Montessori Toddler Activities with Homemade, DIY, Montessori Toys
Are you looking for EASY Montessori Activities you can do with your Toddler, using Homemade, Budget-friendly, DIY Montessori Toys? I have created these Easy Homemade Montessori toys with you in mind!
I love the Montessori style of learning, especially for toddlers. I use it with my own kids and they love it too. This sort of play-based learning is also SO good for their development.
However, if you’re like me, you may have noticed how expensive all these beautiful Montessori toys are!
They are obviously made of high-quality materials, are long-lasting, and lovely to look. However if your budget, like mine, just can’t stretch to buying all these toys new, let me show you how to DIY a few of them for the same learning outcomes!
1. Threading Montessori Inspired Activity
Firstly, I’ll start with this fun Montessori-inspired threading activity. This is a great one to begin with as many of us have a colander, pipe cleaners, and cereal like this (or pasta) in our homes already. I love it when I can try out some of the ideas I read about right away, and this is one of those ideas!
Threading is a great little Fine Motor Skills Activity for our Toddlers and Preschoolers to practice and this little set up is so inviting they’ll be getting stuck in straight away!
2. Developing the Sense of Touch
One of our favourite Montessori games is the Montessori Mystery Bag. If you haven’t heard of it, let me explain. You basically put an object in a bag for your child to feel (without looking). They then try to describe the object they’re feeling and tell you what they think it is. This helps to develop their Stereognostic Sense, or Sense of Touch.
Check out this post on the Stereognostic Sense (sense of touch in Montessori) to learn more!
You can make your own DIY Montessori Mystery Bag easily and cheaply with items you already have at home. Simply find a cloth bag and then small items that can be identified by the sense of touch and you’re good to go!
3. A Simple Nesting Toy
Nesting toys are used in Montessori to help develop fine motor skills and early maths. Playing with this simple DIY Montessori Nesting Toy, helps your toddler to understand the concepts of larger and smaller, some of the early building blocks of mathematics. They can put the lids inside each other or line them up from littlest to biggest.
The idea is that they can explore these materials independently to make their discoveries. However, you will want to check that nothing you give your toddler is a choking hazard.
4. Pouring Activities
Montessori Pouring Activities are easy to replicate at home without the need to buy anything fancy. In Montessori, plastic is generally avoided, and children are given items that adults would use, with supervision of course. I prefer to avoid glass with my own kids, but ceramic jugs and mugs work well for this activity.
To create some variation to this activity, we use a mixture of water, juice, and water with food coloring. My kids enjoy mixing the different colored water, so that they are not only working on their pouring skills but also doing some early STEM work.
5. Posting Activities
Toddlers and Preschoolers, in general, absolutely love posting things into other things! I have no idea why, but it was definitely a popular activity amongst the toddlers when I childminded. It’s a great fine motor skill, and a lesson in object permanence too.
If you’re interested in Making this Red Post Box Craft yourself, you can check out my post on it here.
6. Colour Sorting Toddler Activity
While the Montessori Color Sorting Toys are beautiful, if you can’t stretch to that price, you can create this cute little color sorting toy at home quite easily. This homemade Montessori toy works just as well to teach your child the concept of color sorting, as well as providing vital fine motor skills practice.
I simply found an egg box, colored in each section a different color and then found a collection of pom poms to pop in the lid. I left this DIY Montessori Toy out on the kitchen table for my daughter to find. I came through later and she was happily sorting away, no explanation needed!
7. DIY Music Making
This Homemade Montessori Activity is an absolute classic! I remember creating a drum kit like this when I was a kid! Simply turn over a few saucepans, a colander, and any spare tubs you have, and add in some big spoons. I used a metal spoon and a wooden one. Then I added a cheese grater and a butter knife to scrape up and down it. (Ear plugs may also be beneficial!)
Easy Homemade DIY Montessori Toys for your Toddler
I hope these Homemade, DIY, Montessori Toys have inspired you to create your own. As you begin making them, I hope you are encouraged that these budget-friendly Toddler Montessori Activities are just as effective for toddler learning as buying new toys!
If you enjoyed them, feel free to share this post with your friends and family!
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