Why Montessori Geography?
While exploring with sea turtle activities last week, such as the hands-on sea turtle beach with sand and water, I thought about Montessori Geography activities I did in the classroom when I was a teacher.
My daughter, Annie, is turning three and it’s the beginning of a fresh new school year. I realized it’s the perfect time to introduce beginning Geography activities.
When I was a Montessori teacher trainer, one of the classes I taught the teachers was Montessori Geography for Early Childhood. I went through my notes, manuals, and books, and came across the beginning activities of land, air, and water.
In reading my notes, I was inspired to introduce beginning Geography activities to Annie.
Some of the objectives for introducing Geography to young children that jumped out at me include to:
- awaken the child’s natural interests in the world around her
- develop the child’s curiosity and investigation within her
- become sensitive to the relationships and differences of all peoples
- be aware of the separation of the world into land, air, and water
- prepare for later work with maps and geographic concepts
Note: to download the land, air, and water printables, scroll down to the end of this post to sign up and get access the resource library.
How do you introduce Montessori Geography to preschoolers?
When working with young children of this age, we want to work with hands-on or “concrete” first. I explain this in more detail in my blog post, Montessori 3-Part Cards and Language Development: First, Get Your Hands Dirty!
The first lessons in Montessori Geography for Early childhood is the sandpaper globe and exploration with land, air, and water. I didn’t get a Montessori sandpaper globe for Annie. They are expensive and we would probably use it once or twice and that would be the end of it.
Instead, I decided to start with going outside in our backyard. We talked about the earth, the land, the sky, the air around us, and water; like rain. I talk more about our globe activity below.
Collect land, air, and water in your backyard
Have fun with this and have a nature conversation with your child. For example, first explain that we live on the Earth. The Earth is made up of land, air, and water:
- We walk on the land, the hills, the mountains, the playground and animals also walk on the land.
- The air is all around us; we breath the air and the birds fly in the air.
- Water comes from the rain, and the water is in rivers, lakes, streams, ponds, and the ocean. We drink fresh water and some animals like fish and whales live in the water.
I also brought three empty small mason jars outside with us. Annie collected dirt, water and air from outside. She had so much fun doing this!
This Montessori Geography activity is a great way for your child to experience where land, air, and water comes from in a hands-on way. You’re also exploring in your special environment in your geographical location.
I filled up her watering can with the hose, but I realized it would have been even better if we collected rain water in her watering can, if it had recently rained. This is just something to keep in mind!
We now had a land jar, a water jar and an air jar to represent land, air, and water for more hands-on activities at a later time while indoors.
Land, Air, and Water Activities
Now that we had our land, air, and water jars, it was time to explore with some activities. The first thing you could do with them is make labels that say land, air, and water to label the jars.
You can place the jars with labels in a basket for your child to explore. I used small mason jars but you could use baby food jars or small plastic containers with a lid. Make sure the lid is tightly closed. You may want to add a little bit of glue in the lid if you want to make sure they don’t get opened.
Land, air, and water sorting animal figures
Look around your home for toys and figures of animals or vehicles that can live or move on land, air, or water. You can put all of the objects in a basket and sort them under the land, air and water jars.
Above, I have a collection of animals to sort from various Safari Ltd. Toobs that contain different animal collections. I have about 6-8 animals each. You can start with the Nature Toob, the Coral Reef Toob, and the Backyard Birds Toob. You can also look into the land, air, and water vehicle toobs.
Check out Part 2 of this post. I created a Land, Air, and Water activity for the transportation vehicles! You can download the printables I made:
Note: to download the land, air, and water printables, scroll down to the end of this post to sign up and get access the resource library.
Land, air, and water sorting cards
You can also collect pictures of scenes that highlight natural aspects of land, air and water on the Earth. I made land, air and water cards with photos of natural scenes for a sorting activity. Some of the photos had animals or vehicles.
You can search online and print out photos to do this activity. You can also download the cards and land, air, and water labels that I made, below. Scroll down to the bottom of this post to sign up and get access to the resource library to download them.
Note: I printed out the cards on card stock, and then mounted them on colored card stock with a glue stick: brown for land, off-white for air, and blue for water. The colored background is a control of error which makes the activity self-correcting, rather than the adult correcting the child.
Note: to download the land, air, and water printables, scroll down to the end of this post to sign up and get access the resource library.
Land, air, and water mat: animal sorting
This is a beautiful and fun work for young children! When I was a teacher in the Montessori classroom, this activity was a big hit! But we used a pre-made land, air, and water mat from Waseca Biomes. All of their materials are gorgeous but very expensive.
Instead of buying a mat, I made this inexpensive mat quickly with felt and Aleene’s Felt & Foam tacky glue I bought from my local craft store (Michaels). I got a large light blue piece of felt for the sky – and the whole background/base of the mat (one dollar), and small pieces of felt in medium blue, medium green, dark green, brown, yellow, and white (fifty cents each).
I used crayola markers to sketch the pieces on the felt. Then, I cut them out and glued the felt pieces together with the tacky glue. I let it dry for an hour. It was so quick and easy and it came out beautiful! Annie loves this this land, air, and water mat and she’s been taking it out often.
Tip: If you don’t want to make a mat, use colored construction paper. You can just get brown (for land), white (for air) and blue (for water) construction paper, and sort the animals on top of the colored construction paper.
Land, air, and water: play dough globe
As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, one of the beginning activities for Montessori Geography is the sandpaper globe. But they are expensive and we would probably wouldn’t use it often.
The sandpaper globe is a sensorial material where your child touches the rough sandpaper brown continents and the smooth and shiny blue painted water. It’s a beautiful lesson, and it’s up to you if you want to get one for your child. But for at-home use, you can skip this one, if you prefer.
You could also make your own sandpaper globe DIY, which I’ve seen. If you already have a regular globe, you could cut out the continent shapes out of sandpaper and glue them to the globe.
Our play dough globe activity
I will get a regular globe and/or a Montessori Geography colored continent globe eventually because we would get more use out of them. But for now, I thought of ideas to have Annie explore with a model of Earth with what we already had at home.
We made a little globe out of blue, green and white play dough. I know that it’s not the same as the Montessori sandpaper globe; the smooth blue part of the globe represents water and the rough brown sandpaper continents represent the land.
But, making a globe together out of play dough is a fun hands-on activity to do with your child. While making the play dough globe, you can say:
- This is a globe. It is a model of planet Earth, where we live. Our real Earth is much larger than this globe.
- This is the water, this is the land. The Earth is covered in land and water and also the air that we breathe.
Concluding Thoughts
Montessori Geography is a wonderful subject to incorporate in your home with your little one. Children of this age naturally love to explore the world around them. Even if you don’t want to make DIY materials at home, go outside together and explore the land, air, and water you see!
That connection with the Earth is so important, not just from an elemental point of view. Learning that we share one planet can impress those feelings of caring for the planet and understanding different cultures as well.
When you go out in nature with your child, explore what makes your environment special and how it connects to the whole planet Earth. What did you discover?
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Thanks for sharing!
My children would love it! What awonderful activity, thank you for sharing it.
Hi Maria!
I’m so glad you enjoyed the Montessori Land, Air, and Water lesson!
I love environmental education in general and this is a wonderful activity to share with kids. What a great idea!
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I love the tactile activities of sorting the animals to where they belong!!! Will definitely be trying this!
This is so cute! Thanks for sharing.
I love all the ways you’ve shown how to explore geography and land, air, and water with our littles! Great activities!
Interesting activities. Thanks for sharing!
Wow such a fun and educational idea!
These are such great tips! I love this playful activity lesson!
Obsessed with this geography unit. I’ll definitely girly be incorporating it in my daughters learning.
My two year old toddler is into digging dirt and exploring nature. I might as well let him do this. He will absolutely love the idea.
Dana, you make learning so much fun and absolutely a breeze. Kids definitely learn through play and this is such a creative way to introduce little ones to geography and help them appreciate nature.
I love this. My daughter would love how interactive this is too.
My four year old would love these activities. She’s very into science based activities. I’m excited to try these out.
My 2 year old would love these activities. She’s definitely different from my other two, she’s into the environment and animals, more science involved activities. I’m excited to share these during our learning time.
These activities are right up my 2 year old’s alley! We have a lot of toy animals. I’m inspired to make the mat now!