Montessori
UPDATE: this page is pretty old, now that I look at it, but I lack time to update it. If you want to see the newer stuff, go to my homepage and click on the Montessori category tag. You’ll see lots more there! For the older stuff, read on…
This page has some photos of Montessori-type activities I have put together for the kiddos. Some of them I have made myself, with ideas gathered from all over the blogosphere, while others are purchased from various Montessori suppliers. We also use a lot of Melissa and Doug products, which we love.
I want to caution that I am not at all an expert (or even very knowledgeable at all) on Maria Montessori or her methods. I am still just beginning-learning and trying to figure all this out myself. Nor am I interested in being a Montessori purist. I take what I am learning and use it as I see fit for my children and myself.
With that caveat, I will share what I have put together so far:
Our set-up:
These are some shelves which I rotate weekly with a few activities for each category.
math center
Some language materials
geography center
music center
geometry
science and nature
And here are some activities.
Practical life:
Polishing pennies with a toothbrush rubbed on half a lemon and then dipped in a bowl of salt.
Spooning and sorting wooden beads.
Transferring water with dropper.
Dressing frames. Homemade from picture frames and old clothes.
Geometry: tongue depressors with colored dot stickers on the ends. Written on the sticks is “triangle,” “square,” or “pentagon.” All she has to do is match the colored dots to make the shape. I plan on making more of these eventually.
Sorting dinosaurs to the correct continents and matching with puzzle map.
Sensorial: Different textured materials (cloth, sandpaper, foil, canvas, etc) glued onto index cards. Wear a blindfold and match by feel.
Shakers made with film cannisters filled with various things (sand, beads, etc). Match by sound. Self-checking with stickers on bottom.
Visual discrimination and nature study:Matching shells
Sorting shells by pattern:
Sorting shells by size:
In addition we have things like buckets of rice or beans, lots of file folder games (this one matches an object picture to each letter of the alphabet-initial sounds)
blocks, including pattern blocks (look at that focus!)
puzzles, various cards, stamps, stickers, etc, plus inclusion in actual daily life (here are Squirt and JBug picking and chopping herbs for the night’s meal)
I wrote about these very special blocks here.
and about this book here:
Crunchy math goodness!
Here was a day’s lesson on number recognition.
Matching magnetic numbers on a white board: for this she simply had to match up the numbers in the basket with the numbers I placed in order on the white board.
Building a “stair” with snap cubes:I made rods of lengths 1-10 with snap cubes. JBug had to arrange them into a stair. It took her awhile at first because she had to count each rod. After she built it once she noticed that from now on all she had to do was match the next rod which was one block longer and building went MUCH faster!
Matching cubes with numbers:pretty self explanatory. She struggled with this a bit, so we will repeat soon.
Writing letters in cornmeal:
Fur-bearing animal cards, labels, and scraps of fur to feel and match.
I have a BUNCH more that I just have not photographed yet. I will get them up as soon as I get a chance.
Wow, where do you get the ideas for the different things? What age do you start letting them participate? And last but certainly not least, where to you find all those great materials?
Sam is three and I would love to put some of these things together for him to use as he is always curious and it gets him into trouble.
I would like to put that curiosity to good use.
Blessings,
Krisann
Krisann,
I get my ideas from a million different places, but the best place, IMo to start, is Kim’s blog at Starry Sky Ranch. She is MUCH more knowledgeable than me and has a great set of links on her sidebar.
http://starryskyranch.typepad.com/starry_sky_ranch/
Also check out Rebecca at Gypsy Caravan for some really beautiful ideas, esp in practical life.
http://agypsycaravan.typepad.com/rebecca/
When to let them participate? As soon as possible! Just watch your child and give him the activities best suited to his needs. Squirt just turned three and he loves all the pouring and transferring activities with rice or water.
Good luck!
WOW! I found your blog thru a link. It looks like you have been busy–what beautiful exercises for your children.
A sidenote on the fabrics–for the feeling fabrics I’ve always just cut the fabrics w/ pinking shears and not mounted them, so that both sides of the material can be felt. In the first exercise, the textures are very different, as well as the color. For my second exercise, I use one fabric (cotton) and get different types of that fabric (denim, fleece), but it’s all the same color. It gets very tricky blindfolded.
Happy material making!
Lapazfarm says: Thanks for the great tips! I will give that a try!
Theresa, you have such great ideas. Thanks for sharing these with us!
These are great…our son is 9-months old and my husband home-schools our 8-year old daughter. I can just see her helping her little bro with some of this sort of thing!
I am also keen to use some of the textural ideas with a watershed education program I am designing. Thank you for sharing!
Hi,
I love the idea of the fur bearing animal cards. I had a question though. the fur samples- are these the samples you get in the fabric store? Did you just approximate the closest you could find for each of those animal pictures?
I really enjoyed reading your ideas. What else do you do for montessori activities with your kids.
Thansk
Bev
Bev, these are actual animal fur scraps we got in Alaska. Beaver, caribou, wolf, etc. The real thing and lovely to feel.
To see more activities click on “montessori” in the categories list in the sidebar. That should bring up some posts. Also try “preschool.”
And thanks for stopping by!
Theresa, your ideas are SOOO good!! When you put together your dressing frames did you glue the clothing to them so they wouldn’t slide off?? I’ve been thinking of making these with the picture frames as well, but wasn’t sure how to attach them without ruining the fabrics. Thanks for any help hear and another ?? Did you purchase your animal cards or print them off the internet yourself. They are so clear, they look great!! Blessings to you on this Sunday afternoon!!
Hi Meredith!
I used a staple gun to attach the cloth to the back of the frames.
The animal cards I printed myself. I just Google imaged the animals I wanted and then formatted them in 2 columns (for uniform size) with the names below, centered. Then I laminated them. I made 2 copies. One copy I left the cards whole and one copy I cut apart the pictures and names.
Excellent, I didn’t think of the staple gun, and with a husband that is a contractor you’d think that would have been at the top of my list
I forget how handy Google is, and I was just googling something else for Montessori, so it’s perfect!!
Bless you!
You are absolutely brilliant. Your children are very lucky to have you. You are very inspiring and I wish you the best of luck. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Thanks for all the great ideas! I just decided that I would take the Montessori approach to preschool for my 2 year old and 8 month old daughters. I am trained as a preschool teacher, but have never taught Montessori. Keep up with the photos! I love it!
I love your organization of things. Do you have a picture of how the whole layout is in your home? I struggle with getting everything organized. I love the shelves and other wooden organizers. Where did you find them?
Thanks, Tina. I don’t have a whole layout pic because the stuff is spread throughout the house. A little here, a center there, a shelf here, etc.
I also got the shelves from various places. The geometry map cabinet came from Allison’s Montessori, as well as all of the botany and zoology puzzle shelves.
I think the botany cabinet came form Alison’s and the geometry cabinet from Montessori outlet, but I am not sure about those. The others have just been yard sale/thrift shop/Walmart finds.
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