A Guide to Montessori Activities At 2 years old

Toddlers often get bored at home. You can play games and other activities for them to stay interested, but, you should also consider the fact that the best way to make your two-year-old happy is to let them have fun. Let them explore new things and play different kinds of games.

One of my favorite simple activities to do at home with my two year old is to set up Montessori activities for my toddler follow along. I love Montessori or Montessori inspired activities because they are simple to set up, it focuses on one goal and it often holds my child’s attention for a while as he develops and works through a specific skill.

I decided to gather a few of my favorite Montessori activities for two year olds you can do at home.

Let’s talk a little bit about what Montessori is as it is a hard method (in my opinion) to grasp, but if you get the core idea you will be able to implement some of their principles at home. Or maybe, fall in love with it so much you turn your home into a Montessori home.

What is the Montessori method?

The Montessori method is an educational method was first introduced by Maria Montessori (1870-1952) a nurse who witnessed how much kids were longing for activities that required their sense of order. She dedicate her life to implement the Montessori method in the classroom.

Maria Montessori felt that children learn better when guided by their natural curiosity and that schooling should not only be limited to memorizing facts and doing arithmetic.

A lot of the Montessori activities are activities to do at home, but her focus was to bring home into the classroom.

Toddlers love order, they love to get to know the real world, they want to be part of their home, their community and their world. This is why, a lot of Montessori activities are focus on natural materials, real animals, and home activities that sometimes can seem to be looked at as chores.

Montessori focuses on each child and their own unique development. It is a clear division between the educational objectives of each child and the activities set up to each of them.

Each activity focuses on a primary objective. Each activity will focus on that one skill and that is it. If the activity is to explore the sense of touch, maybe there will be a set of cards with different textures, but these cards will not have essential oils that can enhance the sense of smell. That would be a separate activity in the Montessori method. One activity = One Objective.

This kind of mentality is one that has evolved over the years and Indeed, Montessori found that children needed to have a certain level of independence when roaming around the world.

Nowadays, it is not only a way to look at activities with children: it has evolved into a homeschooling system, and even public schools all over the world use this way of thinking when planning their curricula.

This article will be taking a look at activities that you can do with your two-year-old that is based on the Montessori method.

Respect and Independence

A major benefit of the Montessori method is that the children are taught to respect each other and respect the materials and toys they use. Although we are not a Montessori home, we do instill this concept at home.

The Montessori method also encourages all children to be independent thinkers and encourages them to try new things. Setting up activities that allow for critical thinking, exploring, and investigating in a safe way is a great way to foster independence skills.

Foster Independence

Independent play is helpful to our parents at home and extremely beneficial to a toddler’s development.

As your baby develops into a toddler, you will notice that they will become more independent and curious about everything. Allow this natural curiosity and openness to flow into the activities you teach them. Also, let your child express their own needs.

There is no need for you to intervene at all stages. Be consistent and understanding when you are using Montessori activities for two-year-olds. The most important thing is that you should never force your children to learn or act against their own interests. Allow them to learn from observations and examples.

Montessori Activities for toddlers (1 and 2 years old)

Get some ideas to do at home and add them as part of your daily routines.

Montessori activities for Learning Colors

Matching

You can work on various Montessori activities that involve sorting, matching, and sequencing skills, for example. To help develop a sense of order, you can set up activities that get him or her to match sets. For example, by using color rings as the color indicator and using peg dolls of the same color, you can get your toddler to match the right colors together.

You might be interested in more simple activities to learn colors

Encourage your child to pair cars with their matching color card on board, for example. You can also print out pictures of animals and get your child to match the right toy animal to the picture.

Learn how to make these DIY Zoo Matching cards

For an activity that also teaches your child some interesting landmarks, you can print out pictures of landmarks and acquire toy-versions of these landmarks, then ask them to pair them with one another. If you want a two bird one stone idea, why not ask your child to match socks together? It’s less work for you!

Sorting

You can also ask your child to sort colors, for example. If you have a tea box, why not ask them to sort the tea packages based on their color? Otherwise, you can mix a few different kinds of cereal together and ask your child to sort them out.

There are also activities and toys that were created for this very purpose, such as boards with different sized blocks that need to be put on the right spot, and so on.

Montessori activities in the Kitchen

There are also easy tasks that you can give to your two-year-old which are easy to do, yet which provide him or her with some Montessori-approved independence.

These help your two-year-old practice his or her motor skills. Present the materials in a tray with all supplies ready to be used. This all fosters independence and other key Montessori skills.

Use a spreader knife

Let your toddler spread crackers a soft butter of cheese.

Learn about the progress of knife skills in a Montessori Home

Use a Soft knife to peel and cut bananas.

squeeze orange juice using a squeezer

Use an apple cutter to cut apples slices

The idea that my toddler can prepare his own snack makes him eat even more. He loves to participate when we use this cutter. Get apples that are soft like the Fiji. (This green one was a bit hard so we had to do it together)

Wash and Pour water

Do some water play and using a soft sponge or brush wash dishes, and work on pouring water.

Montessori activities as Daily Chores

You can also get your child to help you with chores. Not sure about your toddle, but mine loves to help me sweep and clean the table and windows. Water plants? yup! that too! and the best part is that all of these “chores” are approved!

You can do simple activities such as:

Set up flowers on a vase

I don’t always have flowers, but when we do have a special occasion he is always involved in helping me set up a vase. I do a large vase and I give him a smaller one he can arrange.

Source: Bronxville Montessori School – learn how to arrange flower activity

sweeping and mopping

Get a small hand sweeper so you don’t get hit by the big stick from a regular broom. (learned my lesson!) The hand sweeper is the best! And for mopping, just be careful they don’t slip so use little water. My favorite is to just let him use the Swiffer mop.

Source: Sugar Spice and Glitter. Read full post here

cleaning windows

This is one of our favorite activities to do together. Sometimes we use real cleaning supplies and others I just give him water and a rug.

watering the plants

I kill all plants.. is a known fact. But if you don’t, get some indoor plants and make this a part of your morning routine. Because I tend to kill them all, we just go outside and water our garden plants instead.

This was me in spring trying to make Manu his own garden that he could water and enjoy.

Montessori Routines

Add these activities as part of your daily routine.

Getting Dressed

At home, you can also invite your two-year-old to do a few things. You may be surprised as to how many small daily tasks can be Montessori-approved.

For example, letting your child get dressed and undressed alone, or with only the necessary help, makes it easier for your toddler to learn how to do so on his or her own. Start by letting them pick what to wear from two options. Undressing is easier and will come first than dressing, but leave plenty of time to practice both.

Serving Breakfast

Your two-year-old can also start contributing to his or her own breakfast.

If you have cereal out, have a scoop ready for him or her to scoop out the cereal. Similarly, you can use the crackers and spreading ideas listed above when they are eating their lunch. Start practicing creating cereal sensory bins if you don’t feel fully comfortable starting at breakfast time.

cereal-sensory-play

Baking

Baking is also a very fun activity for all toddlers! I use the helper ladder and he always participates in whatever baking I come up with. Muffins, cupcakes and granola bars. He loves to mix, pour and of course, taste!

Montessori and Motor Skills

Threading activities

Finally, you can get your two-year-old to work on their motor skills with things like sewing and threading work. Punch holes in a cardboard sheet and get the thread ready. Your toddler’s task is to get the thread through the holes.

Cut boiled eggs

Another fun one is to get your two-year-old to cut a boiled egg. It sounds like an easy task because for us adults, it is. But, for toddlers still learning how to coordinate their movements, it is a task that helps them work on motor skills. You can also work on counting skills, mashing, whisking, washing a table, and much more.

Final thoughts on Montessori Activities

I hope this article was helpful to you! Montessori activities are easy to implement and usually involve our daily activities. Involve your child in independence as much as possible as grabbing their own snack, pouring a cup of water and helping watering the plants. Montessori activities focus on one skill at a time as they respect their environment and are part of their community while taking care of the planet.

Let us know if you try some of these, and keep in mind that patience and dedication will work wonders with this method.