Montessori Acitivity: Measure & Draw Lines with Ruler

Age: From 4 years old

Activity Duration: 5 - 10 minutes

Objective(s):
1. To provide a systematic way of learning to draw straight line.
2. To provide opportunity for practising pencil grip.

Materials:
1. 1 ruler
2. 1 pencil or pen
3. A few strips of paper
4. 1 tray

Directions:
1. Show your child how to measure an equal space between 2 lines and draw a line with a ruler.

2. Encourage your child to try.

Video Demonstration:

Here is a video demonstration of line drawing:

Additional Information:
I was preparing strips of paper with lines for cutting activity and J was very eager to draw the lines with the ruler. We turned it into a Montessori style line-drawing activity. J (4Y1M8) could do it rather well. He could now hlep me prepare the cutting activity by drawing the lines to be cut.

Montessori Activity: Metal Inserts

AGE: 4-6 years old

OBJECTIVE(S):

1.     To prepare the child for writing by learning to grip the pencil and controlling it including lightness of touch, evenness of pressure, continuity of lines and control of lines.

2.     To develop eye-hand coordination.

3. To familiarize the child with the curves and angles found in letters.

MATERIALS:

1.     1 metal insert (They are exactly the same as the wooden inserts of the geometric cabinet)

2.     3 color pencils

3.     1 piece of paper

4.     1 tray

PRESENTATION:

1.    Choose a shape.

2.    Show the child how to correctly hold the pencil.

3.   Trace the outline of the inner circle from the metal insert and say: “I have made a red circle.”

4.    Place the metal circle directly on top of the circle that you have just drawn.

5.    Trace the outline of the outer circle with another color pencil.

6.   When the child has done many of the different shapes of metal inserts, and you feel confident of the child’s ability of tracing the metal inserts, tell the child to make lines inside of the blue shape.

9.   Select another colored pencil and draw starting from inside left edge of the drawn shape and draw a vertical zig-zag from the top to the bottom of the shape drawn.

7.    Invite your child to try.

8.   Show your child how and where to store the finished work.


VARIATIONS:

1. After drawing around the interior edge of a frame, the child places the insert on the paper so that it does not correspond with the first drawn shape (this would not be possible with the circle.)

2. After drawing, the child combines two and more shapes to create a symmetrical pattern with many sections to be filled in.

VIDEO DEMONSTRATION:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6PkTDvmiXg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sQWUO2jT2o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO96KdrB9us

TIPS:

1.     Cut out the figures and paste it on a page.

2.     Make booklets.

3.     Make patterns with tracing different shapes and turning them around.

4.     Let the child experience the effects of different pressures on the pencil.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The variety of movements required in this work provides the child the chance to practice the control of the writing movements and with changing directions. According to Info Montessori, “the child can learn to make continuous stroke. This is particularly helpful in cursive script.

J (3Y8M14D) tried for the first time at home today. He had tried it at the kindergarten and he enjoyed it very much. He was still not very good at controlling the metal inserts so that it did not move around, when he traced the shape.

If you don't have Montessori metal inserts, you can use shape stencils or any shape blocks to substitute. 

Updates:

We tried this activity on 27 November 2013, and J (4Y8M22D) was very enthusiastic in trying out many different shapes.

REFERENCES:

http://www.infomontessori.com/language/written-language-metal-insets.htm

 

The Montessori metal inserts and optional tracing tray are available from Amazon:

Easy Colouring Activity

Age: From 3 years old

While waiting for me to prepare breakfast, if I remember, I will try to occupy Joshua with colouring activity, so that the time is not wasted in waiting.

According to the book, On Becoming Preschoolwise, colouring is a good activity to train Joshua's character development in patience and perseverance, and I agree. But it is not always an easy task, and can be an uphill task sometimes. It requires consistency and determination from parents, but I will try my best.

Colouring is also a good activity for preschooler to practise pencil grip and control, which is a pre-requisite skill to writing.

If your child doesn't like colouring, you can try this.

Montessori Activity: Tracing Letters & Numbers with Stencil

Age: From 3 years old (Level 4)

Activity Duration: 5 - 15 minutes

Materials:
1. 1 letter stencil
2. 1 magic pen or marker
3. 1 plain paper

Directions:
1. Demonstrate by holding the stencil on a paper and tracing a letter with a marker.

2. Let your child try.

Additional Information:
Here is another method of providing a varied and interesting way to learn the letters and at the same time, practising pencil grasp. Joshua (2Y11M25D) tried this today and he enjoyed it. He did it twice for a total of 20 minutes. Joshua commented that the letters were not joined, because there is a strip in the middle of the stencil to hold the letters together.

You can get similar stencils from Amazon:

Montessori Activity: Practising Writing Numbers with Dry-Erase Book/练习夹击把握

Age: From 3 years old

Activity Duration: 5 - 15 minutes

Objectives:

1. To train fine motor skills esp. pencil grisp

2. To provide a fun way of learning how to write numbers

Materials:

1. Dry-Erase Number Book

2. Whyteboard marker

Directions:

1. Demonstrate to your child how to trace the number. Then count the objects together.

2. Invite your child to try

Additional Information:

I bought this book from Popular Bookshop (www.popular.com.sg) in Singapore. This book is just published in July 2011. The quality is very good and compared to the dry-erase board from Amazon, it is very cheap. It works very well. This book is in Chinese. I wanted to also get something similar in English, but I could not find it.

Joshua (2Y10M9D) practised pincer grasp and writing numbers today with this book. Initially, he got discouraged for not able to follow the line. Oh dear, Joshua is showing signs of being afraid to make mistakes. This is not the objective of this exercise!

I wondered how I can encourage him to continue. Then an idea came to my mind. I will demonstrate by making mistakes. Then I show him my mistakes. Then I said, "That is alright, mommy will try again." I repeated this several times to show that practice makes perfect. He took it up and began to get teh courage to try again and again.

Thank God for answering my prayers and helping me to solve problems as they arise and walking along this parenting path with me.

References:

http://blessedmom.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-teach-kids-to-hold-a-pencil

Montessori Acitivity: Drawing Straight Line with Ruler

Age: From 2.5 years old (Level 3)

Activity Duration: 5 - 10 minutes

Objective(s):
1. To provide a systematic way of learning to draw straight line.
2. To provide opportunity to practise pencil grip.

Materials:
1. 1 ruler
2. 1 pencil, coloured pencil, magic pen or marker
3. 1 plain paper
4. 1 tray

Directions:
1. Demonstrate by holding the pencil and drawing a line using hte ruler.

2. Encourage your child to try.

Additional Information:
I am running out of ideas for Montessori Activity... then this morning, Joshua saw the ruler and asked to turn it into a Montessori activity. I was impressed at the originality of his idea, and I asked him if he had tried this activity at his daycare. He said no, he had not tried it in the daycare. So it was totally his own idea.  Good team work. At 2 years 9 months, Joshua is bbeginning to design his own Montessori activities now. It is nice that I don't have to always be the one to crack my brains for new ideas for Montessori :-)

We can't wait to try it after breakfast this morning. It would be hard to have a Clear Your Calendar Day, but hey, this is Joshua's request, so it will still be considered as a Clear Your Calendar Day  :-)

Montessori Activity: Practise Pencil Grip with Tracing

Age: From 2.5 years old

Objective(s): To develop good pencil grip

Materials:

1. Kumon My First Book of Tracing

Directions:

1. Show your child to tracing from one object to the next.
2. Talk about asking your child to help baby kitten find mommy cat, or baby bunny find mommy rabbit.
3. Encourage your child to try.

Additional Information:

J does not have much chance of practising his pincer grip. This is because he is not fond of art - which means painting, drawing, colouring, etc. I tried to encourage him, but it just isn't his interest. He also wasn't interested in learning how to hold a pencil using the pincer grip, no matter how I tried to encourage him. He just prefer to use his fist!

I saw some home-schooling moms using this book, and they described it as being very well designed. I bought it from Amazon:

When it arrived. I thought it was really well-designed and full-coloured, and too nice and wasteful for J to scribble in it. I kept it for a few months, silly me wasn't it!!! I bought the book, but parked it aside, because it was too nice. It reminded me of someone who bought a Mercedes, but could not bear to drive it, and have it nicely covered in his garage.

I thought I will make photocopy of it and let J scribble on the photocopies, but of course, I didn't manage to find time to do it. Finally I pluck up my determination to let J JUST USE THE BOOK.

To my great amazement, J LOVES this book. He could go on pages after pages, and he did this more than one, and in fact many times. Usually for Montessori activity, he gets bored with it after one or two sessions.

He also was willing to listen when I showed him how to hold the pencil using the pincer grip. I am not sure whether it was just a coincidence that he is now developmentally ready or my determination of getting J to learn pincer grip or the excellence of this book in motivating toddlers and preschoolers, but he did. And he scribbled most of the time using his pincer grip on the book. I think it was about 1 or perhaps 2 months later, J's ability to draw improved a lot. He (2Y9M) now manages to draw a full circle closing the ends nicely.

It was actually his daycare teacher who wanted me to take home a drawing that J made today for memories, and she was full of praise for him. I asked if J actually drew that himself, as he never did that at home. She said yes, and she didn't help him at all.

I didn't know that it was a great leap in development to be able to draw a full circle. She mentioned that he drew very nice circles, cover the full page of the sheet, and at the same time stayed within the frame. She said that this shows that J's brain has developed and that he is now a child, no longer a toddler.

Kumon was developed by a Japanese. Here are some excellent pages from the book which J scribbled:

Updates:

J completed the whole book on 15 March 2012. He was 3 years and 10 days old (3Y10D).

Baby FECS tried this book for the first time today 6 November 2019 (3Y5M15D)

Baby FECS tried it for the first time today 6 November 2019 (3Y5M15D)

6 November 2019 (3Y5M15D): The Danish kindergarten teacher told me today that she was very impressed with C's pencil grib, that she could draw a face with eyes and mouth. It seems that she is one of the few in her group who could draw a face. I didn't dare to tell the her that C does homework almost every evening holding a pencil, as it is frown upon in Denmark to do homework for such young children. So I smiled and thank her very much for the kind feedback.