Montessori Activity: Letter Rice Tray

Age: From 2 years old.

Activity Duration: 5-10 minutes

Preparation Time: 1 minutes

Objective(s):

1. To develop the child’s five senses.
2. To develop the child's language skill.

Materials:

1. 1 deep baking tray or dish
2. 500g of rice (1/2 packet)

Directions:

1. Write a letter, for example “a” and pronounce its sound.

2. Encourage and let your child try and repeat the sound after you.

Total Cost: Rice: 8 DKK (1.50 SGD) for 1 packet at the supermarket

Additional Information:

You can also use sand for this. For younger toddlers, just allow them to play free “writing” on the rice.

I bought the cheapest pack of rice from Netto supermarket

J Summary (5Y5M20D) - Name Pancake

What to do with the leftover pancake mixture that is not enough to form into a round pancake?

J requested it to be made into his name and we put it in his lunch box to kindergarten.

It is a fun way for younger children to learn or revise their names or letters :-)

Magnetic Mosaic

 

J (5Y1M26D) creating letters or patterns with magnetic mosaic.

Decorating Lunchbox with Letters

Materials:
1. 1 lunch box.
2. Alphabet Cars stickers or the favorite stickers of your child :-)

Directions:
1. Encourage your child to select the letters that form his name from the page of stickers.

2. Once he has found it, request him to say the name and the sound of letter. (For a younger kid trying out this activity, identify the letters for him and say the sound and name of the letter for him.)

3. Ask him to remove it and paste it on his lunchbox, forming his name. If your child is too young, help him with it.

Additional Information:
I bought the Cars stickers from BR, and it cost 25 DKK for quite a few sheets in the packet.

J loves Cars and he requested to change his lunch box to the metal one such as the one below as most of the Danish children carry to kindergarten:

But such a metal lunch box serves some challenges, as Daddy pointed out to me, which I have also noticed, but chose to ignore and gave in to J. Firstly, it is harder to wash and harder to keep clean (I don't know how the Danish moms do it and I salute them!)

Secondly, it is not air-tight and I cannot quite fit in the bento cases (although I should be able to find creative ways around this!)

Thirdly, the fastener isn't very hardy, so it can come off easily. Perhaps the one we found above is of inferior quality (again I don't know how the Danish moms make sure that it will not open accidentally). Perhaps, we have not found a better quality one yet.

So Daddy suggested that we can paste Cars stickers on J's Bento-style lunch box and J agreed to accept it to my great surprise.

So here we are with this activity :-)

Fun with Bread Letters

letter D

J showing letter o that he made

 

Age: From 2 years old

Preparation Time: 5 minutes

Objective(s):
1. To teach letters in a fun way.

Materials:
1. Bread
2. Butter knife

Directions:
1. Cut and shape letters from the bread with hand and butter knife.

2. Show to your child and say its sound and name.

3. Ask your child to repeat after you.

Tips:
1. Show the letter and ask your child what letter it is.

Additional Information:
4.8.2013 - This was J's idea (4Y3M29D). He made an O himself, and said to me, "Mommy, see 'o'." I thought this is a good idea, and made more letters and we practised the letters. J was really thrilled and having a lot of fun. I must remember to repeat this activity again as a way to revise his letters in a fun way.

letter h

letter H

letter n

letter d

letter j

Montessori Activity: Rainbow Name

Age: From 4 years old

Activity Duration: 5-10 minutes

Objective(s):
1. To teach the child to write his own name in a fun way.
2. To provide a varied way to practise letter-writting.

Materials:
1. A few magic pens - those color changing markers are the most fun, that will change colour as white is added on
2. 1 piece of paper with your child's name written on it with a pencil for him to trace.

Directions:
1. You can prepare this beforehand, but you can also write your child's name on the spot with him, as he gets to see how each letter is written.

2. Encourage him to trace each letters a few rounds so that it become very colorful.

Additional Information:
J (4Y0M27D) has started to show some real interest writing his name. I think he got inspired by the children at the church's Sunday School, who are writing their own names. I tried to introduce this activity a few months ago, but he wasn't interested in writing. So I think it is a good time to re-introduce this activity.

Yesterday, J started to write his own name during Sunday School, and really motivated to do so, this time around. However, he got the "s" inverted and has difficulty writting "a". So I think tracing his name will help him get the right practise.

The color changing markers are also available from Amazon:

School Time: Letter "D"

J (3Y10M25D). We matched the "d" mini figurines with the "d" pictures in the flash card:

We picked out the letter "d" magnet and listened to its sound on the Leap Frog Letter Factory

We picked out the letter "d" card from among others

We read the book on "My "d" Sound Box

We matched the "d" figurines from our own "Sound box" with the pictures in the "Sound Box" book:

We counted the number of letter "d" found in the book:

We practiced tracing small letter "d" from the workbook we bought from Singapore:

We practiced tracing capital letter "D" from the workbook we bought from Singapore:

Others:

We did the Addition with Number Rods.

We read an English Bible story.

We revised the Chinese characters for household objects.

We revised the piano letters and did piano finger exercise.

References:

Montessori Activity: Sandpaper Name

Age: From 3 years old

Activity Duration: 5 - 10 minutes

Objectives:
1. To strengthen the child's feel for letters.
2. To teach tracing of the child's name in a fun way.

Materials:
1. 1 piece of sandpaper
2. 1 piece of coloured or black paper.

Directions:
1. Cut the letters in your child's name out of sandpaper.

2. Get him to follow their forms with his fingers.

Additional Information:
I found this idea from the book "Play & Learn: 1001 Fun Activities for Baby and Child". At 3.5 years old, Joshua might be a little too old for this, but I will try it and see how it goes.

Updates 17.9.2012: I tried it this evening, and Joshua wasn't at all thrilled about it. I will put it aside for now. Joshua has never been quite thrilled with all the "Sandpaper" letters that I had made for him since he was a baby. I have to admit - I am not artistic enough nor have the hand skills to make craft. It is a pain for me to do all those crafts. But the strange thing is that he likes the real Montessori Sandpaper Letters:

I contemplated it a lot, before deciding to put purchase the Sandpaper Letters, which arrived yesterday, as it is very expensive. Also I wondered about Maria Montessori's belief that beautiful objects would attract the children, and all Montessori materials are made of wood to perfection and beauty. I was wrong, and Maria Montessori is right. Ok, that means that Joshua didn't think that my "work-of-art" is attractive enough for him. It is made of cheap cardboard instead of wood. But in anyway, I am glad that Joshua is taking to like to real Sandpaper Letters.

If you are good with hand crafts, don't rush to purchase the real Sandpaper Letters just yet. Your child may like what you have made for him/her, and it will be a lot cheaper. All children are different.

Fun with Matching Upper & Lowercase Letters

 

This game is about selling matching letters popsicles

 

Age: From 3 years old

Objectives:
1. To teach letter recognition in a fun way.
2. To train fine motor skills.

 

Materials:

1. Uppercase Alpha Pops in a bowl
2. Lowercase Alpha Pops in a bowl
3. 1 cash register
4. 1 Tray

 

Directions:

1. Call out a letter by saying, “Mommy would like to buy the letter ‘a’ ice-cream."

2. Your child will find the letter in uppercase, and then the letter in lowercase, and snap them together.

3. Ask, “Could you tell me, Joshua, which is big ‘A’ and which is small ‘a’?” and wait for him to answer.

4. Joshua would then scan the ice-cream with his scanner.

5. I will then ask him, “How much is it?”

6. I pay him the money, he press the register and give me the change as well as the ice-cream.

7. Repeat for another letter until you complete all the 26 letters.

 

Additional Information:

Our toy arrived from Amazon yesterday, and we picked it up at the post office after fetching Joshua back from kindergarten. We played this today after dinner and Joshua (3Y5M25D) could now name almost all the letters, except letter ‘r’. He also tended to mix up ‘k’ and ‘x’. He could match both uppercase and lowercase for almost all the letters. This toy is recommended for 2 years old, but it suits Joshua at 3.5 years old, since English is his third language. This toy was fun and challenging enough for him, without frustrating him. The only complaint I have is that there are two letters on each popsicle, one in front and one behind. It would be neater if it has only one letter for each popsicle. Nevertheless, Joshua is having so much fun and is learning the letters, so I could live with this short-coming. In fact, we only did this activity for School Time this evening and nothing else, as he was really enjoying it. We played 3.5 rounds of the full set of letters for 1 hour 15 minutes. I had to stop him so that he could go to bed. He can’t wait to play it again tomorrow. It was Joshua's idea to include the cash register, and I think that pretend play part made it more fun.

I was a little hesitant to buy this toy since it is toy ice-cream - unhealthy food, but was attracted by its concept of matching uppercase and lowercase letter. I was afraid that Joshua would start asking me for ice-cream. However, he did not. In fact, on the way home from kindergarten today, we passed by an ice-cream store, and he said to me, "Mommy, those we cannot eat." I was surprised and asked, "who told you that? Why is it so?" He said that it was me who told him that, and that I told him that ice-cream is unhealthy and no good for the body. I didn't think that he could really take such notice of what I had said sometime ago, but he did. Then he commented that I had allowed him to eat ice-cream some weeks ago, and that I should not have done that. Oops! So I told him that he is right, it is only once in a while that we can eat ice-cream, and that we should not eat ice-cream anymore. Although Joshua sure likes ice-cream, I am glad that he seems to have enough self-control... which took me by surprise for a 3.5 year old. But I will cherish it while it lasts...

P.S. Joshua sure made poor business out of selling popsicles! He gave me the popsicles and also the money. That means that I got popsicles for free and even money for it!!

 

 

You can find it from Amazon. If not, borrowing from this toy concept, you can also make your own toy ice-cream with popsicle stick and cardboard: