6-18 months is a magical age. It’s the time when your baby finally begins to express itself and let his or her personality shine. That’s not to say it’s easy. In fact, I think it can be one of the most difficult ages as they become old enough to get into everything but too young to really understand the rules. This is a fantastic age for introducing some simple early tot school activities. Below I will show you a few basic early tot school activities that you can introduce to your 6-18 month old. All of these can be easily modified to suit your child and most can be made using things you already have around the house. How easy is that?!
Developing fine motor skills is so important at a young age. These skills will form the building blocks of future writing skills. The hardest part of creating fine motor activities for this age group is their tendency to put EVERYTHING in their mouths. So many small items are a choking hazard that its easy to spend all your time keeping small things away from your baby instead of giving them opportunities to handle these items.
One of my favorite early tot school fine motor activity is threading pipe cleaners through holes. I like to use an inverted colander and show baby how to stick the ends of the pipe cleaners through the holes. If you have a little more time and are feeling crafty you could carefully poke holes in the lid of a Pringles can, creating an activity with built-in storage! As your child gets older experiment with stringing pasta or large beads on the pipe cleaners – just remember to always watch them with any small or sharp objects.
It feels like sensory play is such a buzzword these days – what does it even mean? It really is just a fancy way of explaining that kids need opportunities to get their hands dirty and interact with lots of different textures. I have found that rice and beans make excellent sensory bin foundations. Dry rice is easy to color to increase the visual appeal, while beans are a bit easier to clean up.
It’s best to begin with the foundation material alone in the beginning. Let your child explore the texture and run their hands through it. Then introduce a spoon or scoop. From there continue to add bowls and pitchers for pouring, or place objects within the material to be ‘excavated’. For easy clean up, sensory play is ideal for a plastic shower curtain or table cloth.
Click here to see my easy recipe for colored rice!
Art projects for babies – are you crazy? Aren’t they messy enough already? Don’t worry, I’ve found a few activities that both babies and moms can love. Of course, a smock
This is such a fun craft that works well for little ones and older siblings alike. All that you need is some construction paper, Elmer’s Glue the printable pages available in my Digital Resource Library. Ripping paper is great fun, so let your child tear the construction paper into small pieces. Then make a 50/50 mix of glue and water in a small dish. Have your child dip each piece of paper in the glue and then place on the printed page.
One of my favorite early tot school activities was creating treasure baskets for my little ones. It’s fun to pick a theme and then just walk through your house looking for every day objects that fit it. Shown below is a ‘Red Themed’ treasure basket that I made for Nugget. I even used a red basket and then displayed it on a red blanket. Could this thing get any more red?? Inside is a drink koozie, a flashlight, legos, a glove, large buttons from a threading game and a foam acorn. This stuff is like catnip to babies and it offers so many learning opportunities! Besides the obvious lesson in color, you expose them to lots of new vocabulary words as you introduce each item. Believe me, once you introduce a treasure basket your child will return to it again and again!
Some of my favorite themes for treasure baskets are: colors, shapes, textures and seasons.
Have you tried any of these activities with your early tot schooler? I’d love to hear how it went and if you would like more printables like these. Comment below with your input (or to just say ‘hi’)!
Where I live, this winter was pretty much a dud. Even on a good year we tend to stay pretty warm, but this year we never saw a single flake of snow. It was super disappointing and I’m pretty sure that I’m responsible since I made the mistake of buying my boys a sled this year. That should guarantee we don’t get snow until they’ve completely outgrown it!
Whether it’s warm and sunny or you’re feeling your own arctic chill, this fast and easy Arctic Animal Play Activity is perfect for those days when you’re short on time but still want to throw together a fun learning activity. In 10 minutes or less I will show you how to assemble an easy, arctic environment that your little one will love and a fun snowflake decorating craft. To make life even easier I have included a FREE printable matching game!
(Note: It is NOT recommended to use any other variety of soap for this project. Ivory Soap is known for it’s high air content that allows it to expand when heated. Other soaps may not expand, or may even scorch and damage your microwave.)
set from Safari Ltd.)
After nearly a year of creating my own Montessori inspired activities and lessons for Goose, we made the difficult decision to enroll him in a formal Montessori School. In the end we decided that my lack of training would never equal the lessons that a true AMI certified teacher could provide. Now as his first full year comes to a close I realize just how right – and how wrong – I was.
I have learned so much more about the Montessori method throughout this year, and the most helpful learning tool has been the opportunity to observe my son’s classroom multiple times throughout the year.
My biggest concern about Montessori was whether 2 teachers could really keep 20+ children ages 3-6 under control for an extended period of time. There are days when I struggle to keep up with my 2 boys, I can’t even imagine trying to keep ten times that many focused on their work.
The reality is that the Montessori method not only encourages order but almost guarantees it. As I observed I saw children seamlessly selecting a work, carrying it to their chosen table or mat, performing the task and then carefully putting it away. Snacks were available throughout the morning and as children became hungry they had the freedom to fix themselves a plate, dine with a classmate and then carefully load their dishes in a dishwasher. It was amazing!
Of course even the most impressive child is only human, and I occasionally witnessed a child who was disruptive. This behavior is not handled with discipline. Rather, the teacher encourages the child to sit beside her while performing a calming work such as coloring or tracing. The children don’t even know they are being reprimanded. They are simply given the much needed opportunity to collect themselves.
When I first began to research the Montessori method I was introduced to several materials that feature prominently in every primary classroom. Materials such as the Pink Tower (shown below) baffled me. Clearly it was important to Montessori theory but why? How is this tower any different from the stacking toys found in most homes? It has many uses and teaches many concepts.
To continue our Pink Tower example; this material is used to develop motor skills by stacking with centers or edges aligned. The smallest unit is exactly 1/10th the dimension of the largest unit. This introduces math concepts like scale and weight and language concepts like size and comparison.
Observation is a powerful tool for students in a Montessori classroom. It allows the younger students the freedom to see what their older classmates are learning. This can motivate younger students to work harder so they too can perform advanced works. Observation also helps students to see how their work fits into the bigger picture. For example: simple tracing leads to tracing letters which leads to writing.
This is incredibly motivating for students.
I know I said earlier that the teachers maintain order with ease, but their management skills deserve another mention. The teachers track each student’s progress individually by using an iPad app. I frequently witness a teacher giving a lesson to one student, answering another student’s question, and playing a game with a third student simultaneously. Their powers of observation are uncanny as they design individual lesson plans for 20 students.
The most important lesson I learned is that we don’t give our children nearly enough credit. I never thought to let my 3 year old help load the dishwasher. It seemed like a recipe for broken dishes. However, in the classroom I saw him doing it with ease. I would never suggest that we force our children to grow up too quickly, but I think we do them a disservice by limiting them. There are so many learning opportunities around them every day if only we take time to teach. There is no telling what our children can do when they aren’t limited by our own assumptions!
Is there anything you’ve always wondered about the workings of a Montessori classroom? Feel free to ask away in the comments! Or maybe you have observations of your own, tell me all about it!
