Montessori materials DIY

This page is dedicated to my uncle and my aut who really help me a great deal making those beautiful materials. Thanks to their ideas, creativity and genious we can now have those expensive materials made spending pennies!

Thanks also to my mum that bear with my creative impulses, my mess and everything else while staying at her home. Thanks also to my dear friend G. who lend me a great deal of books on Montessori method.


SENSORIAL MATERIALS

boards of rough and smooth



rough gradiation tablets






fabric box 1 (different colours fabrics)




fabric box 2 (same colour fabrics)





long rods





geometric solids





LANGUAGE


sandpaper letters low case and upper case





MATH

number rods





numerals and counters

summer fruits

As soon the sun comes out we go for lovely walks in the meadows and woods. We collect blackberries and flowers.
Here some flower-arrangements M. did.







Those are our tomatoes!

pasta necklace

Here is a nice activity to spend the afternoon.

Get a few different pasta shapes the ones you can put through a string (penne, rigatoni, anellini etc)
a couple of strings
paint and brushes
old paper or card board to put the pasta to dry


1.Put an apron on
2. get your paint and brushes out
3. take one pasta shape and paint it any colour you like



4. put it to dry on the paper
5. do the same for all the other shapes



6. once the pasta is dry put it in a container
7. use it as pearls to make a beautiful and colourful necklace
8. you can then put the pasta back in the container and use it again and again as a practical life activity

practical life exercise

POURING WITH A FUNNEL

a small tea pot or container with a handle half full with water
one or two small plastic bottles
a small funnel
a piece of cloth to dry any spilleage

the child has to pour the water through the funnel, half in a bottle, half in the other without spilling a single drop




PICKING UP SMALL OBJECT WITH TONGS

ice tray
a small container with peables/nuts/pearls any thing small and round, their numbers depends on the number of hole of the ice try (usually 12)
small tongs

the child has to use the tongs to lift a nut from the container and then put it in a hole of the ice tray. Repeat the exercise until all the nuts are in ice tray





FOLDING A NAPKIN AND PUT IT IN A NAPKIN HOLDER

a few napkins
a napkin holder

the child has to fold the napkin into a triangular shape and then put it in the napkin holder. The exercise becomes more difficult when there are many napkins in the napkin holder and he has to try and fit them all in.

hanging the laundry on holiday

M. is always asking if she can help. Now, everything must be at her size and of the right proportion so that she can actually not only learn how to do things safely, but also really help me!
M. has now her own line to hang out the laundry.
The important thing is to explain the child exactly how the laundry must be hung, where the pegs must go on the cloth. The most interesting thing for a child isn't just doing the job, but the details in doing the job. I told M. that the pegs must go on the two corners of the cloth, exactly at the edge,so close to the string but yet whole on the cloth.
This is M. at her first attemp: so precise and so proud!