Montessori-Inspired Materials at 24 Months

How are we 2 days away from D turning 2 years old?! It seems like just yesterday she was the same size as baby S. Though it makes me sad to see her grow up, I am also so in awe of the little person she is becoming. She is stubborn but sweet, confident but cautious, and focused but oh-so-silly. She has really shone this past month in her new role as big sister. Though she has her moments of feeling jealous or impatient, she clearly adores her baby brother and helping care for him.

Now that we are starting to settle back into a (new) routine with two children, D has been showing a renewed interest in her shelf work. While some of these works are traditional Montessori materials, others I would classify more as Montessori-inspired. :) As per usual, these materials are catering to the types of things D has shown an interest in lately, such as counting, sorting, and (always) open/close. I also try to balance materaisl that I know she can master (color sorting) with challenging ones (geoboard). Here are links and a short description for each material on her shelf right now:

Peg Number Boards - D has taken an interest in counting, mostly “one two three” but has also started differentiating between one and two objects. She can more easily work through the abstract concept of numbers with these concrete pegs and boards. As Maria Montessori said, “What the hand does the mind remembers”. Though this set comes with 10 boards, we are starting with just the first three.

Animal Pattern Blocks - Melissa and Doug always has fun wooden Montessori-ish toys, and this is no exception. I love that these boards come in a pack of ten to keep busy toddlers entertained. As these are fairly simple, I have been putting two boards out at a time, with the matching shapes in a basket for D to match and create patterns with.

Shell Sorting - I love this little sorting tray and have found lots of uses to help D sort by color, shape, and category. As we have been spending a lot of time at the beach, she’s enjoying matching and sorting the types of shells this week.

Bird Color Sorting - Another sorting work, because D, like many toddlers, loves the transferring aspect. As she sorts the birds by color and moves them to their corresponding bowls, she tells me they are “taking naps”. ;) There are so many uses for these little birds, and the set comes with both small and large birds in five different colors. We started with two colors and now sort three or four at a time.

Brown Bear Felt Animals and Felt Board - This felt board has been a big hit at our house, and even more so now with felt animals that go with one of her favorite books, Brown Bear, Brown Bear. She likes to have me read the book aloud as she finds the animals and puts them on the board one at at time, to match the story.

Magna-Tiles - These are a great open-ended activity, and what toddler doesn’t like magnets? This one is still pretty tricky for D to actually construct with, but it’s a fun one for us to work on together to build towers or just stack magnet shapes together. This has been a good activity for teaching cause and effect as well.

Wooden Geoboard - Geoboards are one of those great materials that grows with children and can be fun for years. For D, just stretching the rubber bands to fit on the board is a challenge, but she is very persistent in wanting to do this work. She does ask for my help, and I try to start each one and let her finish. For older toddlers, there are pattern cards to create pictures on the geoboard!

Hide and Seek Activity Board - This has been one of D’s favorites for many months, and though she’s a pro at matching the object to the corresponding door, she still enjoys doing this one on repeat. That opening/closing action just never gets old. :) It has also been fun to see how she engages more with it as her language grows.

Knitted Ball in Drawer - This is from a former Monti Kids subscription box, but she’s rediscovered this one and shown an interest in it again. Getting the knit ball in the hole is still a challenge for her, but once I get it started for her, she loves to push the ball through, open the drawer, close the drawer, and repeat. It fulfills a toddler’s need for repetition and maximum effort, while helping them work through sequences. PS. Use code REALLIFE for $30 off your first box!

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Our Montessori Shelf at 22 Months (and why your toddler may not be interested in toys)

It’s been a few months since I did a “shelfie” post, in part because D has been so absorbed in other activities lately! She spends a good amount of time at home in our kitchen, where she has her own little kitchen and sensory table where she likes to work. She loves to help me cook, and even clean, but also just to pour and transfer back and forth. You’ve probably seen lots of examples of this on our Instagram account! She is also in a big gross motor phase, so we make sure to get out of the house every day to meet her exercise needs. The Pikler and ramp my husband built has also been great, as has the Wheely Bug she still enjoys scooting around the house on. Lastly, but most importantly, is her love of books. She would choose reading books over any other activity, anytime. Needless to say we spend a lot of time snuggled on the couch reading together.

It is pretty normal for toddlers to go through phases of indifference about their toys or their shelf in general. There are many reasons why this can be the case, such as an increased interest in other activities mentioned above, but here are a few more:

• They are hungry/tired - certain times of the day may be better for your toddler than others

• The work is too challenging (gets frustrated easily) or too easy (bored)

• It’s been a while since you’ve rotated toys on the shelf

• There are a lot of distractions around - noises, voices, other things to get into that are “off-limit”

• Needing gross motor outlets - throwing, kicking, running outside

• Level of your engagement - some children work better with you sitting right there, others need a little space and quiet to concentrate

That being said, after a few adjustments on my end, and a good sleep, D always comes back to her shelf and her toys, and your toddler is likely to too. Some days she plays more independently, and others we engage with the toys together. I try not to have expectations and while I may make suggestions or show her a new material, I let her take the lead with her play.

Here is what we have out on D’s shelf right now. We have started to incorporate more open-ended work, as D shows more interest in it. Because I get lots of questions about this topic, I’ll just add that while she is beginning to pretend play e.g. act our real-life scenes from home (e.g. giving her baby doll a bottle) and our experiences together, she does not yet really grasp imaginative play. More abstract imaginative play comes with understanding symbols, and turning one object into another (e.g. a block becomes a car) which typically develops between two and three years old.

• Large wooden building blocks - We got our wooden blocks from Wooden Story but these look great too! She has been enjoying building towers with her blocks for the past few months, mostly just to see how tall she can make it, and then “crash”. :)

• Play scarves - We go to a dance/movement class once a week, and she loves to dance with the scarves there. At home, we put on music and we’ll do the same! We also like to hide her little animals in the scarves, which she finds and then re-wraps in the scarves as a hide-and-seek kind of game.

• Wooden Dress-up Doll - She is pretty interested in clothes right now, as well as her dolls. So this is a nice way for her to both learn about community helpers, talk about items of clothing, and just have fun putting the clothes on and taking them off the wooden magnetic doll. This set came with a ton of outfits/uniforms, but I find it better to put out just a few options at a time.

• Felt board and felt animals - We have read a lot of books and sung a lot of songs about farm animals, so it’s no surprise that she enjoys these felt farm animals and board. She likes to make animal sounds with them, and arrange them in different ways on the board. This will be even more fun for her as her imagination grows.

• Geometric Sorting Board - This is one that still challenges D, but she does pretty well with it when I get it started for her. As pictured, I leave one shape on to start with, and let her fill in the rest. Whether or not she gets every correct hole on the posts, she is learning about shapes, colors, numbers, and building her concentration through this work.

• Fruit and Vegetable Matching Cards - We recently started selling these as part of The Montessori Guide! We hope to make plenty more matching cards in the future. The fruits and vegetables are D’s favorite, as this girl loves to eat. :) We started with matching objects to cards and now she enjoys matching card to card. You can read more about how we introduced language work in this blog post.

• Straws in a Bottle - DIY toys can be the best. I found these fun straws at Target a while back, and found a new use for them with this recycled vanilla extract bottle. She really enjoys the fine motor practice of putting the straws in, pouring them out, as well as opening and closing the cap of the bottle.

• Shape Sorter - This is such a beautiful, handcrafted shape sorter made by Heirloom Kids. I love how there are only 4 shapes so as not to be too overwhelming for a toddler. The sliding door makes it extra fun too. We started this one with only the sphere and cube, and now use all 4 shapes. She finds her own ways to use this material too. ;)

• Matching Color Tablets to Rainbow Flowers Book - One of D’s favorite activiteis lately is matching objects to books. We started this with the Toob insects and Up in the Garden, Down in the Dirt book. This color matching version is our latest, inspired by D’s interest in colors, especially “Blue!”

• Farm Animal Puzzle - D isn’t huge into puzzles, but again, she loves farm animals. I love how realistic the images are on these puzzles. It is definitely a bit more of a challenge because there aren’t photos of the animals under the pieces, so it’s one to work up to if your toddler has mastered simpler wooden ones.

• Mystery Bag - For this activity, I placed several familiar objects (appropriately baby-themed) in a small drawstring bag for her to discover, ideally by touch before sight. She really enjoys reaching in and labeling the objects, and of course using them with her baby doll. This kind of discovery bag is easy to create with whatever objects you have at home!

Note: This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase a product through one of these links, you won’t pay anything extra, but I will get a small commission, which helps keep this blog going. Thanks for supporting Montessori in Real Life!

Introducing New Materials to a Toddler

Just as important as the materials in the Montessori environment is the way in which we present those materials to the child. In an early childhood classroom (age 3-6), Montessori guides use a more formal method for teaching, called the Three Period Lesson. As I explain in my blog post about introducing new vocabulary, we often modify the three period lesson to a two period lesson for toddlers. In introducing new objects and vocabulary to D, I first label each object clearly and slowly. I then ask her (in various ways) to find each object (e.g. Can you put the eagle in the basket?” or “Where is the eagle’s beak?”) Unless I’m sure she knows the word, I do not ask her “What is this?” because it is often difficult and intimidating for newly verbal toddlers to answer, and makes the activity less enjoyable for her. I discuss other language activities in my previous blog post as well.

The three (or two) part lesson works well for some types of materials, such as labeling these forest animal figurines, but not others. With a toddler, lessons often aren’t formal, because they aren’t sitting still for long, and are usually eager to jump into trying it themselves. That being said, there are some general steps I take in introducing a new material, that seem to be fairly consistent across type of activity…

1. Set up the new material on a tray or in a basket so that it’s inviting and “incomplete”, e.g. puzzle pieces are out of puzzle or nesting cups are unstacked. (Or, if practical life, set up at her small kitchen or weaning table).

2. Bring D’s attention to the material. If she’s interested, I slowly model how it works/how it is to be used. (If she’s not interested, I wait for another time.) I use minimal words, so that the focus is on my hands, not my voice. It is difficult for toddlers to process both at the same time. For example, with the shape/color sorter above, I might point to the cylinder in my hand, label it “cylinder”, point to the cylinder inset, trace my hand around the circle of the cylinder and inset, and then slowly place the cylinder in the inset. I might say “The cylinder fits!” I would repeat with the remaining shapes and colors. Now that she can match the shapes, I might point out the size/color difference as well, but there’s no rush on this!

3. I “undo” my work, again slowly, placing each piece back on the tray or in the bakset. I might label with minimal words again, such as noting the color, shape, or a simple action “I put the triangular prism back in the basket!”

4. Once the material is set-up on the tray or in the basket, I give it to D to use and explore. At this point, I don’t interrupt. Sometimes she imitates my actions and is engrossed in the activity, and other times she uses the material in her own way, which is just fine. I let her play with it as she wishes to.

5. If she attempts to imitate the actions she saw me do, but struggles, I wait, and often she self-corrects (see note below regarding control of error). Or, if she signals that she wants help, I do show her again, or help guide her. I only intervene if she asks for me to though. I try to encourage her to figure things out for herself, so that she doesn’t come to rely on me doing things for her. Sometimes this means keeping a little distance while she works. This provides her the opportunity to feel confident and capable in her own abilities.

6. If she completes the work, but mixes pieces up or does it in the wrong order, I don’t fix it for her (unless she asks, as noted above). I let her “complete” the work as she sees fit. When she’s done playing with it, I might model it again correctly another time.

Note: many traditional Montessori materials include a built-in control of error. This means that the materials allow the child to self-correct because they provide instant feedback about whether it is completed correctly or not. A classic example is the knobbed cylinders. If a child places one cylinder in the incorrect place, he will not be able to fit all the cylinders into the block. This will allow him to re-arrange the cylinders in the block to ensure they all fit. This opportunity for self-correction provides toddlers (and older children) independence, curiosity, satisfaction, and confidence in their work.

Note: This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase a product through one of these links, you won’t pay anything extra, but I will get a small commission, which helps keep this blog going. Thanks for supporting Montessori in Real Life!