Montessori materials aren’t known for being portable. The Montessori ideal consists of child-size furniture and low shelves with Montessori materials and activity trays that allow the child to freely choose activities.
Obviously, you can’t take all that with you on the road. But there are creative Montessori homeschoolers and bloggers who have found ways to bring Montessori-inspired activities with them, whether they’re on a road trip, visiting grandparents, or just going to the doctor’s office.
You’ll also find some great ideas in this article from For Small Hands (affiliate link at no cost to you): Create a Travel Kit with Montessori in Mind.
You’ll find lots of Montessori-compatible busy bags and other activities for traveling on my Traveling with Kids Pinterest Board.
In this post, I’ll focus on activities that are portable versions of traditional Montessori materials and extensions. Here are some ideas for bringing hands-on, Montessori-inspired activities with you when traveling with kids:
Traveling with Kids – Montessori-Inspired Activities
Montessori-Inspired Activity Bags/ Busy Bags/Waiting Bags
Fun Magnetic Vehicle STEM Trays and Activity Bags
Quick and Easy Spielgaben Activity Bags
Easy-to-Prepare Activity Bags {Montessori on the Go}
Montessori Walking the Line Activity Bag (Photo from Training Happy Hearts)
Montessori in a Bag (a number of activities, including the one in the photo), What We Got in Our First Activity Bag Exchange, and Sensory and Skills Spring Activity Bags with a Bit of Montessori Inspiration from Training Happy Hearts
Color Matching Busy Bag (Photo from The Princess and the Tot)
Practical Life, Color Matching, and Shape Matching Toddler Busy Bags from The Princess and The Tot
Primary Peg People Color Matching and Tying Busy Bag (Photo from Our Country Road)
Button Snake and Color Matching Busy Bags from Our Country Road
Color Matching and Grading Busy Bag (Photo from Teach Beside Me)
Practical Life Activities (including a button snake) and Color Grading and Matching Busy Bags from Teach Beside Me
Shoe Tying Busy Bag Board (Photo from Coffee Cups and Crayons)
Shoe Tying Busy Bag Board from Coffee Cups and Crayons
Kindergarten Activity Bag – Math (Photo from Chasing Cheerios)
Kindergarten Activity Bag – Math from Chasing Cheerios (This is a nice extension of cards and counters, although many of the DIY Cards and Counters would work well for a Montessori-inspired activity bag. I also like Chasing Cheerios’ idea of using pencil pouches for activity bags.)
Kindergarten Activity Bag – Sight Words Beans (could be used with simple phonetic words as well) from Chasing Cheerios
Felt Fractions and Button Snake (in “What’s in the Waiting Bag for May?”) from Kara’s Classroom
Felt Fractions from Counting Coconuts
North America Continent Bag (Photo from Counting Coconuts)
Continent Bags from Counting Coconuts (These aren’t intended as a traditional “activity bag” but would be a great way to bring geography on the road.) Photo of North America Continent Bag
Montessori-Inspired Dinosaur Matching Activity
Activities using animal replicas such as this activity matching dinosaur replicas and cards would work well in Montessori-inspired activity bags.
1000-10,000 Activity from Montessori at Home!
A number of activities from Montessori at Home! eBook such as 1,000-10,000 Activity from Montessori at Home! would work well in activity bags.
Some of the ideas on my DIY Montessori Materials post have miniature versions that can be used while traveling.
Many of the materials at sites on my Free Montessori Materials Online would work well for Montessori-inspired busy bags.
Montessori Mystery Bags
Montessori Mystery Bag (Photo from Elaine Ng Friis)
Touch Sensory Bag from Elaine Ng Friis (blog is no longer available)
Early Sensorial – The Mystery Bag from How We Montessori
Montessori Mystery Bag Lesson from Confessions of a Montessori Mom Blog
The Stereognostic Bag by Jessie from The Education of Ours at Mommy Moment
Mystery Bag with a Twist from Montessori Messy
Mystery Bag Tutorial from Montessori by Hand
Portable Activity Trays
Portable Practical Life Amphibian Tray (Photo from We Can Do All Things)
Trays on the Go from We Can Do All Things
Toddler Activity Bags in Action from Chasing Cheerios
Interchangeable Travel Lap Board for Kids from Messy Motherhood
Montessori-Inspired Tackleboxes
Sensorial Basics Tacklebox (Photo from Teaching from a Tacklebox)
Yes, there’s actually a blog called Teaching from a Tacklebox (a great blog)! Suzanne has lots of awesome ideas for portable Montessori homeschooling (Photo from Sensorial Basics post).
Montessori-Inspired Quiet Books
Montessori Continent Map and Quietbook (Photo from Imagine Our Life)
Montessori Continents Map and Quietbook with 3-Part Cards from Imagine Our Life (The ultimate in quiet books with free printables and tutorials! If you enjoy sewing, this is awesome! If this is too much for you, don’t feel bad … there are plenty of other activities that are simple to prepare.)
Quiet Book Cover Tutorial (could be used for any quiet-book activity) from Imagine Our Life
Do you have any Montessori-inspired activities that you take on the road?
Happy trails! 🙂
Learn more about my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to. Teach Grace and Courtesy!
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Great post! I’m so honored you included one of mine and I found lots of great activities I can’t wait to try out myself! Thanks!!!
Thanks, Megan … and my pleasure! I always enjoy your creative ideas. 🙂
These are all great. I love that some of them are super simple to whip up too. My 3 year old has a dentist appointment with treatment tomorrow and my 5 year old need something to keep him entertained in the waiting room for a possibly lengthy visit!
Thanks, Jackie! I always loved activity bags for times like that. 🙂
How funny to have you feature one of my Montessori Activity Bags in this piece (which is replete with other awesome ideas! Thanks!) I am currently running a local sensory bin contents exchange and, just this morning, was considering running another activity bag one. So, your piece is timely.
As always, you find, share and create wonderful Montessori-inspired inspiration. THANK YOU!
Thanks, Martianne! I’ve always enjoyed your activity bag posts. 🙂
You have just given me lots of links to visit! Thank you!
Thanks! I hope you found some that worked well for JDaniel. 🙂
Love your portable trays & paint chip games! The home improvement industry had no idea how they were going to contribute to kids crafts and learning when they came up with those things 😉 And those Dinosaur Cards are awesome Deb! Another wonderful resource – sharing!
Thanks so much, Jacquie! That’s so true about the paint chip activities. 😉 I appreciate your sharing my post.
Cool! We would love for you to link this to One Sharendipity Place Link-up this weekend!! http://thet2women.com/one-sharendipity-place-link-up-11/
Thanks for the invitation, Sue! I linked up a post from my other blog. 🙂
Another great resource from you. I definitely need to get working on some bags!
Thanks, Jen! I hope you found some that work well for your boys. 🙂
I love these activities for keeping little ones busy on the road.
My boys would adore all of the dinosaur activities.
My readers loved it too. Thanks for linking it up. You can see your feature here: http://www.crystalandcomp.com/2013/07/best-mom-advice-72113/.
Thanks so much, Crystal! I was excited to see the feature. 🙂
Thanks so much for sharing one of my posts! This is a great round-up of ideas!
Thanks, Karyn … and my pleasure! I loved your post. 🙂
This post came at the perfect time! I need to make several busy bags for my son and I am just starting to organize my ideas. Thanks for the links to all of these wonderful resources. They will be so useful!
Thanks for your kind comment, Kirstylee! I’m so glad my post was helpful. 🙂
I love them all! I’m definitely pinning this to my road trip board. We literally just came back from a long road trip too. Next time I guess.
Thanks for your kind words, Renae! I appreciate your pinning my post. 🙂
Some great ideas!! Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!
Thanks, Carrie! My family always loved road trips and activity bags, so this was a lot of fun. 🙂
I couldn’t resist commenting. Very well written!
These are great ideas! I might need to put some together for our road trip this summer! Thanks for linking up at the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop! We hope you join us again next week!
I love the fact that you have fun ideas for traveling in the car that are also meaningful ones. Thanks for providing these suggestions! Pinned to my “Traveling with Kids” board.
Wonderful ideas! From a not wanting to share germs stand point, I love the idea of having their own bags!