MONTESSORI MATCHING ACTIVITIES WITH NOT SO FLASH FLASHCARDS

This week’s post is all about Montessori matching activities. As my daughter gets older her needs change as well. The activities that I was doing with her when she was 12 months old no longer suit her.

I have been trying to come up with some age-appropriate Montessori activities and I finally have a list I want to share with you all! I managed to break my list down a bit so that I can thoroughly explain each activity so you and your child can do them too.

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Up first for our Montessori matching activities is one of our new favorites! I call this activity the “Not so flash, flashcards”.

What you need:

• Not so flash flashcards
• Real Fruit
• Real Vegetables
• Schleich Animals
• Glossy Stock Paper OR Laminator
• Wooden trays

As you may know, Montessori guidelines frown upon using flashcards in the “flash” card sort of way. Meaning that your child would be memorizing the cards not actually learning them.

With these not so flash flashcards your child will be working on more of a matching game. Each card has a picture of an item (animal, fruit, or vegetable). Laying the cards out one category at a time your child will match each item to the toy or food.

The pictures on the flashcards are real photos of items as to not confuse the child. It is important to give your child beautiful life like materials so that they understand and it is clear what they are looking at. Cartoonish pictures should be avoided when possible.

Above is a video of my 19-month-old daughter doing the Montessori matching activities with the fruit and vegetable cards in our home. She absolutely enjoys the satisfaction of being able to complete this sequence on her own. I did have to show her the act of matching at first as we have not been working long with this particular activity.

I suggest starting with the fruit or vegetable categories for younger toddlers as they may be more familiar with these everyday items. Moving on to farm animals and then safari animals when your toddler has mastered the food flashcards.

It truly does amaze me how quickly my daughter catches on to these new activities. I hope that you and your toddler enjoy these flashcards as much as we do!

Stay tuned for next week’s post where I will be continuing the Montessori activities series with an awesome color recognition activity.

What do you use matching for in your Montessori home? Have you tried anything like these cards to match with real items? Let me know in the comments.