Montessori Activities to Make at Home

Montessori activities can be replicated in the home with homemade materials.

Montessori materials are expensive to purchase. Those who want to implement some Montessori philosophy in the home often do not want to foot the bill for a classroom's worth of materials. Some of the activities can be relatively easily replicated. When presented with the same demonstrations as the original materials, these homemade materials make good substitutes for early childhood learning.

Practical Life

Practical life activities are easily replicated with materials found around the house. Look in the kitchen for pitchers, bowls and other containers, as well as different types of utensils. Practice pouring and transferring beans, rice or beads from one container to another. Set up ingredients for a snack on a tray with all necessary utensils required to make it. Use real clothes to practice with fasteners. Supplement with more materials found at garage sales, dollar stores or other discount retailers.

Sensorial

For tactile practice, cut identical squares of fabric for texture matching. Glue different grades of sandpaper to thick poster board, either for matching or grading. To create sound activities, fill plastic eggs with different items. Match smells with votive candles or by putting spices into salt shakers. Taste testing can be done right in the kitchen with various foods. Paint samples, colored paper and spools of thread or embroidery floss can substitute for the Montessori color tablets. Visit Montessori homeschooling sites to print replicas of the geometric cabinet and constructive triangle boxes.

Language

Sandpaper letters can be created by cutting out lowercase letter shapes from sandpaper and gluing them on a sturdy background. Vowels go on blue and consonants go on red, though some reverse those colors. Letter combinations or phonograms go on green. Cut out letter shapes or print letters on cards for movable alphabets for sounds practice and spelling. Write sight words on index cards.

Math

Make sandpaper numerals by cutting their shapes out of sandpaper and posting them on a sturdy green background. Manipulative counting activities from zero to 10 can use any set of 55 identical objects to match to numeral cards. Create Montessori bead bars by stringing colored beads on wire, according to traditional colors: 1 is red, 2 is green, 3 is pink, 4 is yellow, 5 is light blue, 6 is purple, 7 is white, 8 is brown, 9 is dark blue and 10 is gold. Make a hundred square by attaching 10 of those 10 bars. Make thousand cubes by attaching 10 of those hundred squares.

Use real coins to teach money concepts. An analog clock can teach about time. Use rulers or yardsticks to teach about measurement.

References

• Liveable Learning
• Montessori Materials

Resources

• ABC Teach
• Carl's Corner