The 7 Best Practical Montessori Activities for 2-Year-Olds
There are many Montessori activities you could offer your 2-year-old. In this blog post, I want to share some shelf work ideas for 2-year-olds. These activities will improve skills and hand-eye coordination. If you want more practical life skills like pouring, sweeping, and refining fine motor skills, check out this blog post with some practical life activities for your toddler.
Transferring With Tongs
Young toddlers love to transfer things from one place to another. We can offer a variety of transfer work with a variety of objects, extending this into various activities over the year. I have used pom poms, eraser caps, and small objects from craft stores. A great way to set up transferring with tongs is to have a bowl of objects and either a container like an ice tray with small compartments or different colored cups for color sorting. You may also find some small objects and have a set of cards for your child to match them to the exact picture. An introduction to using tongs will help to develop fine motor control and add another layer of challenge for your toddler.
Montessori-Inspired Playdough Kit
Sensory play is where we will see self-expression and sensory development bloom! Not to mention it is a lot of fun for both you and your child. With your child, you can make the softest homemade playdough, get my recipe here! Playdough in and of itself is an excellent activity, but we can make it more engaging and self-directed by putting together a Montessori Playdough kit.
Here’s what we have included in our Montessori-inspired Playdough Kit. These are fun to change up seasonally with new press-ins and maybe some seasonal scented playdough. Check out my Christmas-scented playdough and fall-scented playdough recipes!
- Homemade playdough
- Rolling pin
- Textured rolling pins
- Cookie cutters
- Small objects to press into the playdough
Lock Box
A very simple way to introduce the fine motor skill of turning is by introducing a lock box. Attach the key that comes with the lock box to a longer ribbon or string. Put a small treasure inside of the lock box and work with your toddler to press the key into the box and turn the key. This activity has offered so much excitement, engagement, and concentration in our home. Developing new skills, like learning how to turn a key is perfect for a Montessori toddler environment.
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Color Sorting Activities
My twin boys began being very interested in colors somewhere between two and two and a half years old. We have followed our child’s lead on how much work we do with color names and sorting of colors. To start, I naturally just used color names throughout our day. When we were coloring or painting, I would name the colors they were using. The names of different colors naturally came into play while we were getting dressed. Somewhere along the way, they developed a very strong preference for the color purple.
There are different materials and activities specific to color sorting. A simple activity, like this bird sorting color activity, can help isolate the skill of sorting colors. I was able to take these small colored dishes and use different objects, some game tiles from Qwirkle, and my boys could work to sort these by color. Color sorting naturally appeals to a toddlers’ sense of order and aids them in everyday life.
Multi-Piece Jigsaw Puzzle
Simple puzzles are still something my boys enjoy doing, but since they have turned two, they are enjoying puzzles with multiple puzzle pieces. These 2-piece jigsaw puzzles were a great transition into more challenging puzzles. From there, we went into these animal puzzles that have 3, 4, or 5 small pieces to make the animal. While these puzzles are still somewhat challenging at 28 months, they are very engaging and lend themselves to language skills. Our boys will name all of the animals and learn the animal sounds associated with each animal through this puzzle. More than just problem-solving skills and fine motor skills, these puzzles have offered language development and frustration tolerance, as they learn how to build a puzzle.
Bead Stringing
When it comes to fine motor activities, stringing chunky beads is such a great opportunity for toddlers and younger children to develop those muscles. Older children would enjoy this activity as well and you can make it more challenging by using smaller beads and different types of string or thread. Stringing beads requires coordination between fingers and hands. You could use bead stringing to work on patterns as well. You could create a pattern card with different colors and your child could string the beads on in the order they see them appear on the card. This variation would of course be for an older child.
Dressing Frames
Snaps, zippers, velcro, ties, and buttons are just a few of the different fasteners that a child will encounter as they get dressed. It will take them years of experience to master all of these different movements. In a Montessori environment, you will find that some materials and activities help to isolate the skills a child needs to be successful in the tasks of their daily life. When it comes to all of these tasks of dressing, we can use dressing frames.
Young children will like to repeat tasks to perfect them and gain mastery. You may find it helpful to invest in some dressing frames to help isolate the dressing tasks at a different, less frustrating time. Imagine trying to fasten a button while trying to get dressed to go play outside vs. sitting down and learning how to fasten a button on a frame specifically for practicing that skill.
A set of dressing frames is by no need necessary to teach these skills in a Montessori way. When showing these different fasteners to your child, show them rather than tell them. They need to see it be done and have a chance to do it for themselves. Also, try to have them do it without the clothing on to start, otherwise they are doing it all upside down, which will likely add to their frustration in learning.
Tips for Finding Montessori Activities
I like to keep in mind a few things when searching for Montessori-friendly activities for toddlers.
Engaging and Developmentally Appropriate
The first is that it is that it is engaging and developmentally appropriate. I find that with younger toddlers, honestly with young children in general, all practical life activities (or household chores) are so much fun for them. These types of activities are engaging, use the child’s senses, and develop both fine and gross motor skills. Tools like a child-sized broom or a small spray bottle make all the difference when it comes to making it possible for them to do these tasks with independence.
Purposeful
I gravitate towards toys and activities that offer purposeful and meaningful work for the child. All of the activities I mentioned in this blog post have that criteria met!
Isolate a Skill
One characteristic I appreciate about Montessori activities is that they work towards isolating a skill for the child. When toys or activities are trying to do too many things all within one toy, I steer away from it. This can lead to frustration and overwhelm for the child. Instead, by isolating the skill needed, they have a better chance of mastery and clearly understanding what they need to do.
Looking for More Ideas?
If you are a parent or care giver, looking for more Montessori ideas for your young one, check out some of these other blog posts for ideas and inspiration!
