Love is in the Air

Children are very expressive of their love. They love unconditionally. Oh how I wish everybody loves like them,  trusting, true and overflowing.

Our activities are always coupled with a fine picture book.

1. Book: Cranberry Valentine

We fell in love with Cranberry Thanksgiving, so we continued with the series. After reading, my daughter is inspired to do Valentine cards.

2. Arts and Craft- Valentine Cards
As simple as it sounds, but it develops fine motor skills on cutting, pasting.
Brainstorm ideas and let those creative thoughts coming.
Practice writing, drills might bore a young child, but expressing their thoughts get them writing.

3. Bake
A recipe is provided at the back of the book, or celebrate with a special treat and make the whole activity memorable

4. Quotes and Bible Verses
Make a heart chain filled with verses about love, open one per day and discuss further.

5. Sensory Play: Color Baskets
 Present one color at a time for your toddler, starting with primary colors, in this case it is red.

photo from Counting Coconuts

6. Sensory Play : Find the Heart
Identify the shape, use visual discrimination.
Touch the sides and contour, let him feel and trace the shape.
Games to play, blindfold the child let him find the heart shape thru sense of touch.
Another variety, put several shapes inside a pouch and let him find the shape.

photo from Orange and Coco

May your love overflow unconditionally. 

Leprechauns with a Pot 'o Gold

St Patrick's Day is not a big thing here in the Philippines, but since there was a unit about it and we already have the materials for it then we went for it.

1. Books: Under the Rainbow, St Patrick

2. Geography and Reading Preparation
Locate Ireland in the Map.
Make a game identifying all words that starts with sh

3. Botany & Bible: 
Talk about shamrock and its meaning.

2. Art: Color Sequence of a Rainbow
The Song Colors of the Rainbow as sung at Kindermusik class helped a lot in remembering the sequence.
We coupled it with activities and painting.

3. Language: Rainbows around the World:
Colors in English,Tagalog and how often Spanish words are used in the Philippines (a short introduction to Spanish influence to the Philippines) and Chinese

Red - Pula- 红色
Green -Luntian (berde) - Spanish Verde - 綠色

and so on

4. Music: Classifying High and Low

- Visual thru pictures (pointing and looking for objects), High and Low
- Kinesthetic thru movement and dance
-  Auditory thru singing the high note and low note, play the high low note in the piano

5. Musical Term: Glissando
-Visual thru the logo

-Kinesthetic thru waving the scarves in an arclike movement

-Auditory thru playing the slide whistle

6. Dress Up

7. Do an Irish Jig
Put a clacker (bottle cap/coin) at the bottom of our shoes and followed the dance step.

In the end we found the pot of gold, and ate them all up!

Book: Cranberry Thanksgiving

1. Book: Cranberry Thanksgiving

We have now moved up to a new curriculum, Five in a Row, age brackets 4-8. 

First to row, (to read five days in a row) is this book, since Thanksgiving is this week.

We do not celebrate Thanksgiving here but we are grateful for many things, and because of that we give thanks.

2. Bible & Virtues

We match the book with readings about giving thanks and forgiveness.

3. Geography, Vocabulary, Art

We locate the setting on the map with disks (which we drew and colored )and made a lap folder to view our activities easily.

4. Science

We made and compared starched laundry.

5. Sensory, Color, Science 

Before we started our story, we lighted lavender scents, looked at the flowers, gathered colors of lavender, and talked about where it is mixedsuch as soap and oil.

6.  Experience

Though we were not able to make homemade turkey or bread, but having them to eat has been a memorable experience.

Before the day ends, do an act of kindness, and say a word of praise and a loadful of thanks to God!

Faith the Pope Brings

There has been several writings, talk and reaction on how our country behaved at the arrival of the Pope.

Let's focus on the message he brings and learn:

1. Getting to know Pope Francis
    -download the pdf mini book from The Learning Basket

    -or get information from Wikipedia

   

getting to see the Pope's photo, cover of the Bible Diary and on TV

2. Strengthening our faith by reading Bible. 
St Mary's Press is the most interesting and complete Catholic bible for children I have seen so far.

complete Bible with selected highlight stories with activities

3. Praying

Teaching the habit of talking to God before we sleep.

Thanking for our meals.

a guilty smile when we forget to pray and start praying after a few bites

4. Values
Let us reflect on the Pope's messages. (for those who missed it, here is the link via Rappler)

My mom at UST with screenshots of the Pope
 and getting hold of a photo with the crowd

It doesn't have to take the Pope to be a clean organized city, we can do it for ourselves. Maybe the Pope's visit is a boost for us to keep trying and be the change our nation needs.

Saints, Souls, Costumes and Movie Themes

1. All Saints Day

As a catholic country, saints are given importance and some celebrate it by having costumes and reading about their life's work.  

An introduction, we discussed about What are Saints?

Also, we have read about Don Bosco.

2. All Souls Day

Years ago people are preparing to visit memorial parks, praying for the dead, it is a culture  I've seen diminishing. 

Praying for our loved ones

3. Halloween

Among the three celebrations, Halloween is becoming the top celebrated event in the Philippines. It is a product of marketing strategy of malls, but who could resist whether it is a cute costume or a scary one, it is still fun. It is an opportunity to express creativity, best costumes are done not bought.

Animal themed costumes

4. Movie Theme

Since we are talking about costumes, heroes and all, a visit to one of Yexel's collection inside Manila Ocean Park is what we did.

Who's that little spider crawling in the ceiling?!

More to know about spiders

An angry queen

 Hold on tight

In a galaxy far far away

The infinite illusion made this little girl run around looking at herself!

She wants to be in command!

Mark I to VII

Hope we never forget to honor our saints and to remember the dead midst the fun filled Halloween parties.