Montessori-Inspired Color Activities Using Wooden Toys and Free Printables

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Spielgaben. All opinions are honest and my own. This post contains Montessori Services affiliate links at no cost to you.

If you saw my original Spielgaben review (with examples of Montessori-inspired activities as shown in the collage at the right), you know that I LOVE Spielgaben educational toys. If you already have Spielgaben toys, you know they work for ages 3-12 (an amazing age span).

The Spielgaben complete set comes with over 700 pages of full-color printed learning materials. These printed materials help you as a parent or teacher easily use Spielgaben toys educationally with your child and/or students.

Today, I want to share some ideas for using Spielgaben points (wooden dots) to reinforce colors. If you’re using Spielgaben toys in the traditional sequence used in Froebel education, these points are the 9th set or “gift” and have activities that can be used for advanced mathematical/geometric concepts.

But the points can also be used to create objects and designs. In addition, I noticed that they would work perfectly as extensions to the introduction of traditional Montessori color tablets.

Montessori Principles and Spielgaben

Montessori education encourages the use of toys for the home that are designed for open-ended exploration and made of natural materials like wood. Spielgaben toys are exceptionally high-quality wooden toys with unlimited possibilities for open-ended play and learning.

An important Montessori principle is isolation of quality. Children learn concepts such as color easily in Montessori education because only the quality focused on (such as color) will vary while the size and shape will be the same. Many of the Spielgaben toys can be used to isolate quality as well. For example, the points vary in color but are identical in size and shape.

The points are also small, which makes them useful for practical life activities that develop fine-motor skills. And their small size makes them appealing to children in the sensitive period for small objects and details. This sensitive period is actually from ages 1½-4, although Spielgaben toys are only recommended for ages 3 and up because of safety considerations with babies and toddlers who put objects in their mouths. Ages 3-4 are often great ages to focus on colors and would also fit within the typical sensitive period for small objects.

The activities I’m sharing today will often add a practical life component and the Spielgaben wooden points to color activities. I’ll link to free printables which will help make the activities simple to prepare yet attractive.

Montessori-Inspired Color Activities Using Spielgaben Points and Free Printables

Note: These activities could be adapted for a variety of materials.

Montessori-Inspired Shirt Color Activity

This activity uses the free Shirt Color Graphing printable from A to Z Teacher Stuff. I used a clear acrylic tray from Montessori Services. You could add a tong or chopsticks to transfer the wooden points if you wish. Or your child or student could just use fingers to add 3 matching buttons to each shirt. In the winter, you could use the snowman color printables from my Montessori-Inspired Snowman Color Activities at PreK + K Sharing.

Montessori-Inspired Secondary Colors Flower Color Wheel Activity

For this activity, I used the free Secondary Colors Flower Color Wheel printable from Mr. Printables. I used a large plastic tray from Montessori Services and a sugar tong to transfer the points to outline each flower petal. I added exactly 8 points of each color to fit onto the flower petals.

Montessori-Inspired Rainbow Practical Life and Color Activity

This activity uses a free Rainbow Color Page from Best Coloring Pages for Kids. I used a large plastic tray and Quick Sticks from Montessori Services. I love Quick Sticks for lots of transferring activities, although you could use some sort of tongs, or the child could transfer the points using fingertips. Any would be a great practical life activity.

You could add a colored label dot to the end of each rainbow strip for non-readers so the child will know which color to use in each section of the rainbow. I placed exactly the number of points needed for each color of the rainbow on  a clear acrylic tray.

Montessori-Inspired Spanish and English Color Matching

For this activity, I used the free Spanish/English Color Matching Cards from Homeschool Creations. I set my printer at 40% to make the color cards a compatible size with the points. Since preschoolers are often drawn to small objects, the reduced size also adds extra interest to the activity. I used a clear acrylic tray from Montessori Services and three clear containers to organize the small pieces.

This is a great activity for introducing the Spanish names of colors. For younger children, you could just cut out the colors without the names, or you could print out smaller-than-normal versions of the Montessori Print Shop free Color Marching Cards.

If you’d like to prepare a color-sorting activity with a specific number of each point, you could print out the free Color Sorting Mat from Teaching Mama.

UPDATE:

Special deal for my readers!

All My Spielgaben Posts

Many of these include links to free printables! (Click on an image to go to the related blog post. The gallery is ordered according to publication date with my latest post at the top.)

Version 4 of Spielgaben Educational Toys 

I highly recommend Spielgaben as an amazing educational material for home or school. Even though the toys aren’t inexpensive, they’re definitely worth the price because of the high quality of materials and number of years your children or students can use them.

Special deal for my readers!