Human Body Montessori-Friendly Learning Materials

In today’s post, I want to share a few Montessori-friendly materials that we use in learning about the human body.  I’ve been often asked about this topic so I prepared a dedicated post to specifically tackle this.

Montessori Friendly Gift Ideas for Tweens and Teens (2017)

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These gift ideas are intended for families with older children, ages 9 to 16 years old.  I made this list based on my son’s and niece’s current interests and hobbies.  These are suitable for kids who are hobbyists, artists, musically inclined, readers and explorers.  Mavi owns some of these already (some are hand-me-down), and others are still on the “wishlist”.

Montessori Geography Folders

When I was preparing geography lessons for Mavi years ago, I learned about the importance of Geography Folders. Essentially, these are folders filled with pictures from your home country or continent as well as from other continents. The pictures should depict people engaging in daily life activities, landmarks, food, animals, children, homes, transportation, and villages, if any. Geography Folders are especially useful for studying your continent as they introduce your child to other races, cultures, places, and traditions.

How I Organize Our Montessori Inspired Learning Space at Home

We are back from our vacation, and after settling, the boys and I decided to clean up and organize our shelves for homeschooling 2017-2018. Now, we have a tiny space, just one for our homeschool, and nothing fancy. I ensure that our learning space is clean, well-ventilated, well-lighted, and conducive to learning. To those who want to know more about how I organize our materials in this small space, allow me to give you a walkthrough!

The Elements of Art: Learning about Lines

It is timely that I get to share how we nurture the artistic side of the kids using Montessori principles.  In this month’s 12 Months More of Montessori Learning, I’m sharing Vito’s current obsession:  drawing!  If you’ve been following me on Instagram, I shared how Vito enjoys making faces of us (Dad, Mom and Mavi).  He just uses lines and dots, a little bit of shading to convey the emotions and faces of his family.  So Mavi suggested if we could teach him how to make different kinds of lines, just like we did before.

Montessori Geometric Solids as a Sensorial Material

I would like to introduce one of our favourite Montessori material at home: the geometric solids.  This has been on my bucket list for the longest time and I finally get to own one!  This is totally worth-it!  This material will introduce the child to the 3D objects and shapes, that will later on be helpful in the learning of geometry.  I listed below the progression of activities of the geometric solid intended to guide parents on how to use this material in case you own one or are planning to have one in the future.

Montessori Inspired Activities for Earth Science

I am so excited to share our activity trays for Earth Day! This is in line with our 12 Months More of Montessori Series wherein we are focusing on Earth Science.  In this post, I gathered a few topics related to Earth Science, assembled them into tray activities that’s suitable for preschoolers from ages 3 years and older.  Hope you enjoy our activities for the coming weeks!

Collection of Color Learning Activities for Preschoolers

Happy Valentines Day everyone!  I hope that your day is as colorful as my post today. 
For the month of February,  my entry for the 12 Months More of Montessori Learning is all about how we learn and explore colors at home.   If you are looking for more ideas on how to extend your color activities at home, then this is definitely for you!  At 39 months, Vito is knowledgeable of all basic colors and I just have to nurture this knowledge through planned and spontaneous activities.

LEARN COLORS THROUGH NATURE FINDS
Last year, Vito and I started bringing home “nature finds”.  This was the time when he turned 3 years old and stopped mouthing objects.  We would bring simple things like sticks, pinecones, flowers or rocks, then placed them in a basket for more exploration.  We discussed the objects’ texture, shape, weight (heavy or light), size (big or small) and of course the color/s.  To simply demonstrate how to extend the “nature table” activity by focusing on colors, Vito and I collected and glued some flowers, leaves and sticks on a white cardstock and then matched them to their nearest colors in the Montessori Color Tablets (3rd Box) .


Because they are placed in a white background, Vito can easily identify the color tablets closest to the petals, leaves and sticks.  This is a simple activity that’s so easy to replicate.  You can work on rocks, different hues of leafy greens, flowers and more.

COLOR GRADING
We are now using  Montessori Color Tablets (3rd Box) for this activity.  This is a sensorial material for visual discrimination and perfection of colors.  I was a little bit hesitant to purchase it at first so we used a DIY.   If you skim through my blog, you might have read about our previous color grading activity using water and food coloring. 



I will talk about the Montessori Color Tablets (3rd Box) in a separate post but for now, here’s Vito trying out the yellow color (we worked on it one color at a time).  We talked about the dark and light yellow… and on how it gets lighter or darker.

COUNTERS
I love Learning Resources’ counters and we use them a lot at home.  We extended its use not just for counting but for color sorting and fine motor skills activities too!  What you see here are the Mini Motors and the Backyard Bugs counters. Vito arranged the counters on their corresponding cut-out colored strips.



IN FOODS
We worked on fruits and vegetables last year too and sorted out their colors. Vito loves our play pretend Farmers Market Color Sorting Set and he would often sort them according to colors.  But you don’t need to use this, you can use whatever you have in your kitchen. By the way, in this activity we are using the Montessori Color Tablets (2nd Box).

 


RAINBOW COLORS
Nothing beats learning colors through the rainbow!  We love our Large Grimm's Rainbow Stacker to pieces and the boys are using this in so many ways other than stacking it and learning colors!   I love that it provides different hues of red, green and blue.  Because Vito is constantly exposed to this toy, he’s able to identify the dark and light green, red and blue.  Mavi even made a LEGO Bricks version of this rainbow! 



ARTS
Of course, there’s the paints, watercolors and markers!  Explore colors using these inexpensive art materials.  We are not yet talking about primary and secondary colors, but occasionally I would show Vito that we can combine colors to produce another color.
COLORS IN BOOKS
There are so many books on colors but this book is our favourite.  Vito enjoyed this the most because he loves flipping the transparent pages of the book to see the result when colors combine.  Colours (My First Discoveries) is perfect for toddlers and preschoolers!


COLORS IN SCIENCE
This was an experiment we did last year and Vito loved it!  This is one of the many ways we show our kids how secondary colors are formed. See how Vito studied color mixing through this post "Color Mixing: Green, Orange and Purple".

EVERYWHERE
Colors are everywhere! Don’t limit yourself to the ones you have at home (objects).  Go out and explore the colors in forests, beaches, parks and just about anywhere… and it’s free!

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

Amazing blogs participating in the 12 Months More of Montessori that you should visit:

Easy Flower Science Activities for Preschool and Kindergarten | Natural Beach Living

Montessori-Inspired Skip Counting for Kids {Spring Printables} | The Natural Homeschool

How to Prepare a Montessori-Style Lenten Tray | Living Montessori Now

Montessori Practical Life - Caring for a Plant | Happy Mama’s Hive

Toddler Butterfly Theme for Spring | The Kavanaugh Report

Collection of Color Learning Activities for Preschoolers | The Pinay Homeschooler

Montessori-inspired Plant Activities with Free Printables | Every Star is Different

Montessori Flower Arranging: Practical Life Skills (Free Printable) | Christian Montessori Network

PB&J Bird Seed Ornaments | Sugar, Spice & Glitter

8 Must-try Insect Activities With Free Montessori-inspired Printables| Uno Zwei Tutu

Hands on butterfly themed learning activities | Welcome to Mommyhood

Montessori-Inspired Antarctica Shelf for Preschoolers

For me January is the best time to introduce kids to the animals of the arctic or of Antarctica.  They can pretty much relate to these animals due to the extreme weather we are experiencing during the months of winter, which makes its peak in January.  And since our 12 Months MORE of Montessori Series for January is to feature Winter Themed activities, I’m featuring simple ways you can do to introduce the continent of Antarctica to your preschoolers.   Now, I’ve done this almost every year with Mavi since he was 4 years old, and I’ve realized that somehow I might have gone overboard with the topic (used a lot of unnecessary materials).  So for Vito’s first exposure to Antarctica, I wanted it to be simple, quality over quantity.