Montessori Monday – Montessori-Inspired Age and Birthday Activities

When most people think of Montessori and birthdays, they think of the Montessori celebration of life. I want to add to that fabulous activity with a few more Montessori-inspired activities to celebrate a child’s age or birthday. These are activities that can work well at home or in a classroom setting.

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

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. 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 Wooden Shapes and Free Printables

Montessori-Inspired Color Activities Using Spielgaben Yarn Balls and Free Printables

Montessori Monday – Geometric Solid Dressing, Wrapping, and Gift Giving (and Receiving)

Using Montessori-Inspired Activities for Elementary-Level Learning

Are Spielgaben Educational Toys Worth the Price?

Montessori-Inspired Age and Birthday Learning Activities

I had fun finding some free printables online to go with the Spielgaben boxes 2b (wooden lacing beads) and 8 (wooden sticks). For these activities, I placed a number of beads and 3″ sticks into baskets from Montessori Services. I included a number of extra pieces so the child could choose which colors he or she wants to use. Putting the sticks into the beads works well as a fine-motor activity, too.

Birthday Candle Length Comparison Activity

This activity doesn’t use a free printable. Instead, it uses one of the worksheets that comes with the Spielgaben set. It’s Worksheet 8, Level 3.

Candles on the Cake Math Activity

This activity uses a free printable birthday cake from Making Learning fun. I printed out cakes for ages 3-5, which would be typical ages in a Montessori preschool (primary) classroom. Of course, you could print out cakes for whichever ages are appropriate for your children or students.

I used the colored cake printables, although there are black and white versions that you could color yourself. I typically lay activities out on Montessori Services rugs.

Birthday Candle Numbers Plus Odd and Even

For this activity, I used the free printable birthday candles from Activity Village. I used the plain white candles so that a child wouldn’t be confused by trying to match the candle colors rather than the numbers. Of course, you could color the numbers however you wished. For this activity, a child could turn the numbers upside down, draw a number, and make the correct number of “candles.”

You could also have an odd and even activity using the free odd and even cake printable from Royal Baloo. You could show how to determine odd or even by using a Montessori cards and counters layout when creating the “candles.” (See “DIY Cards and Counters.”)

Using 3-D Shapes to Make a Birthday Cake

This activity is from the Spielgaben Playguide Part 1. I love the way these sorts of activities help children develop their spatial reasoning skills.

UPDATE:

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.

Montessori Monday Link-Up

If you have some Montessori activity trays/lessons to share, please link up below. It’s fine to link up a post from your archives – and you may link up anytime during the week! Your post may be any Montessori-inspired activity or idea. It doesn’t need to be related to my Montessori Monday post. If you’re wondering what’s considered “Montessori inspired” and what to link up (or not link up), check out my “What Is Montessori Inspired?” post. Link up your exact post URL so that we can find your activity if we return to the linky at a later date (which I often do when I’m looking for activities for a roundup post).

I publish the Montessori Monday post and linky each Monday morning and keep the linky open throughout the week. Please place the Montessori Monday button (using the code from the right sidebar) in your post or put a link back to this post. Let’s use Montessori Monday to gain inspiration/ideas and to encourage each other! If you would leave an encouraging comment on the post linked up ahead of you (along with any other posts you’re drawn to), that would be awesome!

I’m not able to comment on every post, but I do a lot of pinning on Pinterest and sharing on the Living Montessori Now Facebook page from the Montessori Monday link-up. Thanks for participating!

Notes For community discussions, please join us at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page, We Teach Montessori Group, and/or Google+ Montessori Community. The We Teach Montessori group has a Member Resources Sharing (for resources such as freebies and series) as well as a Linky Party for We Teach Montessori. We Teach Montessori has a linky just like the one here except that it’s continuous where you may add your Montessori-inspired activities and ideas to the same linky. New links will go to the top of the linky. I’d love to see us build up a great collection of Montessori-inspired ideas there, too. After you link up here, why not hop over to the We Teach Montessori Group and link up there?!

And don’t forget the Saturday/Sunday Parent/Teacher Preparation Days share where you may share a kid-related activity of any kind at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page! It’s also Motivational Monday on Mondays now! I invite you to share something positive on the Bits of Positivity Facebook page (Bits of Positivity is my other blog) to help us all get a good start on the work/school week. You might share an inspirational or motivational quote, positive graphic, or post about finding balance or simplifying your life. Or you might share a post on organizing, an encouraging post, a post about making a difference in the world, or a positive parenting post. Just go ahead and share on the Bits of Positivity wall any time today! (Please “like” the Bits of Positivity Facebook page if you haven’t already.) I’ll be pinning a number of ideas to my regular Pinterest boards.

If you have a giveaway on your blog, please add it to my Family-Friendly Giveaway Linky Page! If you enjoy entering giveaways, you’ll always find some great giveaways there.

Learn more about my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to Teach Grace and Courtesy!

Also, if you’ve ever been linked to in one of my roundup posts, please feel free to grab the “Featured on” badge.

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