In Montessori Teacher Training, we learned how to show the Movable Alphabet to children at the time when they have a decent vocabulary of the letter’s sounds. The teacher opens it like a book and marvels at all the letters as the first introduction. At my house, I have two three year olds who love and adore big kid work. They know how to respect the work, but it’s still a challenge for them to return all the letters correctly. My role is to help them succeed, so I had to adapt. Since they are so very interested in big sister’s work, I’m taking it as ‘following the child’. So, I created a few materials for letter sounds using these materials. Anything to make them feel part of it, right? If you have a spare Movable Alphabet, or even one with broken or missing parts, this is a great second activity using a classic.
They both love it. I added a special basket for storing ONE of each letter (usually there are up to 8 of each). Their lesson is matching the black letter to the written letter inside the box. The second activity I made for this purpose is matching small objects into the correct letter box. Anything tiny for little fingers is always a hit! It’s fun, it’s tiny and it stopped the frustration with big sister’s alphabet.
View more Montessori related posts by Jessie here.
Jessie is a Primary Montessori Teacher and Mom to twin three year olds and a four year old. Jessie has a Montessori blog at The Education Of Ours, and can be found on Twitter.
Montessori Monday – Inexpensive and DIY Movable Alphabets | LivingMontessoriNow.com
Monday 2nd of January 2012
[...] Jessie from The Education of Ours has posts at Mommy Moment on First Experiences with the Moveable Alphabet and First Exposures to the Movable Alphabet. [...]
Jessie
Saturday 6th of August 2011
Thank you Deb and Katie for your comments! I'm glad someone is enjoying my Mondays :) You are both so sweet. Thanks!
Deb @ Living Montessori Now
Tuesday 2nd of August 2011
This is WONDERFUL, Jessie! Both my kids loved matching letter sounds/letters and objects as toddlers, and they would have absolutely loved these activities! It's great that you "followed the child" in adapting your Montessori materials for your younger daughters. I featured your post at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/LivingMontessoriNow. Thanks so much for sharing this on Montessori Monday! :)
Practical Parenting
Monday 1st of August 2011
I love the idea of using the tiny objects to match sounds to letters. I'm getting one of those!