Montessori Monday – Recycle Plastic Eggs with an Open and Close Basket

Using Montessori principles at home is often easier than you’d expect. Much of Montessori education consists of observing the child and presenting activities based on that observation. Observation of my 17-month-old granddaughter during Easter weekend led me to recycle plastic eggs to create an open and close basket.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links (at no cost to you).

Using Observation to Decide on a Montessori-Inspired Activity

Easter Egg Open and Close Basket

After a neighborhood Easter egg hunt on Saturday, my granddaughter, Zoey, had a basket with plastic eggs of various colors and sizes. I watched her sit down with her basket and start opening and closing eggs.

I would have expected Zoey to be frustrated with the quantity of egg parts to be matched, but she patiently looked for matching parts. She was also interested to see that the smaller eggs fit inside the larger eggs.

Opening and Closing Plastic Easter Eggs

Recycling Plastic Eggs to Create an Open and Close Basket for Toddlers or Preschoolers

I followed Zoey’s lead in preparing an Easter egg open and close basket. Normally, I would only have at most 6-8 parts to be matched for a toddler (4-8 eggs would be a good number). Because of Zoey’s interest and lack of frustration, I left all the eggs in the basket except for removing duplicates. This activity couldn’t have been much easier to prepare, yet it’s an activity that will be perfect for fine-motor coordination as well as matching skills.

I left the eggs empty because Zoey sometimes still puts things in her mouth, but you could add small objects to the eggs for children who no longer mouth objects. That would work especially well for older toddlers and preschoolers.

For children who are working on numbers and letters, there are many activities you could create. I have a number of posts with activities using plastic eggs.

I’ll plan to leave the open and close basket of plastic eggs on Zoey’s shelf while she’s still interested. Then, I’ll store the eggs for educational activities another year.

If you’d like to create your own open and close basket with Easter eggs, you can use any plastic eggs you have available. If you don’t have one, you can order an Easter basket and objects on Amazon. If you want to add to your collection, there’s still a wide variety of Easter eggs available, too.

What is your favorite way to recycle plastic Easter eggs?

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 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!

It’s also Motivational Monday on Mondays! 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! It’s designed to help parents and teachers feel comfortable teaching manners to children ages 2-12. (And courtesy is a great addition to any curriculum.) Also, if you’ve ever been linked to in one of my roundup posts, please feel free to grab the “Featured on” badge.

Have you added the Montessori Monday button or a text link? Please be sure you’ve done one or the other so that others can find the link-up, too!May be linked to Afterschool Express, Thoughtful Spot, The Mommy Club Resources and Solutions, Mom’s Library, A Little Bird Told Me Linky Party, The Weekly Kid’s Co-op, Homeschool Link-up, TGIF Linky Party, Preschool Corner, Ultimate Homeschool Pinterest Party, Sharing Saturday, Share It Saturday, Show-and-Share Saturday, The Sunday Showcase, Link & Learn.