Best Toys for Toddler 1-3 Years Old

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I finally finished the list of our top favourite toys.  Hope you will find this helpful if you're looking for some valuable insights on what toys and learning materials to get your little ones.  We own most of the materials on the list here, so these are tried and tested, are frequently used by Max.

Montessori Friendly Toys for 9 Months Old

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Max is turning 10 months old in the next few days, and I'm sharing the developmental toys he loves at 9 months.

  

Oceania/Australia in a Nutshell - New Edition

After 5 years, I am finally publishing an updated version of our OCEANIA/AUSTRALIA IN A NUTSHELL.  This is a COMPLETE and COMPREHENSIVE learning material of everything you needed to know about OCEANIA continent countries.  You will find that this pack has a variety of reading materials suited for kids of all ages, and includes tons of extension activities.  This is perfect for Montessori school and homeschool settings and would work well in your continent studies or geography units.

Oceania Australia Animals Math Packet

This math learning resource set is a perfect companion to our OCEANIA ANIMALS 3 PART CARDS AND OCEANIA ANIMALS LITERACY PACKET. This pack contains 12 different sets of math printable activities designed for preschool through kindergarten. You can introduce each set in any order depending on the child's capacity to learn and interest. This is a high quality material made with attention to detail and contains beautiful illustrations.

Montessori Golden Beads Bank Game

Vito currently loves using our Golden Beads material.  We are done with presentation of materials and have worked the layout (Montessori Decimal System with Golden Beads) as well (we will do this again) and now he enjoys playing the Bank Game.

Real Life 3D Activity Cards

As an extension work for our Montessori Solids and real life 2D Shapes activities, Vito and I had fun working on our 3D real life activity cards weeks ago.  We used our geometric solids so Vito can have a real understanding of what these objects look and feel like.  To know more about these solids, I talked about it here.  If these are not available, Amazon carries Learning Resources 3D materials which are perfect alternatives for these Montessori solids.

Montessori Multiplication: Extension Work

My son wants to master his multiplication tables, especially for bigger numbers.  We are using both the Chinese/Singapore math (abstraction) method and Montessori when it comes to mastering his mathematical skills. For Montessori, though we have the Multiplication board, Mavi prefers using the colored beads as these keep him engaged and he thinks that they are more “fun”.  With this, I am so excited to share the learning materials we use to aid his mastery of multiplication using extension activities that goes perfectly with the Montessori colored beads.

These learning materials were very helpful, and my son enjoyed working on the extension activities.  The best thing about these learning materials is that they grow with your child and you can print them again and again so your child can practice each multiplication table through the years.

Animal Kingdom 3 Part Cards and Charts

I am so excited to share these beautiful learning materials I created for my boys.  Mavi, my 9 year old is currently the one using this for school, but Vito ended up using some of the activities as he loves to work on his older brother’s materials too.  So this is our Animal Kingdom Cards and Charts set.  The main objective of this material is to introduce the different classifications/groups of animals to your child.  We have an older version of this, and you can check it out here (Kingdoms of Life: Animal Kingdom) if you are interested.  Anyway, allow me to discuss some of the highlights of this learning material below, so you can have a better idea of what you will be getting when you purchase this for your child or your school.

A Walkthrough of Animal Study for Preschoolers

This coming spring, I will be introducing the zoology album of Montessori early childhood to Vito.  We did a couple of animal study last year but it was mainly for introduction and familiarization.  This year, our homeschool activities will be in line with the album I bought from Montessori Parent.  Of course, I will not follow the album word by word as I try not to replicate the Montessori classroom in our home and I don’t possess other classroom materials.  But it will still be spontaneous and hands-on.  In this post I will talk about the album, the materials I prepared, and my plans on how we are going to approach the “hands-on” aspect of the study.

Learning The Square of a Number Using Montessori Short Bead Chain with Square

We find ourselves working on the Short Bead Chain once again as Mavi reviews his multiplication table.  If you skim through my posts, you will find that we’ve been doing this since Mavi was 5 years old.  Now that he’s older (and wiser!) he finds a deeper meaning in learning the square of a number.

Yes folks, in mathematical terms, the short bead chain materials (and the squares) are used to present the precise squares of a number (2 squared, 4 squared).  Using manipulatives, children can easily grasp the concept and eventually memorize the squares.

Montessori Inspired Continent 3 Part Cards and Booklet

Vito is 4 years and Mavi is 9 years old.

One thing that I love with making our own learning materials is that I get to customize them according to the kids’ liking.  One of these materials is the continent learning printables I made last year which we often use.  At first, Vito would match it according to colors, now that he’s older, he’s trying to know the names of the continents, especially the ones where he’s been to.

Introducing the Montessori Pink Series for Beginning Reading

I've talked about Vito’s sensitive years for letters in my Instagram account.  Since September, he’s been into letter sounds, identifying beginning letter sounds, sorting objects according to sound, making rhymes, forming words, pretending to read and deciphering words etc. so I decided to give him a “structured” activity on alphabets.  Here’s what we have been doing so far:

1. Five in a Row activities that are tied to a letter
2. A letter of the week kind of activity to go along with a holiday or season (letter l and letter a)
3. Reading lots of books
4. After learning a letter, we would read and create his own phonics booklet

During the course of these activities, I observed that he would try to decipher a word, or pretend to create words using sticky tapes, in writing and using our moveable alphabet.  Plus, he knows 90% of the letter sounds (though he's still confused with c and k).  With the signs, I knew he would be ready for the Montessori Pink Series.  And oh boy, it was the best decision I made!

The Montessori Geometric Sticks

We finally get to use our Montessori Geometric Sticks now that Mavi is learning about polygons, triangles and angles.  You can purchase this fantastic learning material at any Montessori shop or in Amazon.  My boys and I are fascinated with this material.  There’s so much we can do with it, from building plane geometric shapes, to letters, and artworks!

The Montessori Constructive Triangles

I am so excited to introduce to you the Montessori Constructive Triangles!  This is one of my favourite Montessori material because I find it useful  for my 3 years old and my elementary.  In this post, I’m showing you each of the content of the boxes and how it is being used in learning plane geometric shapes.

Hands-on Learning of Geometric Shapes

Vito is currently in the mood for learning geometric shapes.  I guess he was inspired by his older brother who is currently studying basic geometry at home. Vito has passed the stage of basic shapes, the ones you see in children’s puzzles and the like.  He’s been playing with those since he was a toddler, so I decided to introduce him to geometric shapes in the Montessori classroom.  It would have been nice if we own the Geometric Cabinet, but because we can’t afford one and we don’t have space for it, these insets which are basically materials for writing is a good alternative (best to none).  Note that these are not the traditional metal insets, we are using the plastic version.

Snake Game: Search for the Perfect 10

The Snake Game is one of the most popular math games in a Montessori classroom.  I introduced this to Mavi when he was 5 years ago, contrary to Vito who is just 46 months now.  Vito’s sensitive  years for counting arrived early while for Mavi it was alphabets and reading.  How fascinating, isn’t it?

Learning Addition Using Montessori Stamp Game

The Montessori Stamp Game is one of our favourite math materials at home.  This learning material can be used in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  And for us, this is how Mavi learned how to understand the concept of regrouping (dynamic addition).  He enjoyed this material more than any other methods of learning addition and subtraction.

What You Need to Know About the Early Childhood Montessori Math Materials

I adore Montessori math materials and how it enables the child to experience the true meaning of quantity and numbers.  Montessori math is not just about memorization, counting and abstraction, its main goal is to build a relationship between the child and the materials, learning with ease and enjoying the work through engaging activities.  I own most of the Montessori math early childhood, and starting to collect the elementary for my oldest child.  They’re quite pricey, but worth it. On how to use these materials, I have albums from The Montessori Parent, Cultivating Dharma and Garden of Francis, and I also administer other extension activities that I could think of (I love doing this!).

Learning How to Use the Montessori Teen Boards

Okay, so your little ones can count up to ten, so what’s next?  In this post, I’m going to show you how the Montessori math method, teaches a child the quantity and number symbols of eleven to nineteen.  There’s a BIG difference being able to “count” from one to twenty or a hundred compared to grasping the concept of what these numbers stand for.  This is where the beauty of Montessori math would stand out, it allows the child to experience the use of materials and its purpose, and once confidence is gained the child can work with the material independently. 

To demonstrate this, here’s our journey of learning the “teens”.

Montessori Inspired Parts of a Plant

It always excites me to introduce new things to Vito.  Our recent activity is learning about plants, specifically in this post, the parts of a plant.  I love doing plant study with the boys.  I’ve been doing this with Mavi since he was 2 years old, and I love doing it all over again with Vito!  Printed materials used in the activities were all homemade, and some were used during Mavi’s preschool days.   This is Vito’s second year of plant study, and you can read related studies here:

• Introducing plants to toddlers
• Collection of botany lessons for preschoolers
• Bean seed study
• How plants grow