Montessori Inspired Explorations At The Beach

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Taking the Montessori classroom outside creates great opportunities for hands-on learning using minimum materials and effort. Sun, fresh salty air, the sound of crashing waves – what a perfect setup for fun explorations for kids. We headed to the beach to do fun Montessori activities as a part of the preschool homeschool program. Before allowing children to play and simply have an awesome time in nature, I prepared and organized Montessori-inspired activities taking advantage of the natural outdoor setting.

Montessori Explorations At The Beach

Each outing in nature always has two activities in common – storytelling and drawing from memory or from observation. These are two final things we never leave the place without accomplishing.

Montessori Inspired Explorations At The Beach Montessori Nature Blog

Montessori Explorations At The Beach:

The Metal Inset extension activity –  Drawing shapes and lines on the sand. The focus is to touch the lines of the parallel sides of the shape when drawing lines with a finger on the sand.

Montessori Inspired Explorations At The Beach
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Counting with loose parts and writing numbers on the sand – Since it is never practical to have a “writing on the sand activity” available at our house, it is a perfect chance to practice writing letters and numbers on the sand at the beach. Counting with loose natural parts or shells has many variations. We started with a simple task.

Counting With Loose Parts Montessori Explorations At The Beach

Exploring shapes and symmetry with acrylic mirrors – An acrylic mirror is a wonderful tool for learning about symmetry. This concept is usually a part of the older children’s curriculum.  However, a simple demonstration of drawing semi-shapes and completing them with mirror reflection is a fun learning exercise for a preschooler as well.

learning about symmetry at the beach

Marble Race – Simple, but fun entertainment for kids that can be done on the wet sand. We didn’t happen to have marbles, so we used loose parts – rolling to see which one would roll further.

Learning Activities At The Beach Learning In Nature

Drawing from observation  – This is the most welcomed and beautiful part of every nature learning experience – drawing stunning surroundings. It is impossible to be next to the ocean and not admire the depth of aqua, blue, and green colors of the water and sky. We took markers with various tones of blue and green for drawing what we saw – clouds, waves, and the sparkling surface of the ocean.

Drawing From Observation At The Beach

More natural discoveries to be explored as we continue our Montessori outdoor adventures. I invite you to sign up for my newsletter to receive updates with fresh content and new printables.

Here is my Nature Inspired Art Activity Book for Drawing and Colouring for Kids and Adults that had received some great feedback from Art teachers.

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  About Anastasia. Anastasia is a former Early Childhood Teacher and the founder of Montessori Nature, a blog about Montessori - inspired and Nature-based explorations. She taught in a Montessori setting for 10 years and has been practicing the Montessori way of learning and living for the last 20 years. She loves designing engaging educational printables for children. Browse Anastasia's educational resources on Teachers Pay Teachers.


2 thoughts on “Montessori Inspired Explorations At The Beach”

  1. This post is just absolutely wonderful! I love all of the creative ways you guys incorporated learning to your beach visit 🙂 I haven’t thought to take a mirror to the beach (or outdoors in general) – we’ll definitely give that a try.

    I grew up in Yalta, and I miss the beach so much! We don’t have very many beaches near us here, but we are lucky to have forests and so many pastures. I love taking our learning outside and my son does just as much. We’ve been doing a lot of gardening together and it’s been fabulous to see how much learning can take place only in our backyard!

  2. Thank you, Yuliya, for visiting! Garden is something I have to tackle! It doesn’t come easy to me! 🙂 It is such an advantage for being able to take children to forest and enjoy nature exploring surroundings!

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