Montessori Activity: Tracing Chinese Character with Stickers

Age: From 3.5 years old

Objectives:

1. To provide a fun way to teach writing Chinese characters

2. To train the child's fine motor skills

Materials:

1. 1 sheet of stickers

2. 1 Chinese Character written on a piece of paper

3. 1 tray

Directions:

1. Demonstrate to your child how to trace the Chinese character by pasting the stickers.

2. As you paste the stickers, say the stroke of the Chinese character clearly to your child.

3. Invite your child to try.

4. As her to say out loud the stroke of the Chinese character that she is tracing.

Additional Information:

C tried this today 18 November 2019 (3Y6M2D) and really enjoyed it. I think it also helped her to learn to recognize the Chinese character for cow well.

18 Nov 2019 (3Y6M2D)

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 :-)

Montessori Activity: Counting and Numeral Recognition with Stickers

Age: From 3.5 years old

Objectives:
1. To teach counting and numeral recognition in a fun way.
2. To teach the concept of zero in a concrete way.
3. To train fine motor skills.

Materials:
1. 1 counting worksheet (Confessions of a Homeschooler has a fantastic one you can download here)
2. Small stickers
3. 1 tray

Directions:
1. Demonstrate by pasting one sticker on the card called "One" and two stickers on the card called "Two", saying: "Joshua, this is one, it gets one sticker... this is two, it gets two stickers. This is three, how many stickers should it gets?"

2. Next go to the Zero card and ask: "This is zero, how many stickers should it get?" Your child should say none. If he does not say none, you can tell him that it is zero, zero means empty. Thus, it does not get any stickers.

3. Encourage your child to try to do the same for the remaining labels "Three" to "Five".

4. Next lay out the cards from 6 - 10 and count them with your child.

5. Then isolate Card 6 and ask your child to paste them with stickers. Review the answer with him and have him repeat after you saying, "Six".

6. Encourage your child to trace the numeral 6 with pasting stickers as part of hand-writing preparation activity.

7. Depending on your child, continue with Card 7 to Card 10 the following day, isolating Card 7.... then Card 8... so as not to overwhelm the child.

Additional Information:
This is a modern variation of the Montessori Maths activity - The Spindle Box. Kids just love stickers. Thus, any activities with stickers would be a great hit. If you have a boy, you can give him stickers with cars, transportation, dinosaurs, etc. During School Time this evening, Joshua (3Y6M12D) tried this activity and it has engaged his interest. It will create good feelings for School Time for the child. He completed until Card 6.

At this age, you could give your child smaller stickers, which are more challenging to peel and stick, and thus work further on his fine motor skills. I bought my stickers from Tiger or Søstrene Grene from Copenhagen.

We also reviewed the names of the objects on the stickers, and he learned a new word in English and Mandarin today - Submarine.

Apart from this, we also did some homework. Joshua requested an activity that he could use his pencil to draw. Thus, for us montessori manipulative-based activities and Desk Time truly complement each other. For more information about our concept of School Time, read here.

Practising counting by pasting stickers - also trains precision skills and fine motor skills at the same, killing a few "birds" with one stone

The joy of completing a task - a joy to the child.. and mom alike :-)

Tracing Numeral 6 with pasting stickers as part of hand-writing preparation activity

Montessori Activity: Number Recognition with Stickers

Age: From 3 years old

Activity Duration: 5 - 15 minutes

Objective(s):
1. To teach number recognition in a fun way.
2. To train the child's fine motor skills.
3. To teach colours.

Materials:
1. 1 bowl containing stickers of different numbers.
2. 1 tray or mat

Directions:
1. Start from the sticker "1" by peeling the paper and stick it onto the child's note book.
2. Invite your child to look for number "2" and for him to peel the paper and stick onto the note book.
3. Continue with the rest of the number

Cost:
Letter and number stickers: 20 DKK from Tiger

Additional Information:
Joshua (3Y3M18D) tried this activity this evening for about 20 minutes and he enjoyed it. The concentration this activity invites when peeling the numbers and sticking them reinforced the learning of number recognition. He was best with distinguishing between 6 and 9, by turning them around. But it was a challenge for him to look for the numbers inside the bowl though.

It has been a very fun time today, and capture Joshua's attention to focus on the numbers for longer than usual. I hope to buy more stickers and introduce it to our church nursery.

Montessori Activity: Counting Objects with Stickers

Idea from Cherry Blossom Adventures

Age: From 2.5 years old

Objectives: To teach counting objects in a fun way

Materials:
1. 1 counting worksheet (you can draw like I did above or I have created a printable version here)
2. 1 sticker piece

Directions:
1. Demonstrate by pasting one sticker on the label called "One" and two stickers on the label called "Two", saying, "Joshua, this is one, it gets one sticker... this is two, it gets two stickers. This is three, how many stickers should it gets?"

2. Encourage your child to try to do the same for the remaining labels "Three" to "Five".

Additional Information:
I am slowly introducing more Maths and Science elements into the Montessori Practical Life activities, thus I am really delighted to have discovered this idea from Cherry Blossom Adventures. Joshua (2Y7M10D) tried it today. He didn't do it in order, but he seemed to understand the concept. He was more focus in pasting the stickers within the boxes than counting the correct number of stickers to paste. Thus, I will introduce more pasting stickers in the boxes activity until he could do it well and re-introduce this activity later.

References:
http://www.cherryblossomadventures.com/2011/10/03/tot-school-numbers-counting/

Montessori Activity: Pasting Stickers/Påsætning af Klistermærker/贴上贴纸 (Level 2)

 Age: From 2.5 years old (Level 2)

Activity Duration: 5 - 10 minutes

Objectives:
1. To train the child's motor skills.
2. To train the child's hand eye coordination.

Materials:
1. 1 sticker sheet
2. 1 note book or paper with boxes drawn on it or you can print one here
3. 1 tray

Directions:
1. Show the child how to remove the sticker from the sheet and paste it in the box on the sheet or note book one by one.

2. Encourage your child to try.

Additional Information:
After your child had try pasting stickers freely, he may feel bored with this activity. Introduce something new by challenging him to paste the stickers within the boxes drawn. J (2Y7M10D) tried this for the first time this morning. He could do it, but not always so neatly within in the middle of the box.

Montessori Activity: Pasting Stickers/Påsætning af Klistermærker/贴上贴纸 (Level 1)

Age: From 2.5 years old (Level 1)

Activity Duration: 5 - 10 minutes

Objectives:
1. To train the child's motor skills.
2. To train the child's hand eye coordination.

Materials:
1. 1 sticker sheet
2. 1 note book
3. 1 tray

Directions:
1. Show the child how to remove the sticker from the sheet and paste it in a page in the note book.

2. Encourage your child to try.

Additional Information:
Joshua tried this for the first time this evening and he enjoyed it very much. He could transfer and paste the stickers into the notebook, but it wasn't so easy for him. Thus, the challenge was just right. He needed my help to remove the sticker from the sheet. The stickers I have were very small, thus it was more challenging. Using bigger stickers would be easier.

16.8.2011 Updates:
Joshua enjoyed this so much yesterday that he asked to do it again this evening. He continued on until I asked him to stop to take his shower.

15.8.2011 (2Y5M10D)

15.8.2011 (2Y5M10D)

15.8.2011 (2Y5M10D) - A page of stickers pasted by Joshua

Updates:

We had some left-overs stickers that our Little FECS has out-grown. Our Little FECS told me that Baby FECS showed interest in stickers. So we decided to let her try this activity today :-)

She could not peel and paste the stickers by herself, but she enjoyed pointing and choosing the stickers of her choice and seeing us pasting them. I think she got the concept of pasting stickers.

 9 July 2017 (Y1M23D)