I’m so excited to have received the new Spielgaben version 4! Today, I’m sharing some fun Montessori-inspired color games I prepared for preschoolers using some of the new Spielgaben educational toys along with free printables I found online.
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).
In case you’re not familiar with Spielgaben toys, they are exceptionally high-quality educational toys designed for ages 3-12. You can see from the photo that the cabinet is very high quality and fits in well in a room with traditional Montessori materials. I love the new, easily removable drawers in version 4. The yarn balls from the 1st Spielgaben set can be used with babies and toddlers, too.
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.
Spielgaben Materials Used in This Post
For this post, I used the Spielgaben sticks and colored vertex balls from set 8 of version 4. The sticks and vertex balls can be used for a variety of activities from design work to advanced math activities. I’m using them for color games for preschoolers in this post. Almost any of the materials could be used for the color games, though. For older children, you could use the games to demonstrate probability.
In this post, I’ll link to free printables which will help make the activities simple to prepare yet attractive. I’ll also tell you where I found the materials for my activities.
Note: If you’d like the wooden sticks from the earlier Spielgaben versions, Spielgaben will sell them to you at minimal cost to go along with version 4.
Color Ball Matching for Toddlers
This activity didn’t use a free printable. It’s simply a way you can include babies and young toddlers in your Spielgaben activities using the vertex balls. My 13-month-old granddaughter, Zoey, has always loved the Spielgaben yarn balls and was instantly drawn to the vertex balls. Because she still mouths objects (even though it’s not as often as when she was a baby), the vertex balls wouldn’t be safe for her.
I placed two of each color of vertex ball in a Really Useful .55 Liter Box. You’ll need to seal the box using a professional high temperature glue gun or white duct tape or electrical tape. You could show a toddler how to roll the balls around in the box and then look for matching colored balls that land together.
Color Matching Game/Scavenger Hunt
This activity uses an ordinary dice along with the free printable colors minibook circles from Preschool Mom. I cut out the smallest circles from the printable. I had a dice with rounded corners and a circle in the middle with the dots, so I was able to cut out and glue on the six colored circles to fit. With regular cube-shaped dice, I would cut out a square around each colored circle to cover the dots on the dice.
Note: For any of these activities, you could simply use the drawer from the cabinet to store the materials. I’ve shown the activities on trays in case you prefer that.
I used pre-cut pieces of craft foam, so this was very easy to prepare. The craft foam could be used with the color dice. It could also be used for a color scavenger hunt, where the child goes to the Spielgaben cabinet to choose materials in the color that was rolled. It really could be used for any color scavenger hunt around the home or classroom.
Roll a Color Game and Fine-Motor Activity
For this tray, I used a small potato basket and toast tong from Montessori Services. The tray is one of the Multicraft 5-piece trays. I used the same colored dice from the first game. I used a 10 well plastic palette for the children to place the colored balls as each color is rolled. Children could play until all 10 wells in the palette are filled. You could place the dice in the center of the palette if you wish.
Color Spinner and Building Game
This activity uses a small dice and the free printable spinner from Educational Technology Center (probability spinner 6) with colors minibook circles from Preschool Mom or the color spinner from Preschool Mom (using a paper clip and brad for the spinner). I used a large plastic tray from Montessori Services, which is a perfect size for many activities.
Spielgaben version 4 comes with two playboards. I used the dual-sided playboard to illustrate a geometric shape that could be created after enough blue pieces were rolled. Children could create any design they wished with the color that had been selected with the spinner. If you have an earlier version of Spielgaben, you could use the wooden sticks with playdough instead of the vertex balls as connectors.
My Previous Spielgaben Posts:
Most of these include links to free printables!
My original Spielgaben review includes examples of Montessori-inspired activities as shown in the collage above.
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
Montessori-Inspired Math Activities Using Cubes and free Printables
Montessori-Inspired Activities for Babies and Toddlers Using Yarn Balls
Montessori-Inspired Activities Using Spheres {Free Printables}
Montessori-Inspired Sphere, Cube, Cylinder Activities {Free Printable}
Montessori-Inspired Phonics Activities Using Dots {Free Printables}
Montessori-Inspired Christmas Activities with Spielgaben {Free Printables}
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. 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 and/or Google+ Montessori Community. And don’t forget the Saturday/Sunday weekend sharing days where you may share a kid-related activity of any kind at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page!
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What a wonderful list of Spielgiban activities, I love how colorful they are I’m sure little ones are really drawn to the colors as well! Thanks for hosting. Wishing you a blessed New Year!
Thanks, Nicole! My granddaughter is definitely drawn to the Spielgaben toys! It’s fun to see her reaction whenever she’s ready for a new activity. I hope you’re having a blessed 2015, too! 🙂
Hi,
I just got my version 4 box and has the previous version as well and started to look online for other owners. I have noticed that there are not yellow color but rather other for all the wood pieces and the purples are almost black color. I was wondering if your box is the same. Compared to the previous version, yellow was present and the wooden pieces are a lot brighter in color.
Hope you can let me know.
Sorry for the typos. :o)
Hi, Gina! My wooden pieces have both yellow and orange. The yellow and purple pieces are a deeper shade than the previous version, but they’re still yellow and purple. You can always email Spielgaben at [email protected]. I hope that helps.
I have version 3 and have written to Spielgaben about an upgrade to version 4. Has anyone done this? If so, were you pleased with the upgrade? I sure like the cabinet and the reference above about the playboards.
Hi, Shirley! I really LOVE the new cabinet, and there are many activities you can do with the playboards. It’ll be fun to hear how others feel about version 4. 🙂
Hi, you give very nice information about Color Games Free Printables, I really appericiate this, thanks for sharing this with every one.
Wow, very nice post. It’s really awesome information for me. Thanks for this post because it’s helpful for me.
very nice post, your info on Spielgaben toys is absolutely brill, thanks
have version 3 and have written to Spielgaben about an upgrade to version 4. Has anyone done this? If so, were you pleased with the upgrade? I sure like the cabinet and the reference above about the playboards.
Amazing article
Thanks for information
Good job and good luck
Great blog post there keep up the great work really enjoyed this article…
Great post. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing this information.
very nice post, your info on Spielgaben toys is absolutely brill, thanks