Montessori-Inspired Geometry Activities Using Wooden Shapes and Free Printables

My Previous Spielgaben Posts:

Check out my original Spielgaben review (with examples of Montessori-inspired activities as shown in the collage above) to find out more about Spielgaben educational toys. Briefly, Spielgaben toys are exceptionally high-quality educational toys designed for ages 3-12.

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.

 Montessori-Inspired Color Activities Using Wooden Toys and Free Printables

Montessori-Inspired Math Activities Using Wooden Beads and Free Printables

Montessori-Inspired Geometry Activities Using Spielgaben Wooden Shapes and Free Printables

Today, I want to share some ideas for using Spielgaben wooden parquetry tablets and free printables to create Montessori-inspired math activities. The parquetry tablets are the Froebel Gift #7. These are fabulous for reinforcing more advanced shape names such as isosceles triangle. Just sorting the shapes into the proper section of the divided box is a helpful activity for young preschoolers.

You’ll find an amazing variety of ways to use the Spielgaben tablets in the resource materials that come with each complete Spielgaben set. I’m adding to those ideas today by sharing some free printables from around the blogosphere and ideas for using Spielgaben in a Montessori-friendly environment.

The Spielgaben wooden tablets look similar to pattern blocks you’ll often find at educational stores, although the Spielgaben tablets have some different colors and shapes. You can create designs using cards for pattern blocks with the Spielgaben tablets, although the Spielgaben tablets don’t include a hexagon or trapezoid. Those can be created from more than one tablet, which is a great exercise in spacial awareness.

Wooden Tablets Designs and Matching Activity

This activity is the only one that doesn’t use a free printable (other than the more than 1000 printables that come with the Spielgaben set). This uses an object recognition and comparison worksheet from Worksheet 7. Rather than having an activity for drawing lines to match the objects, I cut apart the worksheet to make a hands-on activity.

I used a large plastic tray from Montessori Services for each of the activities along with the exact number and type of Spielgaben tablets needed. I add small containers to organize the small pieces on my activity trays, which I’ve done here.

I typically lay activities out on Montessori Services rugs. There were 4 shapes on the worksheet. I used 3 for this activity, although I’d use only one, such as the car, for  a young child.

Letter Design Tray

For this activity, I used the free Alphabet Pattern Block Cards from Making Learning Fun. This would be a great extension for work with the Montessori sandpaper letters.

Jessica’s Corner of Cyberspace also has Free Pattern Block Mats with some letters and other designs. If you’d like to focus on numbers, Confessions of a Homeschooler has free 1-20 Pattern Block Cards along with other free pattern block cards.

Blue Constructive Triangles Extension

This is an extension of the Montessori constructive triangles. I shared an extension of the Montessori constructive triangles in my original Spielgaben review post. I used the free constructive triangles printables from Livable Learning. Today, I used the cards with the 8 basic shapes from Box #1 with no black line for a control.

Christmas Wreath Pattern Block Tray

PreKinders also has some free pattern block cards. You’ll even find some Christmas pattern block cards at PreKinders. Note: Spielgaben has fun printables with Christmas activities using more than one type of Spielgaben toy.

UPDATE:

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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!