Montessori materials
are lovely, high-quality manipulatives and learning tools for young children; however, these can be quite costly. Many Montessori materials can be made at home with minimal effort. These items can then be used in the home, the preschool or kindergarten, or early elementary classrooms. Some homemade Montessori materials can simply be assembled using ordinary household supplies, while others may require a craftier touch.
Practical Skills
Many Montessori materials are focused on teaching children independent life skills. For very young children, these materials may include droppers or basters, cups and pitchers, brooms and dustpans, dressing frames, and color sorters. Fortunately, you can make many of these materials. Offer up a variety of colored buttons or paint chips with a sectioned and painted muffin tin or deviled egg container to create a simple and affordable color sorter for your Montessori students. A small-scale pitcher and cups with water or food coloring tinted water can provide pouring practice. Droppers and basters with cups of colored water offer lessons in colors and work with fine motor skills.
Reading, Writing and Letters
When it is time for your little one to learn his letters, use fine-grit sandpaper and cardstock to make sandpaper letters. Cut letter shapes from cardstock and fine-grit sandpaper. Glue together and allow your child to trace each letter with her fingers. Labels around the home and picture and word cards are excellent ways to expand your child's understanding of nouns. You can make your own picture cards, printing them online or using magazine images to add pictures to your cards. More advanced Montessori students may find sets of grammar boxes helpful. Each box holds examples of a part of speech, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, conjunctions and prepositions. The child can then assemble sentences from these components.
Math and Numbers
Sandpaper numbers can be made at home to teach young children number recognition. Older children often enjoy the wide variety of math manipulatives used in Montessori education, and many of these can be made at home. Number cards, ten and teen boards, and basic math charts are all good additions to the Montessori home or classroom. Geometry is a significant focus for Montessori students. You can make your own geometry Montessori materials with fun foam, cardstock or even balsa wood. Construction triangles are one of the easiest Montessori learning tools to make and are quite useful when teaching about shapes and geometry.
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