Family FECS: Montessori Activity: The "Homemade" Montessori Moveable Alphabet

Friday 17 August 2012

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Montessori Activity: The "Homemade" Montessori Moveable Alphabet

or fridge magnets

Lesson plan adapted from Montessori Mom

Age: From 4 years old (MontessoriMom recommends to use when the short letter sounds are mastered)

Objectives:
1. To prepare the child for reading, writing and spelling in a fun way.

Materials:
1. 1 plastic clear storage container with lid with 26 compartments for each letter, the blue letters are vowels and the red letters are consonants.
2. 1 set of letter fridge magnets
3. 1 paper
4. 1 pen
5. Leap-Frog letter magnets (optional)
6. 1 mat

Directions:
1. Open the box and show the letters to the child.

2. Ask your child various letters such as: "Can you show me "m"?

3. Write a 3-letter word such as "map" on a paper and tell your child, "We are going to make _______."

4. Ask your child, "What letters do you hear when I say "map"? The child will find the letter "m" and place it on the mat.

5. Ask: "What other sounds do you hear?" Usually, it will be "p". the child will find the letter "p" and place it on the mat.

6. Say: "There is a sound between the "m" and "p".

7. Ask the child to listen very carefully and pronounce the word "m-a-p" slowly and clearly for him.

8. Continue to make other words with your child until the exercise is mastered.

9. Be patient. Start by working on the letters that your child already knows. Work on the phonetic sounds of the letters. One day your child will be able to work on his own.

Additional Information:
Montessori materials as shown below can be very expensive:

Since we have the Leap frog fridge magnetic word builder, we decided to use it to make our own set of the Montessori-inspired Moveable Alphabet Box. As an addition, I labelled the compartment of each letter with a sticker. This helps Joshua to sort the letters as part of the clean up activity. One of the advantage of using the Leap Frog word builder for us is that it also helps me to revise my phonics :-)

You can make your own Montessori Moveable Alphabet by purchasing printables from www.montessoriprintshop.com

I found an excellent lesson plan from MontessoriMom! She has a fantastic list of 2 and 3 letter phonetic words a-e-i-o-u. Check out MontessoriMom for more free Montessori resources.

Another way of making your own Montessori moveable alphabet box is to use the Leap Frog Magnetic Word Builder: