Montessori activities and games for children 3-5 years old

In our journey around the Montessori method, we have been able to see some examples of activities and games that can be built at home with a few simple materials. We dealt with how to build Montessori-inspired games for  0-6 months ,   6-12 months ,  1 year olds  and 2 to 3 year olds . Today here are some suggestions for creating Montessori games for children aged 3-5.

Montessori activities and games for children 3-5 years old

Introduction to numbers

Learning to count is the first of the activities that children learn to do with numbers and it is above all in the 3-5 age group that the interest in numbers intensifies. At first it’s just repeating a correct sequence of numbers, generally up to 10, then from a mnemonic exercise it becomes an association exercise. In fact, children will learn – each at their own pace – not only to recognize numbers but to associate them with their relative quantity, size or size.
To help children in their first approaches to numbers , the Montessori method makes use of specific materials capable of stimulating children’s innate attraction towards mathematics, sequences, classifications, dimensions.

Here are some to offer to your children . I found sites (I put the link) where you can find lots of useful information on how to use and how to build them.

The red rods of the lengths  are ten wooden rods colored red, with the same square section for all but of different lengths – they proceed in base 10 (10cm, 20cm, 30cm…., 100cm ). These are used to educate children on the discrimination of long/short dimensions.

The numerical rods  ( which are offered to children after the length rods), are wooden rods similar to the length rods but differ in a double blue-red colour. Number rods can be used as is or combined with numbered cards. The purpose of this material is to stimulate children to learn to count up to 10 and to understand the value of each number by associating it with its quantity. They can be created with wood but also with buildings .

The pink tower  (to be proposed from 3 years onwards) is a Montessori material useful for helping to understand the concepts of big/small. It is formed by ten pink wooden cubes, one larger than the other by 1cm, starting from the smallest of 1x1x1cm up to the largest of 10x10x10cm. Children will be stimulated to recognize the shapes and sizes of objects and learn to arrange objects in balance.

The brown staircase  (to be proposed alone or together with the pink tower ) is made up of ten parallelepipeds with a square base 20 cm long. The parallelepipeds, which gradually increase by 1cm, range from the thinnest (1x1x20cm) to the thickest (10x10x20cm). They are to educate children thickness discrimination (understanding of  coarse/fine size ).

Frosted numbers  are numbers from 0 to 9 cut out of sandpaper and mounted on green wood panels. The purpose of this material is to teach the child the symbols of numbers . In fact, by passing their finger over the rough number, children will be stimulated to recognize the shape of the numbers and to recognize them graphically.

The sand tray  is extremely easy to build because it’s just… a sand tray! Its purpose is to help your child learn to draw numbers on their own by making them have a tactile sensory experience similar to the one you have with rough letters and numbers.

Boxes with sticks  are boxes with numbered compartments where sticks must be placed in the indicated number. They are used to stimulate children to learn to count and identify the right quantities.  Here  you can find many different ways to build this “game”.

All these introductory math materials can be built at home with a good deal of dexterity and a desire to  do it yourself , or they can also be purchased. Some are cheap, others are quite expensive.

Learn the letters

The sand tray (which we also looked at for numbers) is one of the easiest DIY Montessori materials. Its purpose is to help a child learn to  write and trace letters  on his own. To have a funnier effect and differentiate vowels from consonants and numbers you can use colored sand (blue for vowels, red / pink for consonants, green for numbers).

Manual activities: weaving, knitting, sewing

Manual activities in the Montessori method are always in the foreground. In the 3-5 age group, among the many possible manual activities, weaving, knitting and sewing can be proposed . The materials to be used can be easily found at home.

For example, with a simple metal grate it is possible to build a rigid frame  on which children can pass ribbons. As the child grows, more challenging looms can also be built using, for example,  wooden sticks on which to weave strips of fabric . To further refine the child’s skills, you can also build  cardboard frames on which to pass the woolen threads .

Wishing to propose other types of manual activities such as sewing/embroidery , perforated cardboard frames can be created on which children can pass rigid threads even without a needle. When the child is older it will be possible to equip him with a plastic needle and have him practice on looms made with  paper plates or fruit trays .

Another manual activity that children can be offered is finger knitting  . of course it may take a couple of tries before the kids are ready to do it all on their own but they will be thrilled.

If you want to add difficulty to these activities as you get older, you can do so by using materials from the largest to the smallest or by adding elements such as beads.

Dress yourself

Around the age of 3, always to satisfy the strong desire for autonomy, children show an interest in dressing themselves. However, usually parents, out of haste or lack of confidence, tend to want to help children in the dressing phase, preventing them from learning to do themselves. According to the Montessori method, however, it is good that children learn to take care of themselves in complete autonomy. This is why there are activities and games that can be offered to children so that they can learn some gestures such as using a zipper, fastening a belt, closing buttons , putting on shoes and tying the laces .
For example, just create wooden or cardboard frames where you can reproduce the opening of a shirt in a large way, the crossing of the laces of a shoe, many buckles to open and close

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As always, I remind you that the recommended ages for this type of Montessori-inspired games and activities  should not be taken literally, but are just a basic suggestion. In fact, the game proposals must adapt to the responses and growth of the child and can also be proposed again at different ages, perhaps with changes dictated by your imagination.