Language Activities for Toddlers – Picture to Picture Matching with Movement

Maria Montessori developed her philosophy with a huge emphasis on incorporating movement in all activities.  This is because movement stimulates many different areas of the brain as you are learning.  Young children live to move — sitting still is not nearly as fun.  This picture to picture matching work involves moving all the way through the first floor of our house to complete it.

Calendars are great to use for picture to picture matching works.  They typically have nice large pictures for each month, plus smaller previews of each month’s picture on the back.  My husband picked up a free calendar at our vet’s office, so I decided to make this calendar picture to picture matching work.  I cut out five of the pictures and laminated them along with the smaller version of each.  I taped the larger pictures to the walls at L’s height all over our house.  I attached velcro stickers to each pair, and put the smaller pictures in a basket on L’s language shelf — I put the velcro stickers at the top of each smaller picture rather than in the center because I found that it was easier for L to attach it when it was at the top.  When L found the basket of smaller pictures, I showed her how to carry it to each larger picture, find the matching dog, and attach it.  When she has matched all of them, we walk around the house again to collect them all and put the basket back on the shelf.  L loves this work!  This calendar was free, but I also found several on sale since the new year has already begun, and I bought a few to replace this one in a few months.