Teaching the Toddler: Sensory Activities

One of my favorite things about Montessori is that although you can purchase some beautiful, useful products, you can also do so much for free or at least very close to free!

Little E is very interested in using his senses to discover the world. Here are some of the fun, free sensory activities we did today:

Beans: I poured some dried kidney beans, black beans, pinto beans, and peas into a bowl. I cut off the lid of an egg carton. Wow, easy and Ethan loved it. He tried using a spoon, but preferred his hands. Mommy needs to remember to give Little E something to define his work area (a tray or placemat) because our beans went everywhere!



We went to the park and played in the "river." He kept telling me, "Mom, the river is nice."


At the park we collected sticks, leaves, pinecones, and bark. For the rest of the day Little E kept asking to play with his leaves.

We compared texture, sizes and shapes together and pretended we were trees waving in the wind.

Then I let him play however he wanted. He told us all about the "great big" leaves that were the mommy and daddy and the tiny leaf that was the baby. He made the parent leaves take turns holding the baby, driving it in the "car," feeding it green beans (Little E's favorite food right now), giving it a bath, and putting it to sleep.