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Montessori, which materials to buy, which to make?


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Buy:

Pink tower

Numeral Rods

Broad stair

Knobless cylinders

Bead materials

Bead frame

Bi/trinomial cube

Grammar symbols

 

Make:

Sandpaper letters (or buy non-Montessori)

Numerals and counters

Spindle box (substitute)

Detective adjective exercise

Color tablet boxes

Grammar farm (put together a farm set for cheaper than a Montessori one)

Landforms

Practical life materials

 

 

 

Print/Laminate:

Stamp game

Bank game

Movable alphabet

3 part/nomenclature cards

Large/small numeral cards

Pink/blue/green materials

 

Depends how handy you are:

Teen/tens boards

Edited by ssavings
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I enjoyed looking through the Michael Olaf catalogs and got ideas about how to create some of my own materials. In addition to the traditional Montessori materials, children of this age, especially the toddlers, enjoy doing more Practical Life activities, which help prepare their minds and bodies to move on to the Montessori tactile learning with manipulatives. It's easy to make little sets like a basket with materials for flower arranging or window or table washing yourself. Little bowls and spoons can be used to sort dried beans, wooden puzzles with the little pegs for each piece help with fine motor skills. Find postcards with pictures of famous works of art and place them in a basket for children to sort through or select to place on a little easel. An apple cutter can be used by the child to slice an apple that has been cut in half. Letting them make juice in a pitcher from frozen concentrate or set a place for themselves at the table for their snack. All of these activities are part of the Montessori experience. :)

 

Darlene

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Except that Geopuzzles are frustrating for my almost 3 year old. He does better with the Montessori maps. Also the Montessori maps are designed so that the young child gets more pincer grasp work, essential for writing. The Montessori maps are on sale right now at Caliber Montessori and are the same price as the Geopuzzles on Amazon. Just a thought.

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It's the storage of the Montessori puzzles that's an issue for us. We don't have space in our living area for them.

 

We had trouble with this too until I managed to think outside the box a little. I ended up storing them under the furniture (couch, chair, bookshelves) lol. It's not as nice as one of those nice cabinets, but it worked and the kids were able to access them. I agree that the pincer grasp on the knobs is key. Also, you are able to trace the pieces to make your own maps. And, the geopuzzles don't always have one country per piece. We have the Asia one, and large countries like China are divided into pieces, and smaller countries are grouped together. Not to mention the brilliance of having the knob of the puzzle pieces in the capital's location! Oh the genius of Montessori! The little ones have no idea that they're internalizing the locations of all the capitals of the world. :D

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Except that Geopuzzles are frustrating for my almost 3 year old. He does better with the Montessori maps. Also the Montessori maps are designed so that the young child gets more pincer grasp work, essential for writing. The Montessori maps are on sale right now at Caliber Montessori and are the same price as the Geopuzzles on Amazon. Just a thought.

 

Thanks for the heads up on Caliber, have you ever ordered from there? I just can't get over the price for shipping! Even with the sale, which is awesome, I still have to pay $50 for an order that the total is $86. I'm getting hung up on that. I have a bunch of things sitting in my cart and I just can't hit the confirm button!

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