Changing holidays or seasons provide an amazing opportunity to give your Montessori shelves a face lift with some easy switches to make your activities more cohesive and seasonally-themed.  Spring and Easter are right around the corner, so let’s see how we can make some Montessori-Inspired Spring activities!

The easiest way to make your shelves seasonally-themed is to switch out the colors of your materials and add a few seasonal shapes.  For Spring and Easter, that could be pastel colors, Easter eggs, chicks, butterflies, flowers, etc.

Here are over 10 Montessori-inspired activities for Spring and Easter, arranged by section:

Typical Practical Life Transfer Works:

Up first, we have a simple posting work using some flowery buttons!  Posting is always a fun and relaxing work that helps build hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills such as the pincer grip.  I put a bunch of these flower buttons into a small wooden box beside an empty cookie tin.  I cut a slot in the top of the cookie tin so the child can drop the buttons in.  The buttons make a fun “clang!” when they hit the bottom of the metal tin!

 

You can find tons of Spring-themed mini erasers online — such as insects, butterflies, and flowers — and they work very well with tongs!  Try putting some in a bowl with a set of child-sized tongs.  This requires a further refinement of the pincer grip to pick up each Spring eraser with the tongs and then release it into the second bowl.

 

Preschoolers may find those tongs to be too easy, so try giving them a pair of tweezers with some pom-poms to place in each compartment of a deviled egg dish!  Pro-tip:  eyebrow tweezers with a slanted tip are easier for children to use!

 

If you have a child who likes to move around a lot, try putting together this walking egg transfer!  I put a bunch of wooden eggs in one basket and placed an empty basket at the other end of the house.  The child will simply carry an egg from one basket to the other and repeat!  I added a ladle to ours to raise the difficulty level — it’s still a bit too easy, so I may replace it with a regular spoon to make it a balancing activity.

 

Manipulative/Fine Motor Practical Life Works

Another way to incorporate full body movement is with a hanging work!  I hung a bunch of hooks on the side of a kitchen cupboard, then added a bucket full of egg-shaped gift tags below it.  You could also do this with Easter egg ornaments!

 

This flower in-and-out work has always been a favorite around here!   I put some fake flowers with an upside-down colander so we can put them into each of the tiny holes.  This requires concentration and refines hand-eye coordination while working on fine motor skills.

 

And of course you could always take advantage of the fresh blooms growing in your garden for a real flower arranging work!

 

Tangram puzzles are great manipulatives, and you can find them in tons of themed shapes!  Try this Easter Egg or Easter Bunny tangram.

 

Sensorial Works

These nesting Easter eggs are perfect for toddlers to work on their size differentiation skills!  The eggs can be used like nesting dolls, or just line them up from largest to smallest.

 

Plastic eggs lend themselves beautifully to color matching works!  I put these eggs in a basket beside pom-poms of the same color.  Once they are matched by placing the pom-pom inside the egg, the eggs are placed into the egg carton!

 

Math Works

I couldn’t resist using these mini rubber duckies as math counters!  I made some number to quantity cards using yellow dot stickers to show where the ducks should go.  This helps make the connection between the written number and what quantity that number represents.

 

Language Works

Spring means the birds return and begin singing again!  I had to get this Backyard Birds toob because it contains many of the birds that we see in our own backyard.  I found a free printable of the birds represented, so I printed them out for an object-to-picture matching work.

 

Another of my favorite things about spring is that flowers are in bloom again!  I’m a terrible gardener, but we are lucky enough to have a bunch of beautiful flowers that bloom in our yard without us having to do a thing to help them!  I found these free printable flower 3-part cards and put them on our language shelf — toddlers can match just the photographs, while preschoolers can match the words.

 

Our shelves are all ready for Spring and Easter!

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