Sensory phonics activity with the Montessori Sandpaper Letters In my previous blog post, How To Increase Phonemic Awareness With These 4 Sound Games, I talk about the I-Spy Games. Once your child has explored quite a bit with these sound games, it’s time to move on to the sandpaper letters; associating the sounds with the symbols. […]
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The Montessori I-Spy Game for Phonemic Awareness “I-Spy with my little eye, something in Annie’s hands that begins with the sound /n/ – net!” In my previous blog post, Essential Guide To 4 Fun Letter And Sound Activities, the first lesson is I-Spy, a phonemic awareness activity. Studies have shown that phonemic awareness helps prepare
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Montessori Language: exploration of letter and sound In the previous Montessori sequence, we talked about Oral Language with 11 key lessons, such as storytelling, classifying, matching, and rhyming. Now we’re ready to move on to the following sequence in the Montessori language curriculum: Exploration of Letter and Sound. By this time, your child is ready
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Montessori Sequence Story Cards Retelling a story in order is a natural progression in communication for children. Their vocabulary development begins with simple words like “dog” and “cat.” Later, it moves to action phrases or sentences, such as “the dog is sitting on the grass.” But, it seems like a new world opens up when
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Montessori Rhyming Activity It is incredible how rhyming words can help us to remember things. Even grown-ups use silly phrases like “righty tighty, lefty loosey” to figure out how to remove a stubborn tightened screw. Rhymes make it easier for us to remember things because the sound at the end of the line sounds the
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Montessori 3-Part Cards: a vocabulary activity for enrichment As parents, we read books to our children every day as much as we can. We recognize the importance of reading books to enrich vocabulary. Additionally, we can have fantastic conversations and turn them into a fun vocabulary activity to explore topics that interest our children. My
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Montessori Go-Togethers: match things that go together “Why?”….such a simple question with profound depth baffled even the world’s greatest thinkers. But, that little one-syllable word (which can sometimes be irritating) is such an important word for your child’s cognitive development. The next lesson in the language sequence is another matching activity. Matching things that go
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Montessori picture-to-picture matching cards I thought I’d surprise my three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Annie, with a set of dog matching cards for picture matching, our next Montessori activity in the oral language sequence. Annie loves dogs so much. Whenever we go to the playground or go for a walk, and we see a dog, she is so excited to
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The Montessori 3 Period Lesson for Vocabulary Development “Can you put the yellow warbler on my nose?” I said to Annie as we did the 3-period lesson with backyard birds. She thought that was so silly, and we had so much fun while learning the new vocabulary word, yellow warbler! The three-period lesson in Montessori
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Montessori object-to-picture matching activities Last spring and summer, my daughter, Annie, loved to see the flowers outside. She enjoyed helping us to water them every day and watch them grow. Now that it’s spring again, her eyes light up when she sees flowers. Annie is three-and-a-half now, and we have been attending a gardening class
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Montessori object-to-object matching for visual discrimination “This is a penny, this is a quarter, this is a dime, and this is a nickel.” Being able to tell the difference between these coins just by looking at them is an example of visual discrimination. My three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Annie, recently has expressed interest in exploring with her
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A beginning pre-reading activity My three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Annie has been so excited about the book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Lately, she wants me to read it to her each day, and when I hand her the book, she reads it back to me in her own words. I thought it would be a
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Stick labels around the house for print awareness When I was a Montessori teacher, each morning I would get a fresh piece of paper and create a sign for the snack the children were having that day and how much to take. For example, the sign would say: Take: 1 graham cracker 1 scoop of raisins
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Storytelling for kids “The dog ate the cake and got a tummy ache. Then the cat had milk and it was perfect.” Those are the exact words that my three-year-old daughter, Annie, said when describing a scene with little figurines. Has your child ever made up a funny scenario with her toys or from seeing
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A recycled toilet paper roll owl craft In my previous post, Our 8 favorite poetry for children books that make us happy, I talked about the importance of poetry for young children. We discovered so many poems that made us laugh and smile. While going through the poetry books, we came across a classic nursery rhyme,
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Poetry for Children There’s something so magical and intriguing about the musical quality of poetry. When we read a poem out loud that rhymes we notice that our voice has a rhythmic or melodic cadence to it. It’s no wonder that children of preschool age love poetry! Poetry for children is important mainly because of
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Oral language development in young children In my first year as a Montessori teacher, I was a career changer with no previous experience in working with children. I went from sitting in a cubicle all day to working and talking with these little humans. I remember observing oral language development in young children for the
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I just started to write more about peace activities for kids, starting with my previous two posts about the thankful tree and the glitter jar for calmness. In this post, I’ll share a social emotional activity I used to do in the Montessori classroom, the love light. This has been a big part of Montessori Peace Education curriculums
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When I taught kids yoga several years ago I came up with a mindfulness glitter jar recipe I could do with a group of children. It’s super fun and easy to create and offers a quick retreat for children to explore calmness. A glitter jar is also great for stress reduction, as the holiday season
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It’s almost Thanksgiving and I’ve been thinking about a thankful activity I used to do with my preschoolers in the Montessori classroom. We sometimes forget about what it means to be thankful or how to express gratitude day-to-day with our kids. Typically throughout the day we remember to encourage manners and remind our children to
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