Montessori Activity: Cutting Magazine Pictures with Scissors/Skæring med Saks/使用剪刀 [shǐ yòng jiǎn dāo]

Idea from my neighbour Yang Li

Age: 2.5 years old

Activity Duration: 5-15 minutes

Objective(s): To train the child’s fine motor skills

Materials:

1. 1 pair of scissors for kids
2. 3-4 pages of magazines with pictures of food, household items, etc.
3. 1 basket to put the cut pictures (optional)
4. 1 tray

Directions:

1. Demonstrate to your child by cutting the out the pictures on a page with the scissors slowly one by one.
2. Then assist your child to hold the scissors with thumb and fingers in the handle himself and have him practice opening and closing the scissors.
3. Hand your child a page from the magazine and encourage him to try cutting.

Additional Information:

J is starting to be bored with cutting papers with scissors, although his scissors skills can still be improved. Thus, I have replaced the papers with pictures from the magazines, so as to bring back some some novelty to this "old" activity. Of course, at this age, don't expect your child to be able to cut out the pictures perfectly, so long as he is having fun.

Updates 10.9.2011 (2Y6M5D):

J asked to cut with scissors today and he worked on this cutting activity for 30 minutes this morning - the longest ever. As he gets older, he has more concentration and spend a longer period of time on an activity, practicing and practicing and practicing, repeating and repeating and repeating, which was really nice.

On a busy day, when I am not so prepared with activities, instead of having to spend time drawing lines for him to cut, it is very easy to just pass him some pages of the advertising papers and scissors. One can't be a perfectionist with Montessori activity, especially for a working mom like me.

Daddy FECS was cutting J hair, while J was cutting the magazine, while sitting on the potty, while mommy got to do other things like blogging... killing 4 birds with 1 stone. One of our best attempts at multi-tasking thus far, but it gets easier with J getting older (2.5 years old) and able to do more things by himself.

Montessori Activity: Transferring Marbles with Tongs

Age: From 2 years old

Activity Duration: 5-15 minutes

Preparation Time: 3 minutes

Objectives:

1. To train the child’s fine motor skills.
2. To teach the concept of squeeze and release.
3. To teach the names of different colours.
4. To teach counting.

Materials:

1. 1 water-colour pallet
2. Approx. 5 - 7 marbles (keep it simple, not too many)
3. 1 small container
4. 1 pair of tongs
5. 1 Tray

Directions:

1. Put the marbles on the pallet's slots and transfer it into a container with tongs.

2. Transfer the marbles back to the pallet one-by-one with the tongs.

3. Encourage your child to try.

Additional Information:

J (2Y5M17D) tried this activity today and he could do it well without much struggle. Then he got bored with it :-(

Montessori Activity: Mixing Colours with Syringe

Idea from Veronika

Age: From 2.5 years old

Activity Duration: 5 - 15 minutes

Preparation Time: 5 minutes

Objectives:
1. To teach colours.
2. To train the child's fine motor skills.

Materials:
1. 1 syringe
2. 2 transparent glasses or bowls filled with water and 2 different food colouring (I use blue and red here)
3. 1 transparent empty glass or bowl
4. 1 syringe without needle

Directions:
1. Show your child how to suck up the blue colour water with the syringe, by saying "pull the syringe up".
2. Show your child how to release the blue water in the syringe into the empty glass by saying "push the syringe down".
3. Do the same to the red colour water.
4. Encourage your child to try.

Video Demonstration:

Additional Information:
This is my colleague, Veronika's fantastic idea. Joshua (2Y5M16D) tried this activity today. He really enjoyed it. I am definitely going to repeat this with different colour.

Montessori Activity: The "Pink Tower"

Age: From 2.5 years old (Level 2)

Activity Duration: 5 - 15 minutes

Objective(s):
1. To teach the concept of big to small.
2. To learn the skills of stacking blocks

Materials:
1. The Montessori Pink Tower or the nesting boxes
2. 2 mats
3 Some animal figures (optional)

Presentation:
1. Place the boxes randomly on a mat.
2. Place another mat across the room.
3. Show your child how to stack the boxes from big to small vertically into a tower by bringing the boxes one-by-one at a time to the other mat.
4. Dismantle the tower and place the boxes randomly on the mat.
5. Invite your child to try to build the pink tower on the other mat.

Video Demonstration:

https://youtu.be/3Wfo28SvgLg

https://youtu.be/PccJvhRZXr0

Tips:

1. You can also arrange the boxes horizontally like a stair on the floor.
2. You can turn the boxes as shown in the pictures to play as home for animal figurines or matching the animal figurines with the pictures on the boxes.

Additional Information:
J has never been very fond of our "pink tower". I saw in a blog of stacking it this way and letting the animal figures into it. And J loved it. He (2Y5M14D) played with it for the longest time ever (his longest time is still very short, about 10 minutes) on 19.8.2011!

References:
http://www.montessorialbum.com/montessori/index.php?title=Pink_Tower
http://www.infomontessori.com/sensorial/visual-sense-pink-tower.htm

19.8.2011 (2Y5M14D) - J stacking the boxes

Moo moo moo... here comes the cow... to home to home... to home sweet home :-)

Montessori Activities: Opening Sliding Lids

Age: 2.5 years old

Activity Duration: 5 - 15 minutes

Objective(s):

1. To train the child's fine motor skills.

Materials:

1. 1 box with a sliding lid containing some small toys inside (to entice the child to open the box)
2. 1 tray

Directions:

1. Demonstrate by sliding open the lid.
2. Then slide close the lid.
3. Encourage your child to try.

Additional Information:

J (2Y5M16D) tried this activity this morning. He struggled a little, but was very motivated. He could open and close the lids several times successfully.

Montessori Activity: Stamping

Inspired by 1plus1plus1equals1

Age: From 1.5 years old

Activity Duration: 5 - 15 minutes

Objective(s):
1. To train the child's fine motor skills.
2. To teach the concept of stamping - pressure of pressing and release
3. To teach colours

Materials:
1. 1 stamping set
2. 1 paper

Directions:
1. Demonstrate by taking the stamp, dipping it into the ink pad and stamping it on a paper.

2. Encourage your child to try.

Cost: Stamping set: 20 DKK (3.90 USD or 4.70 SGD) from Tiger

Additional Information:
I am running out of activities to do for Joshua. Thus, I am very glad to find this. Joshua (2Y5M16D) tried it this morning. He had quite some fun, though it is not his favourite.

References:
http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/2011/08/tot-school-letter-oo-part-2.html

Montessori Activity: Cleaning Plant

Inspired by Mommy Moment

Age: From 2.5 years old

Activity Duration: 5 - 15 minutes

Objective(s):

1. To train the child's fine motor skills.
2. To train the child's patience at cleaning the plant.
3. To train the child's caringness towards plant.

Materials:

1. A handful of cotton buds (I use facial cotton pieces here, as this is these are the only ones I have at home)
2. 1 small dish with water
3. 1 tray
4. 1 plant with sturdy leaves

Directions:

1. Demonstrate by dipping the cotton bud into the dish of water to make it wet.
2. Then wipe a leave of the plant from beginning to the end.
3. Encourage your child to try.

Additional Information:

I find Montessori cleaning activities the most challenging. I am ashamed to admit that I am not very good with cleaning, and have never done lift a finger to clean as a child. This is very common in Chinese family, as the children are just expected to excel in studies. But for my case, it is because my mother told me that girls have to learn to clean, and boys do not. Thus, I rebelled.

As such, Montessori activity is really good for me too, as it gives me a chance to learn in a very simple and basic way, and in this case how to clean a plant. Yes, in the department of cleaning, I am starting at the same level as J, as a 2.5 years old, which is a very humbling experience, which I don't want J to go through at the age of an adult. Yes, he is a boy, and no, I don't have the traditional Chinese mentality here. I think he should learn to clean, even if he is a boy. I am very grateful to all the Montessori mothers out there, who shared all the cleaning lessons on their blogs. It has been very educational for me.

References:
http://www.mommymoment.ca/2011/02/plant-care-for-tiny-green-thumbs.html

Montessori Activity: Zipping & Unzipping Zip-Lock Bag

Age: From 1.5 year old

Activity Duration: 3 - 5 minutes

Materials:

1. 1 zip-lock bag filled with 1 or 2 toys
2. 1 tray

Directions:

1. Show your child how to open the zip-lock bag by unzipping it.

2. Then Show your child how to close the zip-lock bag by zipping it.

3. Encourage your child to try.

Additional Information:

My Biotherm free sample bag sitting in the bathroom cabinet is screaming out: "Montessori - use me, use me!"  today, so I thought of this little activity. I put into the bag 2 matchbox toy cars. I think Joshua is a little too old for this, but no harm for him to practise opening zip-lock bag. You can also use food zip lock bag. Joshua tried it on 25.8.2011 (2Y5M15D) and he could open and close the zip lock bag. Then he spoilt the zip.

Montessori Activity: Matching Family of Farm Animals

Inspired by My Montessori Moments

Age: From 2.5 years old

Activity Duration: 5 - 15 minutes

Materials:
1. Farm animals printables from My Montessori Moments

Directions:
1. Show your child by putting a family set of animals, for example, the Daddy Bull, Mommy Cow and Baby Calf on the table.

2. Match it by picking the correct individual family member from the stack of individual animal cards and match with the family card.

3. Encourage your child to try with another set of family members.

Additional Information:
This is a fantastic activity. I saw it from Lori of My Montessori Moments and love it straight away. Joshua tried this some time ago, but wasn't interested. However, on 19.8.2011 (2Y5M19D) he picked this activity himself and successfully matched all the animals.

References:
http://mymontessorimoments.com/2011/01/28/farm-animal-families/

Montessori Activity: Eating with Chopsticks for Toddlers

Age: From 2 years old

Materials:
1. 1 pair of chopsticks
2. 1 bowl of pasta, noodles or sushi

Directions:
1. Show your child how to pick up the food with chopsticks
2. Encourage your child to try.

Video Demonstration by Joshua:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7zOKoxz3OE

Tips:
1. Start with serving European pasta as it is easier to pick up than Chinese noodles or rice noodles, which is very slippery.

2. If serving sushi, serve those small maki that is smaller and easier to pick up.

3. Buy both right-handed and left-handed sushi to train the right and left brain.

4. To encourage your child to use it, buy an extra pair of the training chopsticks for yourself too and use it together. Joshua usually likes to imitate me. Initially he refused to use these chopsticks, but he saw me using them and wanted to be like mommy :-) Now he asks for them himself, without me suggesting :-)

Additional Information:
On the way back from the daycare, we passed by our favourite sushi restaurant, Aji (http://www.aji.dk/). Joshua asked to buy sushi for dinner. He had been asking me to buy sushi yesterday and this morning, and I unfortunately gave in to his pestering. Joshua (2Y5M14D) ate all the 8 salmon sushi maki using the training chopsticks this evening.

For those who live near Lyngby, I highly recommend Aji restaurant. They have eat-all-you-want sushi buffet for only 98 DKK (inclusive of all taxes excluding drinks) on Sunday for lunch from 12 - 4pm.

I wrote a post on The Importance of Teaching Your Child to Use Chopsticks.

18.8.2011 (2Y5M14D) - Joshua eating salmon sushi maki from Aji with training chopsticks

2 July 2011 (2Y3M28D) - First real practice with chopsticks... pretty good :-)

Montessori Activity: Inserting Key/Indsættelse af Nøgle/插钥匙

Age: From 2 years old

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 lock
2. 1 key
3. 1 tray

Directions:

1. Show the child how to insert the key into the lock and turn the key to unlock the lock.

2. Encourage your child to try.

Video Demonstration by Joshua:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeG8VEpVSXc

Additional Information:

J (2Y5M12D) tried this for the first time today, and he could do it without any struggle at all. He really enjoyed it, but it was very easy for him, not much challenge. I don't think I will be repeating this anytime soon. I think this activity would be for younger toddlers from age 2.

9 November 2019 (3Y5M23D): Baby FECS tried this activity for the first time today, and she could do it, albeit, not as professional as J previously.

J Summary (2Y5M12D) - Could Recognize His Own Name

Daddy told me today that he noticed that J picked out his own comforter with his name tag on from a pile of comforters at the daycare. So he asked the teacher if J could recognize his own name. The teacher said she did not think so, but that she thought that it was most likely that J could recognize the colour code. She told us that the mattress and the comforter for each child is colour-coded. J has been allocated a green mattress that goes with a green comforter with his name on.

This evening, we tested on J by writing 4 names including J's name on each piece of toilet paper. We shuffere the names around and asked J to picked out the piece of toilet paper with his name on it. We did this 4 times, and each time we shuffled the papers. J picked out his names correctly for all 4 times. J indeed recognize that this combination of letters spells his name.

Today, we played with alphabet bricks and J pointed to the letter C and says "cat" in Mandarin.

Fishing ABCs with Jar Lids

Age: From 2 years old.

Activity Duration: 5-15 minutes

Preparation Time: 5 minutes

Objective(s): To train the child’s hand-eye coordination skill

Materials:
1. 1 toy fishing rod
2. Jar lids written with a,b,c...
3. 1 bowl to contain the fished jar lids
4. 1 basin containing water
5. 1 tray

Directions:
1. Call out a letter and demonstrate to your child by fishing the letter with the fishing rod.

2. Call out another letter and let your child try to fish for the letter.

Cost:
Plastic fishes: 20 DKK (4.80 SGD or 3.80 USD) at Chao Chao at Lyngy Station

Additional Information:
I got this idea from seeing a toddler playing with the toy sold in Amazon (see below). Instead of buying from Amazon which cost 50 USD, it is much cheaper to make it myself. Joshua tried this today, but he quickly asked for the fishes. I think I will draw some pictures of fishes on the lids, when I have some time.

J Summary (2Y5M11D) - Likes the Foam Books with Bible Stories

Language Development

J said "Jeg laver mad til hunden" today, meaning I am making food for the dog. He is still playing alot with his play kitchen. It is really worth every penny, his play kitchen set. The good thing is that we bought it from the flea market.

He likes to repeat what we say to him in English, but he still cannot answer us in English. He continue to speak to me in Mandarin, which makes me glad. I hope this will continue to last, although we are gearing up on the English.

He is slowly better in saying 1-10 in English, but missing out the six and eight. He could count at least 3 objects, sometimes 5, but still not more than 7 objects.

He can say A, B, C and D and loves the fish ABC song and the aaaa apple song I learned from youtube. He can say aaa apple by his own iniative, but all the others, he would only repeat after me.

Toys

J seems to be starting to like jigsaw puzzles now and seems to have more patience for them. This evening, he completed 4 boxes (the very easy ones like matching the animals with their homes, matching opposites, matching the animals and their food and matching the animals' head with their bodies.)

He is very fond of books and can be read to for a long period of time. He still doesn't like to be read the Children Bible stories. He prefers Chinese books to English books. He still loves to sing, so I sing to him Christian Chinese songs. He was very interested in Tang dynasty books last week. At almost 2.5 years old now, he started liking the foam books on Bible stories. We would count the number of sheeps in the story.

Food

After a long fussy period of only wanting to eat oatmeal and nothing else, J starting to like to eat banana and cooked carrots again. Last Thursday, he even ate a raw baby carrot at Anna's place. He also still enjoys eating rice noodles. He loves fresh squeezed orange juice again, but he is still not keen of vegetables. He is also willing to eat chicken again, if it is tender. He is now starting to eat the wholemeal pita bread again, and he also a little more willing to eat his Danish rye bread for lunch. He still does not like rice, which he used to love. But things seem to be better now than for the last 2 months, when I just wanted to tear my hair out trying to find food he is willing to eat.

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)

Montessori Acitivity: Sweeping with Brush & Dustpan

Age: From 2.5 years old

Activity Duration: 5-10 minutes

Objectives:

1. To train fine motor skills to swipe into a designated area.
2. To teach shape.
3. To teach the concept of inside and outside of the line.

Materials:

1. 1 small brush
2. 1 small dustpan
3. 1 small container of oatmeal
4. 1 tray taped and drawn with a rectangle in the middle

Directions:

1. Pour the oatmeal on the tray randomly outside of the rectangle.
2. Show your child how to sweep the oatmeal into the middle and say "all the oatmeal is now inside the rectangle.
3. Show your child how to sweep the oatmeal inside the rectangle into the dustpan.
4. Repeat by pouring the oatmeal on the tray again and ask your child to try to sweep it into the middle.

Tips:
1. You can also tape a circle or triangle shape in the middle for variety.

Additional Information:

Before introducing the Toddler's Cleaning Kit, it is good to first let the toddler try this sweeping activity. J (2Y5M8D) can't sweep the oatmeal into the rectangle yet. He swept it all over the tray, and sometimes on the floor. But I told him that he should try to swipe within the tray. He then tried to sweep the oatmeal into the dustpan, which he did pretty well.