Montessori Language Activity: Animal-Themed Mystery Bag for Learning Language

Age: From 2.5 year old

Activity Duration: 5 - 10 minutes

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

Objective(s): 

1. To gives your child a fun way to practise in identifying and naming objects only through the sense of touch.

2. A fun way to learn about the name of animals

3. A fun way to learn language

Materials: 

1. 1 drawstring bag

2. 2 goats and 2 lambs

3. Chinese characters for goat and lamb

Directions: 
1. Read the Chinese character to your child and ask her to say it after you.

2. Put all the things into the bag, and ask your child to touch one item at a time, and guess what it is, then take the item out.

3. Then say the name of the item to your child, if he could not say its name.

4. Ask your child to match the animal with the Chinese character card.

Additional Information:
C (1Y1M21D) tried this for the first time today, and she enjoyed the game very much :-) Montessori Mystery Bag is an evergreen with kids - you can't go wrong with this activity :-)

References:
- Montessori Play and Learn by Lesley Britton
- http://www.suite101.com/content/the-montessori-mystery-bag-a182138

Stack-A-Ring Mystery Bag

Additional Information:
I love using the mystery bag. It intrigues baby/toddler to take a piece at a time out of the bag, as it increases the attention span of baby, more manageable with showing each piece at a time and helps to ensure that toys actually get to be played with, before baby moves on to other toys.

https://youtu.be/8Oiig7M3T1A

Montessori Activity: Fruit-Themed Jigsaw Puzzle in a Mystery Bag

Age: From 1 year old

Activity Duration: 5 - 10 minutes

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

Objective(s): 

1. To provide an interesting way to present a jigsaw puzzle to an older baby/younger toddler.

Materials: 
1. 1 drawstring bag

2. 1 simple jigsaw puzzle with knob

3. 1 tray (optional)

Directions: 
1. Place all the jigsaw puzzle pieces into the bag.

2. Take out a piece of the puzzle from the bag.

3. Show your child how to examine the puzzle, tracing its shape, etc., making it a seonsorial experience

4. Show your child how place it in its slot.

5. Invite your child to try with the other pieces by taking one-by-one out from the bag.

Additional Information:
I read from many inspiring stories of how some mothers defying doctor's prognosis about their child's impaired intelligence and diligently play jigsaw puzzles with the babies/toddlers with down syndrome, and actually brought results. Reading stories about such mothers touched my heart and brought me to tears. It encouraged me to press on in the work of child development, which is my passion.

Baby FECS has normal intelligence, but I wanted to still try to start introducing jigsaw puzzle to her.

Actually introducing jigsaw puzzle to a baby/toddler is a challenge. Before I could place the puzzle in front of her and present to her how to play with it, she had already took the pieces apart, which is also fine as it is part of play. But I am just wondering how I could show her the purpose of jigsaw puzzle, how to put it together in a systematic way, before she starts taking them apart.

Next I thought of this idea. First I will take the puzzle pieces apart and put them into the mystery bag. Then I will invite her to take out a piece at a time, examine it, touching and tracing the shape before putting it together in its slot.

I am excited whether my idea will work, and looking forward to trying out this idea with Baby FECS.

I am trying to start to play jigsaw puzzle with Baby FECS.

 1. Place all the jigsaw puzzle pieces into the bag.

 2. Take out a piece of the puzzle from the bag.

3. Show your child how to examine the puzzle, tracing its shape, etc.,making it a seonsorial experience

4. Show your child how place it in its slot.

5. Invite your child to try with the other pieces by taking one-by-one out from the bag.

Montessori Activity: Food-Themed Mystery Bag

Age: From 1 year old

Activity Duration: 5 - 10 minutes

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

Objective(s): 
1. To gives your child a fun way to practise in identifying and naming objects only through the sense of touch.

2. A fun way to learn about the name of animals

Materials: 
1. 1 drawstring bag

2. Some different food toys as shown in the picture

Directions: 
1. Put all the things into the bag, and ask your child to touch one item at a time, and guess what it is, then take the item out.

2. Then say the name of the item to your child, if he could not say its name.

3. For younger toddlers, put one item at a time in the bag, and ask your child to put his hand into the bag, touch the item and guess what it is, then take the item out.

Additional Information:
C (1Y1M24D) tried this for the first time today (10 July 2017), and she enjoyed the game :-)

References:
- Montessori Play and Learn by Lesley Britton
- http://www.suite101.com/content/the-montessori-mystery-bag-a182138

 10 July 2017 (1Y1M24D)

Montessori Activity: Animal-Themed Mystery Bags

Age: From 1 year old

Activity Duration: 5 - 10 minutes

Preparation Time: 10 minutes

Objective(s): 

1. To gives your child a fun way to practise in identifying and naming objects only through the sense of touch.

2. A fun way to learn about the name of animals

Materials: 

1. 1 drawstring bag

2. Some different animal toys as shown in the picture

Directions: 
1. Put all the things into the bag, and ask your child to touch one item at a time, and guess what it is, then take the item out.

2. Then say the name of the item to your child, if he could not say its name.

3. For younger toddlers, put one item at a time in the bag, and ask your child to put his hand into the bag, touch the item and guess what it is, then take the item out.

Additional Information:
C (1Y1M21D) tried this for the first time today, and she enjoyed the game :-)

References:
- Montessori Play and Learn by Lesley Britton
- http://www.suite101.com/content/the-montessori-mystery-bag-a182138

7 July 2017 (1Y1M21D) 

7 July 2017 (1Y1M21D) 

Montessori Activity: Advanced Mystery Bag Game

Building a mirror-image sculpture designed by Yang Li with items from the Mystery Bag.

Age: From 2 years 3 months old

Activity Duration: 15 minutes

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

Number of Players: 2

Objective(s):

1. To stimulate the children's keen sense of touch.
2. To teach the names of objects and broaden the child's vocabulary.
3. To teach team work.

How to play?

1. Fill 2 sets of 15 different items into each drawstring bag.

2. Call an item and instruct the first player to find the object from her bag by touch without peeping in.

3. Instruct the first player to display the object on the table.

4. Instruct the second player to find the same item in his bag and display the object on the table in a mirror image.

5. Repeat until all the items called are displayed in a mirror image.

6. Clean up by asking the first player to put the named item and place it back into her bag.

7. It is the second player's turn to put the name item into his bag.

8. Repeat until all items are placed back into the bags.

Additional Information:

The traditional Montessori Mystery Bag game is losing the novelty appeal to both Amy and Joshua (2Y3M6D). It is getting too simple for them. My friend, Yang Li, invented this game and the children had a lot of fun playing this game during our "Fun with Chinese" Class with Toddlers yesterday.

I was very impressed with the mirror-image "sculpture" the children have made. Later, based on instruction, one-by-one, they put back the items into the mystery bag and everything is cleaned up in a fun and orderly manner.



All the items are now kept back into the mystery bag, well done, Amy & Joshua!