Montessori Monday – Activities with Marbles and Golf Tees from Montessori at Home!

This fun Montessori-inspired practical life activity is based on a post from Pink and Green Mama and an excerpt from the eBook Montessori at Home by John Bowman. The photos are from a post at Pink and Green Mama: Preschool At Home: Marbles and Golf Tee Game.

Marbles and Golf Tees (Photo from Pink and Green Mama)

Balancing Marbles (Photo from Pink and Green Mama)

(Note: This post was updated on 3/31/2013 to add information from the newly published 3rd edition of Montessori at Home. This post contains affiliate links at no cost to you.)

In his eBook Montessori at Home: The Complete Guide to Doing Montessori Early Learning Activities at Home, John Bowman elaborates on a practical life activity from Pink and Green Mama that can help develop order, concentration, coordination, and independence. It’s a great activity to have on the shelf early in the school year. Here’s an excerpt from the book with directions for using the activity along with additional extensions.

Excerpt from Montessori at Home:

This fun activity can be varied in many ways. You will need:

• Styrofoam block for holding flowers (crafts store / section)
• Golf tees
• Marbles, ping pong balls
• A marker
• Bowls to hold the marbles and tees and a tray to hold it all

Set everything up on a tray as shown. Let your child make a line of golf tees pushed into the foam. Now he can balance the marbles on the tees. He will quickly learn about keeping the tees straight up. Watching marbles roll off crooked tees is the control of error . . . in this activity. Let your child figure this out.

After mastering the basic line, your child can make two or three lines of tees. A larger foam block or two blocks glued together will allow your child to make shapes – circle, square, rectangle, triangle – with the tees. You may need to draw shapes onto the block as guides.

For a math activity, use a fine point marker and write the numerals 0 – 10 on a set of tees. Write the same numerals on a set of ping pong balls. Help your child as needed to set the tees in a left-to-right line from 0 – 10, leaving a bit more space in between them than with the marbles. Your child can then match up each ping pong ball with the tee with the same numeral. Be sure to have your child count the tee & ball combos from 0 – 10 moving left to right.

(Excerpt and photos used with permission from John Bowman and Pink and Green Mama.)

Another marble and golf tee extension: DIY math tactile board using marbles and golf tees from Dancing with Dinosaurs.

I’m extremely impressed with the eBook’s TONS of ideas and extensions of activities that can be used easily at home or in any preschool environment.

The newly revised Montessori at Home e-book is available for only $10.95 for 512 pages with over 300 early-learning activities! (That’s a total steal!!!)

In the eBook, you’ll also find a quick start guide, 225 educational digital tablet app recommendations, hundreds of links to sites, blogs, and videos, and 76 pages of printable materials!

You can get a free download of 51 sample pages from Montessori at Home eBook (courtesy of John Bowman) by clicking here! Here’s the direct link to the purchase page for Montessori at Home!eBook. Here’s the direct link to the purchase page for the Montessori at Home! Materials Bundle (includes the Montessori at Home eBook AND over $60 worth of Montessori Print Shop materials to go with the book for only $24.95). Please mention Deb at Living Montessori Now when you’re asked where you learned about the book. Thanks!

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