Montessori Inspired March Activities for Preschoolers

With Vito’s current obsession with letters, I’m focusing on letter recognition, phonics and writing from hereon.  Our homeschool activities in March are mostly revisiting past activities and doing a lot of extensions. Check the details below to know more about it:

Montessori Inspired February Activities for Preschoolers

Vito is 39 months old.

Thank goodness January is almost over!  I really don’t like January, it’s that time of the year where we get to experience the worst weather condition.  Fortunately, we have fair weather this year, it’s actually warm!  But, I am so looking forward to spring now, and I can’t wait for all these gloomy days to be over.  And speaking of spring, this month, I’ll start adding “spring” activities into our homeschool activities.  We will be using traditional Montessori materials for most part and in some, we’ll have themed activities.  Hope you like what I prepared for Vito for this month.

The Montessori Short Bead Stairs: Learning About Quantity

Vito is 38 months old.
This is a Montessori math activity on teaching the child about quantities from 1 through 9. We’ve worked on this since last year (starting from 1 to 5) and has been doing a lot of extensions.  This is a simple presentation of the work and I’m sharing some of the extensions we’re working on as well.

Montessori Coloured Beads: How We Use It At Home

It’s starting to get chilly in our side of the world and though we prefer walking in the fields and in the forest during this beautiful season, the weather doesn’t seem to be in line with my plans.  So last week, I introduced Vito to the Montessori colored beads which I have for 3 years now.  But the thing about siblings, they just wanted to do what the other is doing.  Mavi insisted that I should give him some work with the beads as well, not just Vito.  In this post, I’m sharing how I made the boys work independently, but still supervising them as they work.

Introducing Montessori Hundred Board for Preschoolers

I know that Montessori math should be introduced later on (language/reading should come first) but with Vito I just couldn’t resist introducing him to some traditional Montessori math materials as early as 35 months old!  You see, currently he just wanted to count.  Whenever we read books, he wanted to count the images first before allowing me to start reading.  If I ask him to make letter sounds, he would say “no, let’s count first” referring to counting the letters in a word rather than reading it.  We’ve done a lot of counting,  but he seems pretty bored lately.

So the other day, I was tidying up my storage shelf and Vito saw our Hundred Board.  He immediately took it out and excitedly said “Oh numbers! Let’s count!” and that’s what we basically did for the past few days. 

October Preschool Math Activities

I am so excited to share with you the fun preschool math activities I prepared for Vito! He saw me printing these materials and he kept on asking if we can play. Of course we did! We started using a few of these materials and will share his progress in the days to come.  For now, allow me to present to you our adorable and cute learning materials for the month of October.

What is Montessori “Cards and Counters”?

Vito is 34 months.

“Cards and Counters” is a Montessori math activity that introduces the child to the units of quantity.  This is to reinforce the sequence in numbers (one to ten) and to give the child a visual experience of quantity.

Vito loves to count.  He counts pictures, objects and anything that interests him. So for his preschool math, I decided to give him a jumpstart on cards and counters. Take a look at the different ways we explore counting using Autumn-themed objects.

Beginning Sounds Through Language Objects

This week, Vito and I are exploring beginning letter sounds through objects we can find at home.  This is very similar to the Alphabet Sort Montessori Inspired activity, but in our case we are not sorting the objects yet.  What Vito and I are doing is to just  name or identify the objects and match them to our control sheet.

Creating Shapes with Geomag

Vito is 29 months old.

Have you heard of Geomag? We have this for years now but kept it because Vito used to mouth things. Now that he’s outgrown that behavior, I finally took it out and since then the boys had been using these magnets to create shapes and structures!

Montessori Decimal System (Base 10) with Golden Beads

It's the time of our 12 Month of Montessori Series, and today I'm sharing with you how Mavi learned the concept of the decimal system and base 10 using the Montessori golden beads materials.  We worked on this when he was about 4yrs old and at times he still wanted to do the complete layout (see the bottom of the post for this).   The aim of studying the decimal system is for the child to understand, organize and  classify the numerical quantities into different hierarchies of units, tens, hundreds and thousands.

One of the best thing about these golden beads material is that it provides a sensorial approach in learning mathematics.  In using the golden beads, a child can easily differentiate a unit from tens, from hundreds and thousands through its depth, weight and quantity.  In effect, there is retention to the concepts because the child can easily visualize the quantity of numbers. 

So without further ado, here’s Mavi’s presentation of how we use the golden beads in learning the decimal system.
Units, Tens, Hundreds, Thousands

Here’s a short presentation which  Mavi and I created on how to use the materials in introducing units, tens, hundreds and thousands.

The Layout

Now for the overall view of the decimal system, combining the number symbols and the quantity, here’s Mavi working on the decimal system layout.  Sorry if he only worked till 4000, as we do not have enough thousand cubes   Enjoy!

This post is part of the 12 Months of Montessori Learning which is hosted by Natural Beach Living and The Natural Homeschool.

Amazing blogs involved in the 12 Months of Montessori Learning

Natural Beach Living ~ The Natural Homeschool ~ Living Montessori Now ~ Planting Peas

The Kavanaugh Report ~ Mama’s Happy Hive ~ Study at Home Mama ~ Child Led Life

The Pinay Homeschooler ~ Every Star Is Different ~ Grace and Green Pastures

Montessori Multiplication Bead Board and Bars

To those who are interested, I recorded Mavi’s work a few weeks ago on Montessori multiplication using the bead board.  We do it occasionally for practice. Whenever he does the bead board, he followed this work with multiplication using the bead bars.  Please use the video below as your reference in case you wanted to try this at home.

Montessori Inspired Clock and Time Activities (with FREE Cards)

A few weeks ago, Mavi brought home some homework about clocks and time reading. I knew then that we should at least have a brief discussion about the clock and telling time as it has been years since we had a clock activity.

Reading and Writing Time

Using my latest clock nomenclature cards and workbooks, we reviewed how to read and write the time, compared the difference between analogue and digital clocks and the relevance of time in our lives.


Clock Nomenclature Cards with Borders are from here. You can get the learning clock from here.

We then moved on to our workbooks for more practice on writing time. Have I mentioned before that Mavi enjoys using workbooks? Oh yes he does!

Learning AM and PM

In addition, I asked him to make a record of his daily routine. Like, what time does he wakes up, eat breakfast, lunch and dinner… till he sleeps. He’s very excited about this! I can’t wait to see that routine record and share it with you.

Other Clock and Time Activities

Click this link for your FREE Simple Hour Clock cards.

Clock Nomenclature Cards

Our next math adventure would be all about clocks and I made these materials for Mavi.  You can have your own copy too! Visit our shop and choose any of these.

Each file has:

• 12 hour clocks
• 12 half past hour clocks
• 12 quarter past clocks
• 12 quarter to clocks

More printable and learning resources from The Pinay Homeschooler Shop!

Summer Math Activities and {Learn & Play Link Up #8}

Welcome to another week of  Learn & Play Link Up!  I know that we are all enjoying summer, savouring the heat and everyone just wanted to play.  But because we are settled in a place where we barely have summer (because it rains all the time here in Ireland!), I made sure that we have activities  indoor to have that summer “feel”. 

For this week in The Pinay Homeschooler, I’m featuring our Summer Themed Grid Number Games.  Mavi and I had a great time playing this while it was gloomy for an entire week! Sure the weather spoilt our plan for outdoor play but our grid game kept us entertained!  To know more about it, click the image below or here.

Now I’m going to feature 4 awesome math post from our beloved readers!

• 25 Math Games for Kids from Study at Home Mama
• Ladybug Love Activities from A Kinder Gartens Vintage Homeschool
• Nautical Math Pack (activities) from Year Round Homeschooling
• DIY Math Peg Board from Child Led Life
• Fraction Activities w/ Printables from Every Star Is Different

Welcome to the Learn & Play Link Party!

Now it’s time for this week’s link party! This is a BRAND new link up for all blog posts that include learn and play activities and hands-on education for kids. We are excited to read your blog posts and to see what you have to share! Please link up below and grab our button to display on your blog.

If you are a blogger, share your family friendly posts here. We are looking for things which include:

• Montessori Education
• Homeschool
• Sensory Play
• Tot and Preschool Trays
• Fine and Gross Motor Activities
• Kids in the Kitchen
• Healthy Recipes for Kids
• Arts and Crafts
• Natural Living
• Free Educational Printables
• Family-Oriented Activities
• Healthy Living

Your post will be featured on each of our blogs where we will pick our favourite posts every other week. That means there is more of a chance that you will be featured!

Everyone, please meet our link party hosts:

Christian Montessori Blog ~ Please visit our CMN FB group ~ Pinterest

Vanessa from Mama’s Happy Hive~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Jennifer from Study at Home Mama~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Marie from Child Led Life~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Jae from Pinay Homeschooler~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Heather from Golden Reflections Blog~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Renae from Every Star is Different~FB~Pinterest

GUIDELINES FOR LINKING

• Please link up 1-3 posts
• Follow each of the hosts on social media
• When you link up, please add our button and place it at the bottom of your shared posts or link back with text link.
• By entering a link, you’re giving us permission to feature an image on our blogs. Proper credit & links will ALWAYS be given.
• Please visit a couple of shared posts and leave a comment for them
• Remember that you must link back in order to be featured

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FREE Fraction Nomenclature Cards

Get your FREE copy of my Fraction Nomenclature Cards.  Don't forget to visit my FREE DOWNLOAD  page for other amazing free printables!

FREE Multiplication Booklets

We are currently using these multiplication booklets with our Montessori Multiplication Bead Board.  There are three booklets:

FREE Subtraction Booklets

I created these booklets a long long time ago when Mavi was just around 4 years old and when he was beginning to learn basic arithmetic.  Unfortunately, I changed laptops so I was not able to share these and thought that I lost my files! Good thing Husband recovered it for me so I’m able to share this with you.

The Montessori Multiplication Board

Spring break has given us enough time to work on our multiplication.  The next thing we did after introducing multiplication using counters was doing the arithmetic using multiplication bead board. 

To know more about these materials and how to use it, here are some resources I collected for you:

• How to use the multiplication bead board (video)
• Multiplication Bead Board Presentation
• Multiplication Bead Board Worksheets
• DIY Multiplication Bead Board

I made multiplication strips for Mavi to work on.  This is similar to the one mentioned in my resources except that I edited the fonts to fit my paper size.

I followed the presentation based on the Info Montessori and demonstrated it on Mavi.  When it’s his time to do the work,  Mavi chose the table of 6 (his age!).  He loved putting the beads in the hole, though at times, it slips through his fingers as they seem to be tiny.  How I wish the beads were a bit bigger!  As he worked on the table, I told him to mark the last count of the beads so he wouldn’t need to count from 1 again. Say, he’s currently at 6 x 4 = 24. So that’s 24 beads already. Moving to 6 x 5, he doesn’t have to count all over again from the first bead.  All he has to do is add 6 to the last count or mark, that is 24.  Bless his heart, he was counting from 1 everytime he moves on to the next multiplier LOL. 

                      

Again, I pointed out that multiplication is adding similar numbers.  So adding a multiplicand to the last count is a much faster way of doing it.

Now, for the work strips, I printed them out and glue them on a yellow cardstock.  Mavi loved how beautiful they turned out.  As an extension, I also showed Mavi how the table of 6 works when laid out using the decanomial beads.   The laying out of beads was a hit! Mavi was hooked.  Too bad though, we didn’t get to finish the work because Vito was already awake and wants attention.  (PS. We don’t do bead works whenever Vito’s around. He still mouths objects)   

Making Montessori Ours has this amazing printable Multiplication Materials Package made out for you. I suggest you check her out as well!

Don’t forget to pin this for later! You don’t want to miss this!

And that’s about it! How wonderful this method of learning is! So hands-on and visual!  We will work on the rest of the multiplication table both in bead board and decanomial beads one at a time. Anyway, this is just to expose Mavi to multiplication.  Once we’re done with all the tables, we’ll start division and it’s going to be even more exciting!

Want to see what other’s are doing?  Check out my Pinterest board for other Math ideas!

Dynamic Addition

Our dynamic addition starts with a brief discussion of what makes a 10 using a unit (1’s), 100 using 10’s and a 1000 using 100’s.  This is a visual presentation of smaller units that we can group together to form a bigger units.  From here, I told Mavi that whenever he encounters this when he plays Stamp Game, all he needed to do was to “substitute” the group with a bigger value. 

 

 

The concept of dynamic addition in Montessori is the same whether you use golden beads, stamp game or bead frame.  Here’s how we do it:

• [Top left photo] Mavi would take out a strip of paper with a written equation and copies it in our booklet.  [Top left photo]
• [Top right photo] He would layout all the stamps according to the equation.  Then perform the addition by combining the two sets. See our Static Addition for this.
• [Lower left photo]  Count the stamps starting from the unit’s place value. He counted 13 units, grouped the 10 units (green) and replaced it with a 10 (blue).  As you can see, he was confused at first he put the 10 (blue) in the units area.  This I emphasized that he has to place it on the correct area in the place value mat.
• [Top right photo]  He recorded the sum after he worked on the tens and hundreds, applying the same concept of regrouping.

Note:  Mavi has memorized a lot of number pair in addition.  Most of the time he doesn’t use the stamps or beads, he automatically do the addition work.  Sometimes he would start on the thousands going down to the units. I have to explain that he always need to start from the smallest unit.  This is because he will produce an incorrect sum once the equation is dynamic.  That is the number changes (addends) because of the regrouping.  And he understood this somehow when finished a few equation strips.

Well, that’s all for dynamic addition for now.  This is just an introductory to my 6 years old.  We’ll practice more of this next year. 

Montessori Inspired Skip Counting

I wonder how you teach kids to skip count?  When I was younger this was one of the thing that I despise the most. Why? Because basically they just want us to memorise it.  With the available resources now, I want my boys to love skip counting…. as I always tell Mavi, you will use this technique all the time for the rest of your life :)

We had a few practice on this but I never had a the chance to come up with a serious unit or lesson for this.  Now he’s a bit older to understand and appreciate, I decided to come up with sheets to get him into the skip counting thingy.

First I created the hundred sheets, and discuss the concept about skip counting (by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s).  I cross-out the count in our sheets and made him mark it using our Do-a-Dot markers.

“Look Mom! It has a pattern!”

Now using these visuals, we put it into action using our decanomial beads and hundred board number tiles (both Montessori Math materials from Absorbent Minds UK).

Here we have the counting by 5’s. 

 

And I compared it to the counting by 10’s. 

And his least favourite skip counting is by 2’s (because it takes a long time to read 10, he said LOL).

Now well be practicing this for the entire week.  I’m coming up with materials so we can use the concept using non-Montessori materials.  I’ll be sharing it with you so watch out for it.

 

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