Day 7 Montessori-inspired Christmas Activity With Your Toddler

The Day 7 activity of this series will focus on gross motor skills. Gross motor skills include the large movements a child makes with major muscle groups. For example, running, jumping, climbing etc. Read HERE to know why are gross motor skills so important

Kids are creative enough to indulge themselves in gross motor activities but it is always good if we can weave some learning element in those activities.

AGE GROUP:  1 year onwards

MATERIALS NEEDED

• Print out of this printable with Christmas stuff. We had used the same printable in Day 6 activity. You can reuse those laminated cards in this activity.
• Lamination pouches, cotton handkerchief, scissors and iron – if you want to laminate the print outs at home. You can follow the DIY Home Lamination procedure HERE
• Access to lamination facility if you do not want to do it at home
• Random trays/ baskets/ bowls/ boxes with random stuff filled in it. Like crayons in a bowl, blocks in a box etc.

TIME REQUIRED FOR ACTIVITY PREPARATION: 15-30 minutes depending upon whether you are laminating the cards at home or not

HOW and WHAT TO DO

• From the printout of this printable, cut individual pictures and laminate them separately.
• Tell the names of all the items on this sheet to your child.
• Hide the laminated cards in different boxes/ baskets/ bowls inside stuff like crayons, blocks, utensils etc. One card hidden in one box. Try to keep the items of different shapes, sizes, colors and textures to give them a rich sensorial exposure.
• Keep these containers at different places in the house.
• Sit in a room with your child. Tell him that there is a box in another room (say Living Room) where there are some blocks. Go and see what Christmas stuff you can find in that box.
• Similarly you can ask your child to go and find different laminated cards.
• Treasure hunt activities like these are ultimate boredom busters for kids.

SKILLS DEVELOPED

• Gross motor skills
• Sensorial exposure – touch and feel experience of all the items in different containers
• Language building – explore and talk about names & characteristics of the card items

CAN SOME MATERIALS BE REPLACED?

If you do not want to laminate the printables, you can paste them on cardboard & still use it for the activities. But I prefer lamination because it makes the stuff durable, more so because I will be using them in multiple activities and would want to preserve them for next year Christmas as well.

HOW TO TWEAK FOR YOUNGER KIDS

• For babies who are in the crawling stage, you can keep the containers nearby in the same room and encourage them to crawl to a particular container, explore what is there in it and find a laminated card if they can. Even if they cannot, these containers are acting as treasure baskets and they are being engaged in heuristic play. Read more about treasure baskets, what you can have in there, its benefits HERE.

HOW TO TWEAK FOR OLDER KIDS

• For those who can read, you can introduce action/clue cards to find a particular laminated card instead of telling orally.
• While asking them to find a particular card, you can ask them to go hopping or do a bear walk or a crab walk instead of plain walking. You can read about different kinds of animal walks HERE
• You can also introduce phonics with this activity for 3+ years kids. Ask them what starts with the sound ‘b’ and they can say ‘bells’ and then go and find the bells in some box.
• Possibilities with treasure hunt are numerous!

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