Whether you’re teaching at home or school, you can add Montessori activities for a geography unit on land and water forms. Not only are there hands-on materials children can work with, but there’s even a Montessori-inspired treat for an end-of-unit celebration.
In Montessori education, land and water forms typically include island and lake, peninsula and gulf, cape and bay, system of lakes and archipelago, and isthmus and strait. Children begin working with hands-on land and water forms from ages 2½ and up.
You can purchase ready-made land and water forms from one of the Montessori material suppliers, or you can make your own.
DIY Montessori Land and Water Forms
Here’s a set of homemade land and water forms from Shannon’s Sharings: Landforms
I have a roundup post of easy DIY land and water forms.
The Land, Water, Air Toolbox from Montessori By Mom also has an easy-to-prepare sandpaper landform activity.
Land and Water Form Extensions and Directions
Live and Learn Farm has a sandpaper land and water study with lots of land and water form resource
Montessori Materials has some great land and water form downloads. Note: The land form cards donated by Tiffany are the 3-part cards I printed out and used for the photo.
Info Montessori has an introduction to Montessori geography, which includes how to present land and water form trays and cards.
Leptir has helpful photos and printable cards for land and water forms. (Note: Use the Google Translate widget at Leptir to switch back to the original language – Croatian – if you want to download the cards.)
Here’s an article by Andrea Coventry with Montessori land and water form definitions.
Still Parenting made land and water form cards from old coasters and foam board.
Here’s a video with images of land and water forms [with labels]:
Here’s the link to a land and water form presentation on YouTube.
Here’s another video presentation for land and water forms:
For the most thorough description of how to introduce land and water forms and activities to extend the study of land and water forms, sign up for my mailing list to receive the free American Montessori Society Geography Album by Karen Tyler. It’s a 177-page album covering Montessori geography activities for ages 2½-6.
Land and Water Form Snacks and Cards
When you’re finished with your unit on land and water forms, you can celebrate with a fun Montessori-inspired activity: creating land and water forms on graham crackers using blue icing. If you’d like a more natural version of the icing, blend together 8 ounces of cream cheese, ¼ cup honey, and ½ tsp. vanilla. Add blue food coloring, either purchased or a natural, homemade food dye.
Have fun with Montessori-inspired geography!
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I love how Montessori teaches geography from such a young age. They have such fantastic materials to teach with as well. Thanks for the great links.
Thanks so much! I always loved the way the proper terms are used also, like “isthmus” and “strait” and “system of lakes” and “archipelago.” It’s interesting that young children learn those terms in the same way they learn the names of the colors.
Thanks for the links. I like reading about Montessori teaching materials, they always seem so well thought out and useful.
Thanks for your comment, Catherine! It’s definitely true that Montessori teaching materials are well thought out and useful. They’ve stood the test of time – and I’m always amazed at how perfectly they work in today’s world!
As always, the Montessori teaching methods are so interesting to hear about. It’s fantastic children are taught from such a young age about different land and water bodies.
Thanks, Monique! I really love exposing preschoolers to those sorts of concepts. Learning is just so much fun at those ages!
and I have just learnt something reading this as I have neve heard the term “isthmus” before! So thank you for that 🙂
So many great links again, I will have to bookmark your page so I can come back and take a longer look at them when I have more time 🙂
Thanks so much, Amanda! Have fun!
Interesting, I love hearing how Montessori tackles different aspects of the curriculum. I also love how things aren’t ‘dumbed down’ for younger kids. That they can talk about these different types of land and water forms is testament to the fact that it’s all sinking in! Sometimes we don’t give little kids enough credit I think!
Thanks for your comment, Narelle! I remember so clearly how proud the children in my Montessori school were that they knew terms their parents didn’t!
I’ve always been vaguely interested in Montessori, since reading your blog I’m very interested in how it works! If I ever go back to teaching I would like to use a lot of these ideas. Thanks for the great links.
Thanks so much, Deb! For my master’s degree work, I had a great time applying Montessori principles in a traditional day nursery. I was amazed at how well Montessori principles and lessons could be applied outside a Montessori environment. Of course, it wasn’t the same as following all the principles, but it still had a much greater effect than I had anticipated.
These are AWESOME!:) Thank you so much for sharing- we are big on geography in our house, and are going to try some of your activities this week. I will be sharing this with my readers on fb and pinterest:).
Thank you Deb for adding my Sandpaper Land and Water Study to your post! I really do appreciate your support and encouragement!
I love the way you have shown different ways to teach LAND AND WATER FORMS. Thank you. I cannot download https://sites.google.com/site/thehelpfulgardendownloads/geography-downloads-1/land-water-forms after singing off from Google. Appreciate if you could provide details on how to get access to this.
Thank you.
Thanks, Anisha! Recently, the Helpful Garden merged with Foresight Montessori, and their free instant downloads are no longer available. They do have a number of free downloads for their newsletter subscribers, although not all the ones that were at The Helpful Garden. I’ve deleted the link. Thanks for letting me know about it! 🙂 Deb