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

 

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 interest and enrich 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 opportunity for discovery. Our Montessori activities at home for cycle one (preschool age 3-5) 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 activity to clean toys. It is very handy to have materials available in the kitchen or bathroom where child can get hold of them easily. Three year olds are usually very keen to follow sequence of steps, such as filling in jar with water, adding soap, scrubbing toy with a  brush, dry the toy and pouring water out.

 

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

 

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

 

Sewing. Recycling old gift cards make 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 a wonderful 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 tray provides a scope of sensory experiences for a child. In this case we used coloured small rocks from discount store normally used for decor.
DIY Cards and Counters are one of the easiest Montessori materials to make at home at a very low cost. If you would like our printable with blue number 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 6 green balloons and Matt brought 4 orange balloons. How many balloons are there at Mia’s party?”.

Language


We chose a Transportation Unit  for counting syllables in words and learn 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 clapping 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 variety of vehicles A turned them on the other side to compare labels and make sure it was done correctly.

Science

I used felt parts from Map Activity to introduce 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 child had a lesson on Water and Land with Montessori Sandpaper Globe. This experiment is great for self – directed play. Children usually 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 doll’s outfits play.  Woodkins toy-books are perfect for open-ended independent play.

 

You can order Transportation Unit here.
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Comments

  1. Thanks for sharing this amazing ideas. Montessori curriculum is the best thing that we can gift to our children. It helps them to learn themselves.

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