Fall Rotations: Montessori Activities for Toddlers

We love to see how Monti Kids families take the materials we use in our at-home Montessori program and extend them with new ideas. 

Sonny's Montessori is so good at coming up with fresh rotations for her 2-year old, and she shared this full menu of activities with us, most of which use items from our Level 6 box which is for ages 18 to 22 months.

Although Sonny is moving on to Level 7, the materials from Level 6 are still useful. We can rotate new activities to keep our children challenged at exactly the right level, introducing new elements, such as different textures.

By offering new activities on the familiar trays on their shelf, we are providing consistency. We invite them to take materials from the shelf to a table to play independently. 

Let's start with the tray and threader from Level 6's Bead Stringing activity.

His mom said, "To make this leaf threading activity, I simply collected and hole-punched a few leaves from our yard. Sonny utilized fine motor skills placing the leaves on the needle and then onto the string."

Next, she repurposed the Motor Planning Box which teaches children to plan ahead to achieve a goal. If a child pushes the ball into the hole when the drawer is open, they won’t be able to close the drawer nor retrieve the ball. This discovery will trigger their problem-solving skills.

Instead of the crochet ball that comes with the Level 6 box, Sonny used a pinecone. He placed pinecones into the hole in the box, then opened the drawer to retrieve them and reset the activity. He was able to plan the steps necessary to execute this sequence.

 

Watch: press play to see Sonny's sequence of actions

https://subscription.montikids.com/montessori/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/montessori-fall-activities.mp4

Finally, the tray from the sorting activity in Level 6 is useful for many years of DIY sorting activities.

Sorting by color is of great interest to Sonny, so his mom set up green and white pumpkins which he was proud to be able to sort.

In this prepared environment, she placed one pumpkin of each color to indicate what he was matching.

Watch: press play to see Sonny's sorting activity

https://subscription.montikids.com/montessori/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/sonny-montessori-pumpkin-activities.mp4

"These three activities will be rotated onto Sonnys’s fall shelf, where he can continue practicing these skills."

Follow Sonny's Montessori on Instagram to keep up with their learning activities!

The only toys you'll need. Delivered.Montessori for ages 0-3. Learn more about how we enable Montessori learning at home.