The K Junction: fieldtrip

Showing posts with label fieldtrip. Show all posts

Apr 3, 2018

Learning Beyond Classrooms - Back To Roots - Cowshed Visit - Waldorf Inspired Field Trip - Kids

The world is our classroom and field trips are a core part of homeschooling & daily lives. As a Waldorf inspired family, I try to engage my son with the natural world whenever possible and give him real life experiences of things rather than just reading books or watching videos. At least for the things that are available to us city dwellers. We visit cowshed often, check out what we see & do there.

We often (at least twice a week) go to the cowshed to feed the cows. Today we also got a chance to meet these little calves, the youngest one is just one month old!!! My son loves feeding the cows. He has also seen how those people milk the cows. This place also has some horses. A rare thing to see when you live in a city, but fortunately this place is near to our house.

With my son's never ending question list, we have discussed how we use milk, it's products, what cows & horses eat, why do they put horse shoe on horses' feet, how cow dung is used, why do we worship cows in India, what do they eat, etc etc. We understood what is waste for we human beings (like stalks of grains like wheat, jowar, sugarcane, corn etc) become food for cows & horses. And how the waste material of cows like urine & cowdung is so beneficial for human beings.

All this helps toddlers to know more about animals, develop love for them, understand life on a farm, about food etc by experiencing it, rather than just learning from the books.

A beautiful way to connect with mother nature on an everyday basis!

We have also made cowdung cakes & dhoop batti (incense sticks) using cow dung & other natural ingredients & these days we are using them at home to purify air. I will share its tutorial soon!

Do share with me the recent field trips you have done with your child! Would love to get more ideas!

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Hope to see you around. Happy Parenting!

Montessori Flower Arrangement - Practical Life Activity - 23 Months Old (VLOG)

One of our Valentine's Day activities, that I had been wishing to do for long - Montessori Flower Arrangement. Not strictly as per Montessori but still we loved it :)

I did not have a flower vase handy, so I used a water bottle. Montessori does not need to be expensive always! You can work with what items you have at home.

Sequence of the activity -

pour water from a pitcher to the vase
remove leaves from the stem
insert flowers in the vase
if the length of the stem is too much, use scissors to cut it to appropriate length
Wipe off water spills if any

It is a great way to teach care for surroundings to toddlers, a wonderful fine motor & practical life skill. And it serves as an introduction to botany - what is a stem, petal, leaf etc. A great vocabulary builder - learning flower names. And a sensory activity, smelling the flowers, not to forget. By the way, I went to the florist shop along with my son & he loved the experience. He socialized with the florist, got to know who is a florist. He asked names of all the flowers from the florist. He gave money to the florist while we bought the flowers. There is learning happening everywhere & everytime!

I have lost count of the reasons, why I love Montessori :)

Watch my almost 2 year old son in action in this video!

😊

How Enriching A Simple Supermarket Visit Can Be For A Toddler

A simple supermarket visit is also so enriching for a toddler! Provided we do not make him sit inside the trolley & just watch what we are doing. In fact toddlers are so mobile that they will not even sit in the trolley for more than few minutes. They need to explore every thing around them!

I am sharing here an account of our super market visit & how my 21 months old had a blast!

You can see how a child can learn so much while you shop! And guess what, no stress at all. The child will absolutely enjoy. The only thing you need here is your patience & time. Let your toddler explore the entire supermarket while may be your partner do the actual shopping separately ;)

Some Practical Life skills being learnt at the supermarket. That trolley is for him exclusively. He picked up lot of stuff in his trolley while we were shopping. We revised vegetable & fruit names & other grocery items, a great language building exercise. It was a sensorial experience too, to touch & feel them. For example, pineapple, he knew it's a pineapple but when I gave it in his hands, he realized it hurts! He opened the fridge & checked out cold items, chanting cold cold himself. He saw this weighing balance & termed it a swing. He took a cucumber to the balance & started giving that cucumber a swing ride. I told him it is a balance & showed him how the needle moves when you keep something in the tray. A quick cause & effect lesson & a pre math lesson. It was a great gross motor activity too, he roamed around with quite a heavy trolley towards the end all over the place.