Day 3 Montessori-inspired Christmas Activity

Scooping and Transferring

3rd of our activity series is a simple yet practical life activity with Christmas décor items. It looks simple to us but is very challenging, engaging and satisfying for those little scientists! It is so much fun for them to do this over and over again. And you will see how they discover new ways to play with the same setup. This setup in many ways works as a treasure basket as well and encourages heuristic play for babies and toddlers. You can read more about heuristic play HERE http://littleacornstomightyoaks.co.uk/Articles/Treasure_basket

AGE GROUP – 1 year onwards

MATERIALS NEEDED

• 2 Bowls

• 1 big scooper/spoon (I used a big spoon from his beach set)

• Christmas decor items (mini versions of it preferably). I got hold of a pack of items for some 50Rs from a local shop that had miniatures of bell, Santa, drum, ball, candy cone, wreath etc.

TIME REQUIRED FOR ACTIVITY PREPARATION – 2 Minutes

HOW & WHAT TO DO

• Put all the décor items in a bowl.
• Put this bowl and another similar sized empty bowls in a tray along with a scooper or big spoon
• Demonstrate your child how you scoop out one item at a time and transfer into the other bowl
• You can also choose to talk about the item names and their relevance with regard to Christmas season
• Let your child take the lead in doing the transferring activity
• Let the child explore with the materials, let it be a free play session after this.

SKILLS DEVELOPED 

• Practical life skills

• Sensorial exposure – touch and feel experience of the items

• Language building – explore and talk about names of characteristics of decoration items

• Learning of culture and tradition

CAN SOME MATERIALS BE ADDED?

I added some pine cones in this bunch of items. I collected them from one of my visits to a community garden. Pine cones are relevant to this winter season, so they made a nice addition.

HOW TO TWEAK FOR YOUNGER KIDS 

• 6 months onwards, you can fill a big bowl with puffed rice and put all these décor items inside the bowl. Let the child play around with the bowl. Make sure there is adult supervision though. It is a great sensory exercise for infants and young toddlers. Once they pick up something other than the puffed rice, tell them what it is. A great language building activity as well.

HOW TO TWEAK FOR OLDER KIDS

• You can give your child a tong and ask to pick up the items one by one and transfer to another bowl. It is a great fine motor skill activity.

• You can take an ice cube tray and ask your child to put one item in each of the cavities using spoon or tong or hand directly. It is a simple one-to-one correspondence activity, which is a pre maths skill.

Explore the entire collection of articles: Christmas & New Year 

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