DIY Montessori Inspired Activities and Games for 3 – 5-year-olds.

The Montessori method offers such a wide range of amazing experiences for children. Child’s work is their play. Generally, children do not need stimulation or encouragement; they naturally gravitate to activities that reflect their interests and enrich their passion for learning. Senses play such a huge role in their learning.

All materials and activities that are presented below have a goal to make learning hands-on, connect hand and brain, provide an opportunity for discovery. Our Montessori activities at home for cycle one (preschool age 3-5) are set up for different areas: Practical Life, Sensorial, Math, Language, Science, Fine Motor.

Practical life

Washing toys. Often toys are used outside and get dirty. This is a perfect opportunity for arranging washing activities to clean toys. It is convenient to have materials available in the kitchen or bathroom where a child can get hold of them easily. Three-year-olds are usually very keen to follow a sequence of steps, such as filling in a jar with water, adding soap, scrubbing a toy with a  brush, drying the toy, and pouring water out.

Fine Motor

Hammering.
Kids go crazy for hammering activities. If you get a chance to get hold of a cut tree log – that’s great. I found an easy substitute for a tree by placing two cork boards on top of each other. This is a beautiful preparation for more complex exercises when children are older and are capable of building something with their hands. Perfect for fine motor exercise too.

Transferring activities with shells. Simple and fun. These are great ways to strengthen fingers and develop fine motor.

Sewing. Recycling old gift cards makes this activity even more attractive. We made beautiful Christmas tree ornaments with them.

Introducing different office appliances, like sticky tape and hole punch are great for learning new skills. I noticed that it also encourages children to exercise their perseverance.

Educational toys that develop fine motor are an excellent addition to Montessori Work Shelves.

Arranging stamps in a stamp book using tweezers is a beautiful cultural activity and a wonderful challenge for little fingers.

Math

Using different fillers for writing trays provides a scope of sensory experiences for a child. In this case, we used colored small rocks from a discount store generally used for decor.

Cards and Counters are one of the easiest DIY Montessori materials to make at home at a very low cost. If you would like our printable with blue numbers, hop here.

If you would like to learn how to teach your child about odd and even numbers using Cards and Counters, here is a great video to guide you:

We use the Small Number Rods for solving simple problem games creating a story that is relevant to the child. You can make it as complex or simple as you like. I keep it short and sweet. My daughter loves coming up with her own stories as well. For example, ” Mia was having a birthday party. She invited Alex and Matt. Alex brought six green balloons, and Matt brought 4 orange balloons. How many balloons are there at Mia’s party?”.

We also often use bead bars for simple additions and skip counting once the child is a bit older and can easily count small beads with their little fingers without getting frustrated.

Join our list if you would like to download this printable for free from the resource library.

Language

We chose a Transportation Unit for counting syllables in words and learning different types of transportation. Children easily learn to count syllables in words when it is first done with their names. This is where we started and moved to clap words associated with different types of vehicles.

Transportation 3 -Part Nomenclature Cards are a part of my Transportation Unit printable which includes many different activities that kids usually love.

This is another activity for classifying vehicles.

In order to provide an opportunity for self-assessment, I marked cards on the back. After finishing sorting a variety of vehicles A turned them on the other side to compare labels and make sure it was done correctly.

You can order the Transportation Unit here.

Science

I used felt parts from Map Activity to introduce the classification of living and non-living things work. This is such a perfect opportunity to engage in conversation and discussion with a child. If you wish you may download labels here.

Float and sink experiment. The best time to demonstrate this activity is after a child had a lesson on Water and Land with Montessori Sandpaper Globe. This experiment is great for self-directed play. Children get excited to find things they can put in the water to find out if they float or sink. You can download my printable here.

Sensorial

Here is our DIY Colour Box 3 activity.

Inspired by Nature. Something to let imagination run wild. We love our outdoor nature walks.

Girls have lots of fun with changing the doll’s outfits play.

Join and download these freebies from our resource library

World Continents – Photo Cards

Geography folder for all seven continents and 3-part continent cards. This resource is great for presenting in the Montessori classroom.

This resource contains:

1) 3-part cards with the 7 continents;
Continent Picture Cards of the 7 Continents (Africa, Asia, South America, Europe, North America, Antarctica, Australia/Oceania, Oceania or Australasia)

2) Beautiful, large, and engaging pictures of the continents – a great point for discussion and open the window to the world, support cultural diversity. Ten cards and one label card for each of the continents (except Antarctica – you can choose between two different continent outlines).
A great collection of picture cards to represent different unique aspects of the continents.
Original cards are in A4 format. However, you may choose to print two or four pages on one sheet for a smaller size.
Bind each continent set into a book or store it in a continent folder.

Purchase this resource here or

find it on Teachers Pay Teachers

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