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 simple 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 50 practical life activities for your toddler.

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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 hands-on 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.

Additional Playdough Recipes you may enjoy!

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 the lock box and show your toddler how to press the key into the box and turn the key.

Toddler opening a small lock box with a star inside.

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.

Toddler sorting colored plastic birds into colored dishes.

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 toddler’s sensitive period for order and aids them in everyday life.

Additional Color Sorting Montessori Activities

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.

Three two-piece jigsaw puzzles. One of a car, a tractor and an airplane.

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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 as your child gets older. You could create a pattern card with different colors, and your child could string the beads in the order they see them appear on the card.

Child stringing wooden beads onto a string.

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.

Montessori dressing frame with snaps and buckle.

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.

Montessori dressing frame with a zipper and clasps.

A set of dressing frames is not 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 being done and have a chance to do it for themselves. Also, try to have them do it without the clothing on their body 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 the material 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 independently.

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 meet that criteria met!

Isolates a Skill

One characteristic I appreciate about Montessori activities is that they work towards isolating a skill for the child. When toys or activities try to do too many things all within one toy, I steer away from them. 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.

A tray with a wooden box that has a drawer with a wooden knob. A slit in the top of the wooden box and a dish of wooden coins.