DIY continent map

When Sonshine was just 2 years old, he worked on the Montessori continent map. He loved it and it rocketed his interest for world maps, flags and the countries till this very day. (He's quite the expert now!) I cannot wait for Doll to work on it; she's not quite ready yet though. Before that happens, I decided to make a new continent map for her.

 

 

 

The version Sonshine worked on was made of paper wrapped in clear plastic (at that time I did not have a laminator). Blessed Doll, gets a prettier version!

 

 

Her map is purely made from felt which I painstakingly hand-stiched bit by bit. Sonshine, the professional, was watching me like a hawk, making sure I sewed the continents correctly. He was the one who quickly reminded me that I had left Tasmania out!

 

I am not that clever, I did not come up with the pattern (wish I did). The free pattern is from the good lady at Imagine our Life; you can get it here. The felt materials can be found in Daiso or even Popular bookstore.

 

I think I may have butchered her pattern. My scissors cutting skill is horrendous. Plus, I left out quite a bit of smaller islands because I was just too lazy to do it!

But to be honest, the sudden wavy curves every now and then makes it terribly tough to cut! And don't get me started on cutting the small islands! Glad that that's all over now!

 

 

I made two sets of it. One, as shown earlier, I stiched the continents onto the map. I cut out loose pieces of the continents but I deliberately did not attached them.

 

It is meant for the child to arrange the continent map as what Sonshine is doing in the above picture.

 

Viola!

 

So what else can we do with this map? Plenty!

 

Learn the continents of course! I printed the free 3-part cards also from the same blog page. Using the cards, the child can label them accordingly.

 

 

Match the cards by its shape (ok, and color).

 

And it starts to get more interesting.

 

 

We can sort the animals by the continent where they are commonly found.

 

 

Or sort famous world structures by the continent they are at. (I had Sonshine sort it out for fun & photo-taking, easy peasy for him!)

 

 

The minitures are Safari Toobs which I bought it from Mothercare.

 

We could even sort country flags on the map too! You can see how Sonshine did here.

 

 

I am so proud of my felt map and excited! Can't wait for Doll to get her hands on it!

In the meantime, I'll just take it out every now and then and admire it. :D

 

 

Parts of a volcano- Montessori

We read up on volcanoes a couple of weeks back. Sonshine and I were rather fascinated with the new discoveries we made. I never read up on such things until now-sheesh, so I am learning along with my son too! Well, never too late to learn!

 

 

 

As a follow up, I printed these cards from here and display this activity on Sonshine's shelf. These are part of volcano cards.

 

There are two sets. One set is the master card and the other is for the child to match the label to the picture using the master cards as reference.

 

It's been a long while since I sat down with Sonshine to do an activity like this. It  reminded me so much of the time when I did this regularly with him when he was a toddler. I remember how he would absorbed and learnt everything at one go.

 

He did the same again this time, and I really wasn't expecting it. He suprised me by looking at the reference cards just once and was able to match all but two labels correctly. How in the world?

 

But anyway, my purpose is not for him to be an expert on volcanoes. I don't mind if he can't remember anything about it years down. I merely want to expose him to such knowledge; something that he may never find in his school textbooks. Great that he recalls but it's ok even if he doesn't. More importantly, he (and I) enjoyed what we learned through our readings together. :)

Atlas

When sonshine was 2.5 years old, i taught him about country flags. He loved it so much that every night he made us 'play' the country flags card game with him till i was so sick of it that i had to hide it away from him.

 

 

From there, it sparked his interest in World Atlas. I bought him his first Atlas book-Young Learner's Atlas (see photo above) and he read it everyday like it was the bible.

 

As he grew older, I taught him about continents, pointed to him the different countries and it's capital cities as we read the book etc. He was hooked. So, i would occasionally get him books on world flags and my mother couldn't resist adding on to our collection either.

 

But now that he is 6 years old, those books were too easy for him (also because he has already combed through the books from front to back). So my husband (who was also an Atlas fanatic when he was a kid) decided to get him a more detailed book. I was hesitant because i thought it was TOO detailed. But we bought it anyway.

 

I was taken aback how Sonshine dove right into the book. Again, he treated this like his bible. He reads this book religiously, morning, noon and night. I don't know what he reads about really, i have never sat down and read together with him.

 

Until one day, i was bored and asked him to tell me about Africa, and immediately he told me in excitement that there are 54 countries in Africa and the smallest country in this continent was erm..was sorry i can't remember but i checked- he was correct. So, i asked him where this country was and instantly he flipped to the map and without hesitation pointed to me it's precise location. I didn't even know that country existed nor where it is exactly on the map (i can hear my husband going 'tsk tsk tsk' at me). He even knows what's the biggest country in Africa, which has the highest population etc. Not to be outwitted by him, i randomly asked him about other continents and he readily tells me in a flash, pointing to all of the countries i never heard of.

And, even if i randomly pluck a country out and quiz him, he is able to tell me which continent it belongs to, yes even if it's an African country.

I suspect and won't be surprised, he already knows all the African country flags.

Once, even my sister had to enlist his help in identifying an unknown African flag for my niece's homework.

 

I think he has long surpassed me in his Geography. How embarrassing is that.