Picture to Picture Matching – Montessori Pre-Reading Activity for Toddlers

Picture to Picture Matching is the last in matching work for toddlers. The first two being,

• Object to Object Matching and 
• Object to Picture Matching

This activity is one of the important pre-reading skills. It helps kids develop vocabulary skills and visual discrimination in a completely abstract way. Because like other matching activities, there is no touch and feel here. Its done by sight. 

Follow us on Facebook

What you need

• Picture cards or flash cards

How to

• I found the above picture grid online and printed 2 copies. Laminate for durability. 
• Cut out one and use the other as is.
• Pick one picture at a time, find the match and place it on the grid.
• You can also cut both the sets and give the set of identical cards in a divided tray or get  two sets of identical flash cards.
• Lay down one set. Pick one card at a time from the other set, look and make a match.

Miss D(2.5 yrs) was able to do this activity easily. She named each object as she made a match. We spoke about what it is, where we use it, how it looks and so on.Once kids have mastered this, there are so many ways to extend this activity. Cut up one picture into half and match it with the other, matching object  to silhouette, memory game etc. The Magnifying glass activity we did is also an extension to this.

Object to Picture Matching- Montessori Pre-Reading Activity for Toddlers

Object to Picture Matching is the next step in Pre-Reading skills. Like object to object matching, it develops vocabulary skills and also abstraction – toddlers make a connection, that the object they have in their hand is what they see in the picture.

Follow us on Facebook

 What you need

• Picture cards
• Matching objects

How to

• We have an animals book which is my LOs favourite. They always match the animals from toob to the pictures in the book. We have also done it with other books- shapes, fruits & vegetables, construction vehicles etc. Every time, they name the object before the match is made.
• You could pick pictures and objects according to your childs interest – like cars, construction vehicles, birds, fruits & vegetables, animals, little people etc.
• If you cant find pictures of objects you have, you can always click a picture, print it, laminate and cut.

Miss D(2.5) finds it very interesting to match the objects to the picture. Every time she makes a match, she gets so excited. We name each object as we make the match.Miss A(3.5) is old enough to match perfectly. So we have improvised the activity, by naming the animal sounds, where they live, what is their favourite food etc. Same with fruit & vegetables- whether it’s a fruit or a vegetable. If its a bird – where they live, on a farm or in wild etc.

Object to Object Matching – Montessori Pre-Reading Activity for Toddlers

Matching skills are very important. They help develop visual discrimination & concentration skills necessary for reading. Object to Object matching is the first step in Pre-reading skills. It helps in language development & is perfect for young toddlers.

Follow us on Facebook

What you need

• A basket of matching objects – i usually use animals toobs or pretend fruit and vegetables for this activity.

How to

• Take out the objects one at a time, name them and place on a tray.
• Let your kids repeat the names of the object.
• Now take the second set of items and let your kids name each object and match it.
• If your kids do not remember the name, review again.

I used to do this activity with Miss A(3.5)& Miss D(2.5) when they were around 2yrs. D still enjoys this activity. Infact, we did this today. You could introduce this as early as 15 months depending in your kids ability.A & D love to pair up their animals when they pretend play. They come up with stories about each animal family. If they have more of the same animals, the biggest of all becomes dad, the next becomes mom, then comes the baby animals. If we have just two of each, the big one becomes mom and the other baby. 🙂

DIY Sound Boxes – Montessori Inspired

Sound Boxes are amazingly fun and very simple to make. It helps your LOs hone their auditory senses, practicing sound discrimination and improving vocabulary skills.

Follow us on Facebook
What you need

• Empty containers – i used drinkable yogurt bottles.
• Pantry items
• Hot glue (optional)

How to

• I picked five bottles each with different color caps – red & blue.
• Fill the bottles with pantry items. I used rice, black eyed peas, dry penne pasta, cotton buds and dry sago.
• Fill each item in one red and one blue bottle almost 3/4th of it.
• If you don’t want kids to open the bottle, you can choose to hot glue the caps. However i skipped it – read on you’ll see why.
• Your sound boxes are now ready to use.

This activity was very interesting for Miss A(3.5 yrs). She thoroughly enjoyed it. Heres what we did.

1 – Contrasting Sounds

• I shook the ‘loudest’ box near each ear – then A repeated the same. The dry pasta was the loudest.
• I shook the ‘softest’ box near each ear – then A repeated the same. The cotton buds box was the softest.
• We discussed about loud & soft sounds.

2 – Matching Sounds

I let A do this all by herself.

• She picked one red box, shook it and observed the sound. 
• Then shook each blue box, until the pair was found. Every time she said, same or different.
• Once the pair was found, she put it aside. Repeated until all the boxes are matched.
• After all the boxes had been matched, A checked them again.
• Once she confirmed all are matched, i let her open each bottle to see which item made that sound – also checking if the boxes are matched perfectly.
• She spoke about each item, what it was, how it felt and then closed the box. – this is why i didn’t hot glue the caps.

3 – Grading Sounds

• I took red boxes, shook them to find the ‘loudest’, put it aside. A shook it to listen.
• I shook the rest to find ‘next loudest’ and put it next to the ‘loudest’. A shook them & compared the sounds.
• We continued grading until ‘softest’. 
• Grading loudest to softest – Pasta, Peas, Sago, Rice, Cotton buds. Although rice & sago, pasta & peas were too close. Just depends how much you fill in the box.
• Then, A repeated this with the blue boxes, using red as a key.

Miss D(2.5 yrs) loved to shake the box and hear the sound it made. She enjoyed opening the box, pouring the contents out then filling it in the bottle & closing it. That was a great sensory fine motor activity for her.

DIY Texture Balloons – Montessori Inspired

Texture Balloons is a fun tactile sensory activity for toddlers & preschoolers. These are very easy to make and a great way to work on their vocabulary – language development. This texture matching activity is perfect to explain the sense of touch.

Follow us on Facebook

How to

• Use a funnel to fill the balloon with any random items(pantry items works best) and tie them close. 
• Fillers we used – Rice, Sugar, Black eyed peas & Water beads.
• We used orange and gold balloons. Filled each item in one orange and one gold. 
• Let the kids touch & feel the balloons to match the pairs. 

Miss A(3.5yrs) squeezed one orange balloon and then squeezed all the gold balloons to find which matches the orange balloon. Once she found the match she put them side by side. She repeated this until she matched all the pairs. We then spoke about how the balloons felt – soft or hard, bumpy, squishy, crunchy, etc. Each time she felt two balloons she would say if they are same or different. She matched all the balloons perfectly.

Miss D(2yrs) loved to squeeze all the balloons. She just liked to feel the different textures and talk about how they feel. We dint try to match the balloons.We then discussed about the sense of touch – how we use our hands to touch and feel things – one of our five senses.

The water beads balloons were my LOs favourite pick. They simply loved squeezing it. Everytime they squeezed it, the water beads popped out. It was so irresistible, i had to try. We all loved squeezing & squishing the beads. It felt so therapeutic- much like a stress reliever.

Note: If you dont use good quality balloons there are chances, the balloons might tear when you do this activity – the party balloons from walmart seemed to work fine. With a lot of squeezing and throwing, our balloons are still in good shape. We will be adding more textures to this activity.

Count & Match the Chips – Color Gradient Math Activity

Count & Match the Chips is an easy to set up math activity for toddlers & preschoolers. It develops number recognition, one to one correspondence, counting and color matching skills. Perfect for busy bags.

Follow us on Facebook 

What you need

• Paint chips – one large & one multi tone sample for each color you choose
• Clothespin
• Glue
• Marker

How to

• Trim the large paint chips and write down numbers and mark dots to represent them. 
• Laminate the paint chips. This is optional. I did it because we used them as flash cards. 
• Cut & Glue the multi tone colors on the clothespin – for each color to match the number on the large paint chips. Eg – Blue chip with number 4, would need four clothespin with different shades of blue on each.
• Let your kids count and match or color sort and match the clothespin to the paint chip.

I gave the paint chip cards to my LOs the evening before we did this activity. They used it as flash cards. Miss A(3yrs) would count the dots on the card to identify the number and then she looked at the number itself. Miss D(2yrs) used it to learn colors and also tried to count the dots on it  just like her sis and she did great with 1 & 2.

The next day when they asked for the cards, i gave them the clothespin along with it. Told them to count the dots and match the clothespin to it. 

This activity was self correcting. A knows the color gradients i had used here. We did a Color   Gradient Matching activity with the same colors before. Infact, i reused the same clothespin. 😀 Whenever she made an error with counting she would use the colors on the clothespin to correct it. She did not need my help. Once she was done, we arranged it in numerical order. 👍

D tried to match the clothespin to the cards looking at the colors. She got most of it right – She needed some help with the pale color tones. By the end of the day, she was able to do it all by herself. 😀 Those cards were good for her number recognition skills- we looked at each card together & she repeated the numbers after me. She surprised me with the way she handled the clothespin – first activity where she didn’t break any 😉

This activity was a big hit, my LOs kept repeating it throughout the day. This was Miss A’s go to activity for the next couple of days – i think she enjoyed the independence – where she could self correct. It built her confidence in counting exercises.😀

Fall Leaves Matching

Fall Leaves Matching activity is great for visual discrimination practice, and can spark discussions about nature and science. 👍 We picked some leaves when we went out for a nature walk almost 2 months back. Then sorted out the leaves with same shapes to use for this activity. With the rest we made a Placemat. 

What you need

• Fall leaves – matching pairs, different sizes & shapes
• Laminator

How to

• Dry the leaves, laminate and cut around the edges. If your not planning on reusing the leaves you can use them as is. 
• I laminated mine and its been 2 months now and they still look good.
• Give the leaves to your LOs & let them find the matching pairs.

Miss A(3yrs) & Miss D(2yrs) showed much interest in this activity. I laminated 12 leaves out of which 5 pairs matched, the other 2 leaves was just to set up some difficultly level. Miss A was able to match the pairs with no help. Miss D enjoyed looking at the leaves and feeling them. We spoke about the different colors, sizes and shapes and why leaves change color and fall out. It was very interesting to see them ask and talk about nature. 😀 Every now and then Miss A asks for the leaves to do this activity. I wish i had more pairs for her to match. 

Click here to check out our fall leaves placemat.

DIY Color Gradient Matching Activity

This DIY Color Gradient Matching activity is Montessori inspired. Its real easy to make, perfect for busy bags & fun for kids. It lets your preschoolers distinguish between different shades of a color while working on their fine motor skills. 👍

What you need

• Paint chips
• Glue
• Scissors
• Clothespin 

How to

• Pick the paint chips from your local hardware store. Too many colors to choose from – Choose the colors depending on your kids ability.
• Cut strips from the side of the paint chip.
• Trim and glue each color strips onto clothespin.
• You could also choose to laminate the color pallets or stick them on a card-stock for durability.
• Place them on a muffin pan with clothespin pegged on the sides. Let your kids match the clothespin to the Paintchip.

This activity was a good way for Miss A (3 yrs) to practice different shades of the same color. Everytime we used words like lighter, darker, pale to describe each shade. Distinguishing between colors was very easy for her. The color palettes we used had 2 dark shades and 2 light shades. She would clearly differentiate between dark shades and light shades but was a bit challenging to different the between the 2 dark ones or between the 2 light ones. With practice she perfected it. 😀 She enjoyed this activity so much, that she kept repeating it until her fingers got tired from pegging the clothespin.

DIY Counting Sticks – Preschool Math Activity

Counting is a basic math skill which preschoolers need to master. It’s a strong foundation for advance math skills. Counting Sticks is a simple math activity for preschoolers which helps them learn counting, one to one corespondence & number recognition – Its perfect for busy bags. 😀

What you need

• Jumbo Craftsticks
• Tiny PomPoms
• Glue
• Marker
• Clothespin

How to

• Glue the pompoms to the craftstick. The jumbo craftstick holds upto 12 tiny pompoms. For larger numbers you can use giant craftsticks or paint sticks.
• You could also use buttons, stickers, beads, glitter glue dots – just anything which you can stick on the craftstick.
• Write the corresponding numbers & letters on the clothespin using markers.
• Let your kids count the number of pompoms on each stick and pin the corresponding clothespin to it.

Miss A(3yrs) found this activity interesting. She liked running her fingers over each pompom and counting along. Then she matched the corresponding clothespin and clipped it to the craftstick. 😀 She did great with the counting, but had some difficulty in picking the right clothespin because the craftstick did not have the numbers on them. If i marked the numbers on the counting sticks she would have easily matched them to the clothespin. I did this intentionally because it let her work on her number recognition skills. After repeating it a couple of times she did them with ease👏. I didn’t want to overwhelm her, so we started with six sticks. You can vary depending on your kids ability.

This activity is great for kids who rush through number sequences when counting and then get confused or frustrated. With these counting sticks they have to slow down and think about each number because they can physically feel each one as they count. 👍