Living Montessori Now

Montessori Inspiration for Parents and Teachers

Turning Valentine Crafts into Montessori-Style Activities

By 39 Comments

You can turn many Valentine’s Day craft ideas into Montessori-style activities. Not only will your child have a chance to repeat the activity as often as he or she wishes, but you will give your child extra opportunities to develop important skills.Turning Valentine Crafts into Montessori-Style Activities

Giving your child a chance to repeat activities is especially important when your child is working to meet the needs of a sensitive period. By turning a craft into a Montessori activity, you will help your child meet his or her needs for a particular sensitive period at the same time.

Montessori-Style Pipe-Cleaner-and-Bead Valentine's Day Tray

Montessori-Style Pipe-Cleaner-and-Bead Valentine’s Day Tray

I used Montessori principles to convert a simple pipe-cleaner-and-bead heart craft into a Montessori-style activity. To prepare the activity, I used a tray, pipe cleaners, and beads from a hobby store and heart-shaped dishes from the Valentine’s Day section at the supermarket. The dishes wouldn’t have to be heart-shaped, but the heart-shaped dishes do add to the interest and seasonal appeal of the activity.

Pipe Cleaner and Bead Heart

Pipe Cleaner and Bead Heart

There are many ways you can prepare the activity to include color sorting or shape sorting, depending on which beads you want to use for the activity. The activity is especially helpful in developing fine-motor coordination along with a sense of order and concentration if you allow your child to work with the activity as long as he or she chooses.

If your child wants to make a number of pipe-cleaner-and-bead hearts, he or she can make Valentine’s Day Hanging Hearts from 4 Crazy Kings. You could always hang one or more hearts in the window or hang small hearts from a Valentine tree.

Montessori Techniques for Turning Crafts into Montessori-Style Activiites

Here are some Montessori techniques you’ll find helpful in creating Montessori activities from craft ideas:

  • Use a tray for the activity.
  • Think about the practical-life skills of the activity. If your child is working with a tool such as a stapler or scissors, it’s best if your child has had experience working with the tool previously.
  • Place all the materials needed for the activity on the tray (unless certain materials, such as crayons or markers for an activity, are always in a central place near the tray).
  • Arrange the materials as attractively as possible and in left-to-right order wherever possible. Materials on trays and shelves in Montessori education are placed in left-to-right order as an indirect preparation for reading and writing.
  • Show your child how to use the activity, focusing on points of interest (such as carefully folding the pipe cleaner in half and twisting to make a loop before threading the beads – see Valentine’s Day Hanging Hearts). Use the Montessori technique of analysis of movement, or breaking the movements down into clear steps, when demonstrating a skill. Individualize your demonstration according to your child’s age and ability. For an older child, you could even leave written instructions.
  • You can just show the beginning of the activity (for example, with the pipe-cleaner-and-bead heart activity). It’s often best to avoid leaving a model so that your child doesn’t try to copy your example but feels comfortable with his or her own creation. Your child can ask you for help if he or she has difficulty with a step of the activity, such as twisting the pipe cleaner to finish the heart.
  • Store the tray on a low shelf, so your child can independently choose to work with the activity.
  • Allow your child to use the activity as often as your child wants, making sure your child cleans up the activity and returns the tray to the shelf after finishing.
  • In a Montessori classroom, one child uses an activity at a time unless he or she invites another child to do the activity at the same time. That allows children to develop concentration by working on an activity without interruption and teaches them to take turns. When I had a Montessori school, a new art activity often had a number of children working together, so it typically was a social experience anyway.

More Valentine’s Day Crafts to Turn into Montessori-Style Activities

Here are links to a few other Valentine’s Day crafts that can easily be turned into Montessori-style activities:

Heart Paper Chains (great cutting practice) from 4 Crazy Kings

Easy Valentine’s Day Craft from No Time for Flash Cards

Paper and Wire Hearts from Crafty Staci 

Tin Foil Heart Valentine’s Day Craft from I Heart Crafty Things

Yarn Craft Heart from Blue Bear Wood

Have fun creating Montessori-style activities from Valentine’s Day crafts!

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Michelle says

    Okay, I’ve been kind of down because we really don’t have any valentine decorations but you’ve just inspired me! We’re going to be making those paper strip hearts and the heart garland this week! I’ve got some other crafts in mind too. Can’t wait to get started!!!

    Reply

    • Deb says

      Thanks, Michelle! I think Valentine’s Day crafts are always some of my favorite seasonal crafts. Have a great week preparing for the holiday!

      Reply

  4. zelda says

    just popped over from HHM – love the beading idea – so now I know what I’ll be buying tonight to set this up for my little ones tomorrow 🙂

    Reply

    • Deb says

      Thanks so much for sharing my post and linking to my blog! I think your idea is great of using colored pasta noodles if you don’t have beads at home!

      Reply

  12. maggy, red ted art says

    I really do love all your Montessori spin on things – I think I have said it before – but it is great to do a “normal” activity and with a bit of extra thought make it even that little bit more valuable!

    Thank you for linking up to Kids Get Crafty (and for the comment re featuring our hearts!! Much appreciated)

    Maggy

    Reply

  15. JDaniel4's Mom says

    I should try beading with JDaniel. He would probably love it. Your hearts are so pretty.

    Thank you so much for linking to the Virtual Valentine’s Day Party on my blog. Please take a moment between now and the end of the party Monday night to visit a few of the other party guests. I would love to everyone who linked up to have other guests stop by for a visit.

    Remember if you visit two guests and leave me a comment that you did you could win a $15 Visa Gift Card.

    Reply

    • Deb says

      Thanks for your comment – and thanks for the wonderful Virtual Valentine’s Day Party! I’m commenting on and featuring a few of the linked posts on the Living Montessori Now Facebook page between today and tomorrow. I’ll be sure to leave a comment at your blog with a couple of the posts I feature!

      Reply

  16. Andrea says

    I had this on my to do list but we never got around to it. I love the little heart beads. Adorable!:)
    The problem I have with leaving the beads out for independant work it my 2.5 year old dumps them on the floor or sneaks them into the play room and hides them. Any advice on that?
    thanks
    Jada Roo

    Reply

    • Deb says

      Thanks for your comment, Andrea! Your daughter is still very young (most Montessori schools start at age 3), so I wouldn’t worry about allowing extra time before she’s ready to work with an activity like beadwork independently. At her age, you might just want to get the activity out when you can be working next to her (you can be doing your own work). If you just continue to provide lots of practical life activities, she should develop the order and concentration to work independently even with small beads. If there are any problems with how older children use activities, I typically use logical consequences: https://livingmontessorinow.com/2010/04/27/spanking-necessary-my-answer-from-experience-definitive-no/. I hope that helps! Have a Happy Valentine’s Day!

      Reply

  18. Kerri says

    Another fabulous activity!

    Thanks again for the post. I am not sure why it is showing so far down on the newsfeed of my FB page. I switched over to that new FB thing.

    Kerri

    Reply

    • Deb says

      Thanks, Kerri! Isn’t that a horrible feature of the new Facebook pages???! I just “liked” a new Facebook page called Bring Back Chronological Posts On Pages. It has almost 2,776 fans already!

      Reply

  19. tricia says

    Great post, Deb! Thanks for the link to our tree! I didn’t realize that the order on the tray was so important… 🙂 Left to Right makes sense! Thanks!

    Reply

  20. Sierra says

    Thanks for linking up to WOTT, Deb! This was one of the most clicked links 🙂 I want to do this with Boogie next year. Right now I only take out pony beads when I am in the right frame of mind to help him pick them all up because he loves to dump them. Once is a good fine motor activity. Twice is still okay. By three times we are sometimes both in tears at all the beads on the floor 😛

    Reply

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