One of my earliest memories with the children as a new Montessori teacher is exploring with living and non-living.
It was 2007 and I was a Montessori intern at a small one-room Montessori school surrounded by nature. We had a lot of nature-based activities such as gardening and exploring outside.
Instead of spending my day sitting in an office all day like in my previous job, I was on my feet, working with young children and exploring outside in nature a lot. I really got to experience the seasons and the elements.
What I realized at the time was sometimes we forget the wonder and beauty of nature until we see the world through the eyes of a young child.
As a Montessori intern, I had a field consultant come to my classroom three times that year to observe me in my classroom. I remember the first time my field consultant came to observe me in my classroom in 2007, I was giving a lesson to a child on living and non-living.
While giving the lesson, I talked about a few objects with the child, talking about if they are living or non-living and why. After sorting a few more objects together, I stepped back and let him continue sorting the objects independently.
He picked up a seashell, and placed it under “living.” Next, he picked up small stick found in nature and placed it under “living.”
Instead of correcting him, I just observed and let him explore and continue the activity. I realized that I could see how a seashell and a stick seem to be “living” because they come from nature. Also, a seashell was once a part of a small animal, like a mollusk, and a stick used to be a part of a tree.
My field consultant spoke to me afterwards about that moment and applauded me for stepping back and not correcting the child. “This is the heart of Montessori,” she told me, “and you nailed it.”
I’ll never forget those first experiences I had with living and non-living and that conversation I had with my field consultant.
After that, I added a third category to the activity: a question mark “?” to sort objects we aren’t sure if they’re living or non-living
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This is a wonderful post to teach kids about living and non living things and you have provided great hands on activity related to this topic.
This is such a great idea. We’ll definitely try it with cards.
This is so great, I take my 7-months old to nature qalk daily. Couldn’t wait to start with these activities. Thanka for such a nice read.
That’s a wonderful way to teach kids about living and nonliving things. And the sorting cards activity is surely very inspiring method.Thank you so much for sharing 💕
Great read! I have taught preschool and I think this is a really great, informative, helpful article.
This will be very useful to so many parents out there!
I think this is a fantastic activity to do with your child! Such a fun way to make learning interesting and keep their attention.
This is such a creative science activity for preschoolers! I love most all Montessori activities and so do kids!
love this activity. My now teen-daughter loved picking up bugs when she was younger while my now-at-college son enjoyed rocks and pebbles.. so we had a cool interesting mix of things finding their way – living and non-living in our home 🙂
This is so creative. I need to do this activity with my daughter.
What a great activity for the kids to do together. We love working on nature projects outdoors with the kids.
I remember one of the first times one of my kids found a flower (and picked it, oops!!!) and gave it to me to put in my hair. It was such a sweet gesture til I examined it and found tons of teeny bugs crawling inside it. LOL! Then we talked about not picking flowers, because they need to grow and be a home for bugs and bees to pollinate etc etc etc…
Ouch! I say this more often than I probably want to admit in our home. And it’s usually because I stepped on something that my 4-year-old brought inside. He loves collecting nature on our walk to and from school – pine cones, leaves, flower bud, rocks, you name it! I usually throw them out when he forgets about them (which is like a week or two later). I’m so glad I stumble upon this post because you bet I will be doing this fun educational activity with him.
Nice ways to teach about living and non-living , the kids will find it interesting !
These are such great suggestions. We bring the outdoors indoors when decorating for holidays! 🍕🏨👜
These look like great activities and I’m sure my daughter would love them! Thanks for sharing the cards!