forth...

Again, here is the Animal Discovery Notebook pages that goes with all this. I added to this -- adding in some ocean invertebrate research pages since ED will be studying oceans (so there's appropriate new work to give to DD and LD if they're interested).

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And here are a few links to some cards I have used. Thank you to those who've shared their work with us!

Free Living and Non-Living 3-part Cards & Animal Kingdom Cards

Free Living/Non-Living Montessori Cards from ETC-Press

Nocturnal - Diurnal Animal Sort from Spell Out Loud

Nocturnal - Diurnal Power Point Presentation

Solid Liquid Gas Sort by Montessori Tidbits


Desert Toob Animal Matching by Montessori Tidbits

These were $2.00, but I absolutely love these Natural Disaster cards.

Animal Notebook Pages

This year I hope to introduce my older kids to researching things on their own.  We'll be going over a lot of the Montessori zoology curriculum again, so I thought I'd create a page to help guide them. For what it's worth, I'll share that with you all too.

Animal Notebook Page (for the kids to do research on their own about animals they are interested in). Animal Discovery Notebook page download:

Name

Where can they be found? Habitat:
What do they eat?
How do they reproduce?
Life Span:
Enemies
Body covering/coloring:
Sounds they make:

 I added in a few research pages on ocean invertebrates.

Animal Discovery Notebook also includes ocean invertebrate research pages and a chart of ocean animal groups... a tird of starfish, for example!

If you want to learn more about the teaching zoology to the early elementary ages  this Montessori Album is a good place to start. Here is a blank chart of some fundamental needs. There are numbers of charts out on the internet, but this is how I plan to discuss these topics. I plan to use a huge piece of butcher paper and to have the kids cut out pictures from old National Geographic magazines to create a homemade chart.

Even as I write this, I'm considering adding tools to the materials side of the chart.  There's always lots to think about!

Snippets of our Week (for our 5-yr-old)

I've been meaning to put up a post about what we generally work on from day to day. But, with blogger not working for a while, I have a plethora of photos to share. So, here's a glimpse of what DD (just turned 5) has been working on these past couple of weeks.  Her "basics" include math, reading, handwriting, music/glockenspiel, arts&crafts and another unit-study (a lapbook in this case, but we usually have some sort of science/history/child-led unit occurring. Usually this is something we're working on together as a family.)

I called this pumkin bingo.  I made a die with 3-digit numbers on them.  Each pumpkin has one of those numbers.  We take turns rolling the die and covering our pumpkin if it has the corresponding number. To go along with that we've been building those 3 digit numbers using Montessori type number cards that we have from our Right Start Math curriculum (pictured below).

DD has been moving along quickly with her writing. I decided to purchase this writing, penmanship book from currclick called I Like Animals.  It is a bit pricey (I bought a bundle, which lowered the price a bit), but I have to say that DD LOVES this.  Yes, LOVES it!  She is zooming through it and works hard to get to the mazes.  So in that regard I can highly recommend it.  I printed it out on both sides of the paper and bound it together to look like a proper book.

DD practices the glockenspiel every day and now know about four pieces.  She won't allow Mom to help at all! In this photo she is playing Hot Cross Buns.

DD wanted to do a lapbook and chose to learn about butterflies and insects.  We took that opportunity to go through our classification cards.  We started with the living and non-living sort with free Montessori cards I downloaded from here.

Another day we used those same Montessori cards to sort the "living" cards into the five kingdoms. (http://homemademontessori.blogspot.com/search/label/5%20kingdom) Sorry about the blurry photo.

We still enjoy lots of time in the woods!

Anyway, continuing on with our animal classification review... a few days later we pulled out the vertebrate and invertebrate cards (which again were free.  Thank you homemade Montessori!)  This was really useful because DD's lapbook delved into the differences among the various invertebrate groups and had some good mini-books that complemented these sorting activities.  I'll put up a separate post about her butterfly/insect lapbook.

DD has been learning to recognize the written numbers, so this activity from filefolder fun has been just great!

This is an activity I got from Montessori Print Shop at some point.  I think it might have been one of their free downloads. It has a close up picture of certain items and then a view of the object from farther away.  It was just a quick 5 minute activity, but it intrigued ED who also gave it a go. (You can see her pink foot in the picture... she's often trying to interfere when she feels left out. My main recourse at the moment, is to have her workboxes filled with activities I can pull out for her at a moments' notice such as a puzzle, sorting, a new coloring sheet or things like that. Now that I write that, it occurs to me that I should pull out some activity bags for her once again.)

DD reads through two or three readers each day (for a total of about 15 minutes of reading or so).

DD has been very, very proud of her lapbook.  Here she's showing off her latest additions to Dad.  I'll write a separate post about her lapbook soon.

We continue to have music class with some friends each week.  DD's music class is focusing on world music.  This week we learned a bit about about the music of Bali in Indonesia. We watched a short video of a shadow puppet show on YouTube. Then each child used actual shadow puppets that Grams passed on to us to act out their own short skit.

We had the gamelan music from someone's trip to Bali on in the background as each person got a chance to put on a performance with the shadow puppets.

In the beginning of our music class, we always sing a few songs together. The kids have loved the crazy motion song "My Aunt Came Back" Each week we identify where Japan, Algeria, Mali (Timbuktu), Holland and Niagra Falls are located on the world map.  The kids always laugh as each verse adds a new motion (a hand fan, sheers, wooden shoe, chewing gum, a ping pong ball, rocking chair etc.)

Here we are all playing "Go to the Dump."  We take turns turning over two cards. The object is to find two cards that equal 10 (10 and 0, 9 and 1, 8 and 2 etc.)

This ladybird math activity goes along perfectly with Go To The Dump.  It's from Early Learning HQ.

So that's it for DD at the moment. I'm planning to do a similar post for LD (age 7) and ED (age 2 1/2) in the next day or so. Oh yes, and also will share DD's lapbook. She's very proud of it!

Port Lincoln Ringneck Parrot

Last week LD was very excited about birds (we
were going over the vertebrate groups and talked
first for a week or so about reptiles, then for another
few days about birds.)

He made a bird feeder and we bought bird seed to
hang on our front fence. It took a while, but today we
finally had visits from the Port Lincoln (or Ringneck) Parrot.

Bird Feeder

LD and I hammered together this very
primitive looking bird feeder. We wanted to
attract the Honeyeaters (birds). He filled the
containers with water, water and sugar, water
and honey, and water and squeezed orange
juice to see which one the birds were attracted
to.

Lizard Skin

We've seen lots of snakes skins at the Reptile
Centre, but hadn't ever seen a lizard skin. Our
readings about reptiles talked about how lizards
shed their skins whole. Today we were excited
to find a nearly complete lizard skin (about 6
inches/15cm long) floating in the water.

It's so great when nature reinforces our home
learning!! Yes, LD wanted to take it home and yes
(of course) I let him. Sometimes I'm more excited
than the kids! Just call me nature-Mama!!

Vertebrates: Birds (3-part cards and bird videos)

Here are the bird cards I made (link to download is on the sidebar). There are smaller photos as well, but I wound up not using them (oh well), but they do tell you where these birds are located.

Anyway, I chose these particular birds because I selected some short (3 to 8 minute long) videos from you-tube that I chose to show the kids.

Today after sorting the five vertebrate groups (substituting these new bird cards for the others) we watched the following bird videos. I started with the galah and lyrebird (of Australia) today because they are familiar to the kids. We see galahs daily and we've read a wonderful series that includes a lyrebird as one of the characters:

Galah (this is just a 30 second clip of galahs walking around and perched in trees, but remember we see them daily!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcA17Hn2NZk

Humming Bird (set to Mozart): This video shows a hummingbird sitting on eggs, the eggs hatching and the hummingbird caring for its young. It was a little over 8 minutes long, but even ED watched it through to the end. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHo2Ch_SPbo

Lyrebird is a wonderful immitator. In this David Attenborough video you hear the lybird not only immitating other birds such as the kookaburra, but also a camera clicking, a chainsaw and a car alarm! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y

Finally, we watched a parrot talking http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSXSOEiv3N0&feature=related just because if was funny to hear a bird singing and seeming to talk to its owner.

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Here's what I picked out for another day this week (probably not tomorrow because we have a lot going on, but for Wednesday or Thurdsay):

Rainforest Birds:

Toucan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ExbebXMw1M

Eagle vs. the Chevrotain (African Rainforest): This is an exciting video from National Geographic showing an eagle hunting a small rainforest mammal called a chevrotain. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13GQbT2ljxs&feature=related

Costa Rica Birds: This in another National Geographic video which talks about how coffee plantations are taking over rainforest areas of Costa Rica and the dangers this poses for birds species. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs_NSL4XMYM

Flamingo and the massive volcanoes of the Andes Mountains: This is a BBC video that shows beautiful clips of the volcanoes of the Andes Mountains, its harsh environment and the beautiful flamingos that breed there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owsfdh4gxyc

Invertebrates/Vertebrates; The Five Vertebrate Groups

The kids separated things into invertebrate and
vertebrate cards.

Then we talked about the five vertebrate groups.
I made the labels you see below. I printed the
fish, mammals, amphibians and reptiles from
Montessori Materials. I used the reptile cards I made up because the
reptile cards available at montessori materials
are much smaller (They were made by someone
else.).


By the way, we're going to be sorting the vertebrate
groups again next week.  LD has expressed an interest
in birds (he made his own bird feeder and we went
on a bird watching trek last week). Anyway, I have
some you-tube videos to show LD this next week
and made bird cards that go with those videos.  The
cards are at the right and I'll share those video links
when I'm at the other computer at some point. 

UPDATE: In the years since I wrote this post, I created our own set of Vertebrate-Invertebrate cards. They are available at my new location, homeschoolden.com and are FREE to download!!: Montessori Cards Vertebrate-Invertebrate Groups and the 5 Vertebrate Groups.

I also made some World Animal Cards and showed how I used those at this post: Animals Around the World: Montessori 3-Part Cards

ANIMAL UNIT: Vertebrates - Invertebrates  We also have a new packet that we did when we studied vertebrates and invertebrates in more depth. You can find out more about our Animal Packet here (at our new location, homeschoolden.com):

It includes activities about the five vertebrate groups:

And also has various activities about invertebrate groups, spiders vs. insects, etc.

You might want to check out our one-minute video:

Homeschool Den Minute: Video Episode 1
Homeschool Science in Early Elementary

The links to these resources are here: Homeschool Science in Early Elementary (K-2) 

 

http://homeschoolden.com/2016/03/29/homeschool-science-early-elementary-k-2/

Reptiles 3-part card; Pin-map activity

We've been reading lots of books on snakes,
chameleons, lizards and various reptiles. We
recently visited the Reptile Centre and yesterday
visited the Desert Park which has a great selection
of reptiles too. Did you know that you can easily
tell a legless lizard from a snake? Lizards have
ear slits and snakes don't. Though, with the snakes
we have here, I'm not sure I ever want to go close
to inspect for ear slits unless there's a nice thick
pane of glass between me and the snake!!






























This is an activity I made up to go along with the
talks we've been having about reptiles. It has a
selection of reptiles from around the world in various
biomes (rainforest, desert and tropical savanna).

I made both bigger 3-part type reptile cards
and smaller pin pieces of those same reptiles.

The first day, we just looked at the cards and
put them under the country flags and appropriate
biome cards (see the top picture).

Since I put the country name on the cards, I
made up little country flags for those countries
I mentioned. I helped him place the flags on the
world map before he put in the small reptile pin pieces.

He worked with seven reptile pin pieces and said
that it was challenging, so this is an activity
better suited for young elementary kids. (LD can
read very well.) If you have young kids you could
use the small pictures simply to match to the larger
reptile pictures instead.

The links to the free reptile cards (both the 3-part cards
and the pin map pieces) are on the right sidebar.

Chameleon Craft (Animal Habitat Unit)

LD: orange chameleon, DD: pink chameleon, Mom: green
chameleon, ED: multicolored chameleon.

While on the hunt for Eric Carle craft ideas, I went to visit
two of my favorite art websites: Deep Space Sparkle and
Art Projects for Kids. Art Projects for kids showed a very
cute picture of a chameleon.

We read this book by Eric Carle: The Mixed-Up Chameleon. (affiliate link)

I had the kids watch the slide show at Eric Carle's Website
about how he paints the tissue paper for making his
children's books.

We followed his instructions making decorative paper. Then I had them trace a chameleon template that I made out of cardboard for them. LD cut
his out (I cut out the chameleons for the girls). Ta-Da! Very
cute chameleons. They gave them to Daddy when we picked
him up at the airport yesterday.

This fit in perfectly with our little unit on reptiles. We've
moved on from the Rainforest and are on to the desert...
but since we live in a desert, we're focussing on reptiles
around the world instead.

Disclosure:  Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.

You might also be interested in this Eric Carle Seahorse activity we did: 

Seahorse Art–Based on Eric Carle’s book

Don't miss our free Biomes Pin Map if you are studying biomes and/or animal habitats: