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Montessori-Inspired Presidents' Day Activities Using Free Printables

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 11:01:00 GMT

By Deb Chitwood from Living Montessori Now

Happy Presidents' Day Weekend if you live in the USA! Today, I want to share ideas for Montessori-inspired Presidents' Day activities that use some great free printables I found online. If you live in another country, you could prepare similar activities to celebrate your country's leaders through the years.

The hands-on activities are for preschoolers through first graders. Often, Presidents' Day activities are best suited for kindergarten on up, although a number of activities can be adapted for preschoolers as well. You might want to create a mini Presidents' Day unit, or study presidents for the rest of the month.

You'll find many more activities for preschoolers through first graders throughout the year along with presentation ideas in my previous posts at PreK + K Sharing. You can find them easily in this post at Living Montessori Now: More Than a Year's Worth of Freebies and Montessori-Inspired Activities.

Presidents' Day Number Order and Skip Counting Puzzles

For this activity, I used the President's Day Number Order and Skip Counting Puzzles from Gracehopper Learning. There are 10 different president-related puzzles in this printable. For younger preschoolers, you can leave the numbers attached to the puzzle and use a 1-10 or 11-20 puzzle.

For older or more-advanced preschoolers, you can use the skip counting puzzles with the numbers separated from the puzzles. In the tray I prepared, I used an inexpensive wooden tray from the craft store and pencil boxes to hold the puzzle pieces.

You'll notice that I have separate containers for the numbers. I like to use small containers to organize trays whenever possible. Just as an organized environment and organized shelves help children develop an internal sense of order, organized trays also help children develop a greater sense of order.
Presidents' Day Word Fun

Presidents' Day Word Fun for Kindergarten by Melissa Williams at Teachers Pay Teachers made it easy to create this tray. Younger preschoolers could just match the letters to the words. Advanced preschoolers through first graders could see how many words they could create with the letters.

Presidents Matching Activity, Number Order Activity, and Golden Bead Activity

For this set of activities, I used the president cards from Happy Birthday George! (A Presidents' Day Learning Center Binder) by Cortney Bystrom from Once Upon a Substitute. A matching tray like the one above could be used for younger preschoolers. It could be used for matching or a concentration game.

The tray is a clear acrylic tray from Montessori Services. While older preschoolers could match all the president cards, younger children could be given a tray with just a few of the most well-known presidents.

Another tray could be created to emphasize the order of the presidents and Montessori golden bead work. For this, you'll need the same president cards (one set only) and 4 ten bars and 9 units (or bead bars for 1-9).

This activity would work well with one child or a small group. Above is a possible layout for the president cards. I used a small work rug from Montessori Services for the layout.

After the president cards are laid out, you could ask the child (or take turns asking different children) to find a specific president. Give a clue about which number president if the child can't find the president. Then ask the child to match the beads to the number of president.

Check out my DIY Bead Bars post for links to lots of ideas for making your own bead bars and links to presentations for teens and tens that can be adapted. If you have another manipulative for place value, you could use that in place of the Montessori beads.

Presidents' Day Mini Books

I used Presidents' Day Mini Books and Writing Activity from Ready-Set-Read! to easily prepare a Presidents' Day mini books tray. Younger children can just use this as a cut-and-staple activity. Older children will have a mini book to read as well.

Washington and Lincoln Timelines

For this activity, I used Presidential Timelines from Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational. Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational used 2 5-gallon paint sticks to prepare the activity.

To save space, I used two ribbons covered with sticky-back Velcro strips. After printing out, laminating, and cutting out the timeline pieces, I added the corresponding type of sticky back Velcro pieces to each of the timelines.

Paper clips kept the rolled-up ribbons together on the tray. I used a medium-size tray from Montessori services and two glass candle coasters for the timeline pieces.

It would be helpful to read biographies about Washington and Lincoln before doing the activity. It would generally be best for kindergarten or first grade, although preschoolers could participate by listening to the biography and sticking on the timeline pieces.

More Free Printables for Presidents' Day

Go to my post at Living Montessori Now for links to more free Presidents' Day freebies: Free Presidents' Day Printables and Montessori-Inspired Presidents' Day Activities.

More Montessori-Inspired Presidents' Day Activities

For more Montessori-inspired Presidents' Day activities, check out this post with lots of activities and a link to my Kids' Presidents' Day Pinterest Board: Montessori-Inspired Presidents' Day Activities. If you'd like ideas for calendar-based themes throughout February, see February Themed Activities for Kids.

Happy weekend!

Deb Chitwood is a certified Montessori teacher with a master’s degree in Early Childhood Studies from Sheffield Hallam University in Sheffield, England. Deb taught in Montessori schools in Iowa and Arizona before becoming owner/director/teacher of her own Montessori school in South Dakota. Later, she homeschooled her two children through high school. Deb is now a Montessori writer who lives in Colorado Springs with her husband of 37 years and their cat of 11 years. She blogs at Living Montessori Now. Linked to Tuesday Tots, Tactile Tuesday, The Mommy Club Resources and Solutions at Milk and Cuddles and Crystal & Co. Enchanted Thursdays Blog Hop, The Weekly Kid’s Co-op, Living Life Intentionally Linky Party, Preschool Corner, Sharing Saturday, Saturday Show & Tell, Show-and-Share Saturday, The Sunday Showcase, Link & Learn, and Afterschool Express.

This post contains affiliate links for Montessori Services.

Valentine’s Day “Making Words” Literacy and Math Freebie ~ Plus a February Freebies Link-Up!

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 01:56:44 GMT

Teaching grade 7, I don’t do as many activities with my students for holidays as perhaps teachers in the younger grades. Every once in a while though, it’s kind of nice to break away from the routine a bit, and celebrate a special day. So, I have a Valentine’s freebie for you! It would be a [...]

Book Club Discussions: Moving Beyond the Text To Make Meaningful Connections

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 02:40:59 GMT

So we’re about half way through our book club and things are going okay. My class is a group of very verbal kids (and then some not so verbal kids). They seem to be enjoying their novels and I know that they’re engaged in the read aloud text: Firegirl. I have been struggling with one [...]

Montessori-Inspired Christmas Language Activities

Anonymous — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 12:00:00 GMT

By Deb Chitwood from Living Montessori Now

I always loved creating Montessori-inspired activity trays before holidays. With the printables that are available online, it's often quite simple to create activity trays for any type of holiday or theme.

Today, I want to share Montessori-inspired language ideas for using some great free printables I found online with a Christmas theme. Thanks so much to the designers who've so generously shared their printables!

C is for Candy Canes Beginning Sounds Activity

For this activity, I used the "C is for Candy Canes" page from the CHRISTmas Candy Cane Preschool Mini-Pack by Itsy Bitsy Learners. You could rotate it with pages like "C is for Christmas" from the Christmas Preschool Printables at Confessions of a Homeschooler, "J is for Jesus" page from J is for Jesus at Confessions of a Homeschooler, or Christmas magnet pages from Making Learning Fun.

I got the idea of using tiny bows from Chestnut Grove Academy. Instead of tiny bows, you could use glass gems, playdough balls, Power Magnets, pom poms with a strawberry huller, magnetized pom poms on a magnetic tray, or dot markers (if you don’t laminate the activity).

In Montessori education, we emphasize phonetic sounds rather than letter names. I would demonstrate the activity by placing the printable on a rug and saying, "/c/ is for candy cane." You could show how to place a couple of the bows on the page. Show how to trace the letters using a dry erase marker on the laminated page. (Note: When I prepared the activity, I added a small green dot at the starting point for tracing each letter.) Show how to clean the tray before putting the materials away and returning the tray to the shelf for the child(ren) to use.

Gingerbread Babies DIY Textured Letters and Salt Tray

For this activity, I used the Preschool Gingerbread Baby Printables from Homeschool Creations. You could make a miniature DIY version of Christmas textured letters by printing out the gingerbread babies alphabet cards, laminating them, cutting them out, and adding red glitter glue to the consonants and blue glitter glue to the vowels.

The miniature textured letters could be used like traditional sandpaper letters except that you'd need to use one finger to trace the letters rather than two because of the size of the letters. You could also make a salt tray for practice tracing specific letters. I love using white salt for writing trays in the winter since the salt looks a bit like snow. You could also make a matching activity with upper- and lowercase letters.

Gingerbread Babies DIY Movable Alphabet Spelling

The gingerbread babies textured letters could also be used as a DIY movable alphabet. You could use it for sounding out and spelling phonetic objects or pictures.

Gingerbread Babies Name Activity

You could make a name tray using the upper- and lowercase gingerbread babies. You'd need to be sure there are duplicate letters where needed for a name.

Christmas Creative Writing Activity

This creative writing activity for advanced preschoolers and kindergarteners uses the Nativity Preschool Pack from 1+1+1=1 and the Polar Express Pack (or one of the other packs) from 3 Dinosaurs. It's hard to find a much easier activity to prepare. You just need to print out copies of the pages and place them on a tray. You can add a Christmas pencil and pencil sharpener to focus on practical life skills as well.

Younger children could dictate a short story to you. That's an activity I always enjoyed doing as a Montessori teacher.

More Free Christmas Printables

Christmas Pack from 3 Dinosaurs
Reindeer Pack and Extras from Royal Baloo
Reindeer Pack from 3 Dinosaurs
Elf on the Shelf Printable from Royal Baloo
Shelf Elf Pack from 3 Dinosaurs
Christmas Action Cards from Oopsey Daisy
Merry Christmas Pack from Living Life Intentionally
Polar Express Mega Pack from Living life Intentionally
Christmas Around the World eBook from Living Life Intentionally
Christmas Printables from 1+1+1=1
Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree Printable Pack from Homeschool Creations
Winter Wonderland Pre-K Pack Expansion from Over the Big Moon
Candy Cane Mini Pack from Our Little Monkeys
Christmas Printables from All Our Days
The Gingerbread Baby from Homeschool Share
12 Days of Christmas from Homeschool Share
December Theme Printables by Carolyn from Wise Owl Factory at PreK + K Sharing
Christmas Tot Kit from Lawteedah
Christmas Symbols from 2 Teaching Mommies
Christmas Trees from 2 Teaching Mommies
Candy Canes from 2 Teaching Mommies
Nativity Printables from 2 Teaching Mommies
Nativity Pack from 3 Dinosaurs
Nativity Pack 2 from 3 Dinosaurs
Nativity PreK Pack from Over the Big Moon

More Kids' Christmas Activities

I have a Kids' Christmas Activities Pinterest Board with links to many more wonderful free printables and activities of all types.

Have a wonderful Christmas! :)

Deb Chitwood is a certified Montessori teacher with a master’s degree in Early Childhood Studies from Sheffield Hallam University in Sheffield, England. Deb taught in Montessori schools in Iowa and Arizona before becoming owner/director/teacher of her own Montessori school in South Dakota. Later, she homeschooled her two children through high school. Deb is now a Montessori writer who lives in Colorado Springs with her husband of 37 years and their cat of 11 years. She blogs at Living Montessori Now.
Linked to Tuesday Tots, Tactile Tuesday, The Mommy Club Resources and Solutions at Milk and Cuddles and Crystal & Co. Enchanted Thursdays Blog Hop, The Weekly Kid’s Co-op, Living Life Intentionally Linky Party, Preschool Corner, Sharing Saturday, Saturday Show & Tell, Show-and-Share Saturday, The Sunday Showcase, Link & Learn, Afterschool Express, December Holiday Blog Hop at PreK + K Sharing, and Montessori Moms Holiday Hop.

The 12 Days of Gift-Mas Secondary Blog Hop~Day 6

Anonymous — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 10:33:00 GMT

I am super excited to be Day 6 in this middle and high school holiday blog hop! Thanks again to Michelle from Making It As A Middle School Teacher for coming up with this entire idea! There are twelve of us participating. Each day we’ll be highlighting some of our best freebies! Some teachers [...]

Add Improv into Your Classroom with This Holiday Freebie

Anonymous — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 11:30:16 GMT

My students are very vocal and energetic this year. Many are hands-on learners as well, and they love activities where they can get out of their seats. Rather than fight this, I’ve been trying to embrace it and to draw on those strengths and learning preferences. Well, Christmas is quickly approaching and you know what that means! [...]

Montessori-Inspired Friendly Ghost Activities

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 08:52:00 GMT

By Deb Chitwood from Living Montessori Now

I LOVE a non-scary Halloween! When Halloween isn't frightening, it's a great way to add excitement to learning. Today, I'm sharing ideas using some fabulous free ghost printables. I used the printables to create hands-on activities for preschoolers through first graders.

Of course, ghosts aren't a typical part of the Montessori curriculum, but many progressive Montessorians like me enjoy using friendly ghost activities before Halloween to make the holiday less scary for preschoolers ... and because they add interest and fun to learning activities in October.

The printables I'm using are from Three Ghost Friends, Learning Ideas - Grades K-8, and 3 Dinosaurs. All three sites specialize in hands-on learning fun, and I'm just sharing ideas from very few of their printables.

Ghost Color and Shape Scavenger Hunt Mini Sensory Tub

Eric at Three Ghost Friends has LOTS of fun ghost activities ... and who could be frightened by these friendly ghosts?! I had fun creating a "Boo! I Found You! Homemade Look-and-Find Game." In the original post, the printable is used to create an I-Spy bottle, which is a great idea. I decided to create a sensory tub using the printables.

Montessorians use "ellipse" as the term for what most people call an "oval" and "oval" for a 2-dimensional egg shape. Eric was kind enough to add a special printable for Montessorians with an "Ellipse Ghost" instead of an "Oval Ghost." He also created a larger version of the printables for a sensory tub.

Instead of making a regular-size sensory tub, I found a shoebox-size tub at Dollar Tree to make a mini sensory tub. I used sunflower seeds so preschoolers could have a snack at the end of the activity. I included various types of tongs, a scoop, and a nutcracker (for preschoolers who couldn't open the sunflower seeds with fingers alone). I also added 4 LED tealight candles from Dollar Tree. Turning the candles on during the activity and off when the activity is put away adds another practical life activity to the sensory tub.

If you use the smallest printables, it's quite challenging to find the color and shape ghosts. So even older preschoolers could have fun with the activity. Note: This obviously isn't intended for toddlers. Not only are the sunflower seeds dangerous for them, but the shapes are too small as well. For toddlers, it would be better to make the I-Spy bottle with the shapes. If you'd like another activity for toddlers, check out the "Feed the Ghosts: Color Craft Stick Sort," using 2 32-ounce containers and colored craft sticks.

Three Ghost Friends also has some great printables for "Spell Your Color Words with the Three Ghost Friends" and "Spell Your Shape Words with the Three Ghost Friends" (including special lower-case versions for Montessorians).

Ghost Counting Wheels Tray

Three Ghost Friends has a "Ghost Counting Wheels" printable with counting wheels for 1-6 and 5-10. This tray was very simple to prepare. I just printed out the counting wheels, laminated them, and cut them out. If your activity will have heavy use, be sure to cut out your wheels before laminating and leave a laminate edge.

I added numbers to the clothespins (with the exact number of clothespins for the counting wheels) with a permanent marker. The tray is an inexpensive wooden tray from a hobby store.

For many more hands-on activities from 3 Ghost Friends, check out the "Activity Ideas" page.

Ghost Numbers and Counters

Learning Ideas - Grades K-8 has "Friendly Ghost Odd and Even Sort and a Linky Party" with super-cute, friendly ghosts. The linky party even has more friendly-ghost printables. I loved these printables for creating a DIY numbers and counters activity. To make 55 ghost counters, I added eyes and mouths to lima beans with a permanent marker ... easy peasy! The tray is a black Economy Tray from Montessori Services.

When showing how to do the layout, I recommend placing the lima-bean ghosts in rows of two with a leftover ghost centered below the last row. It's a standard Montessori layout for cards and counters and gives a visual representation of odd and even. If you have exactly 55 "ghosts" for the numerals 1-10, that will serve as a control of error. You could even add more numerals (the printable has 1-99) and the cute "odd" and "even" ghosts if you'd like to add an odd-and-even activity as an extension for children who can easily count and identify 1-10.

Montessori-Inspired Ghost Addition, Subtraction, and Counting Activities

The Halloween Pack from 3 Dinosaurs is HUGE! The pack is designed for ages 2-7 and includes literature-based activities. This pack has all sorts of very-cute Halloween images, including very-cute and friendly ghosts. Some of my favorite printables are the ghost addition, subtraction, and counting pages.

These are amazingly simple to prepare. Many of the 3 Dinosaurs printable packs have counting, addition, subtraction, greater than/less than, and/or word problem printables with numbers that are interchangeable. I just used the numbers from the "Montessori-Inspired Ocean Math Activities" I prepared in June. I would probably put both the addition and subtraction pages on a tray for children who are ready for them.

For presentation ideas, check out the Montessori-Inspired One Fish, Two Fish Addition Tray in my February post here. You should be able to easily adapt the presentation for this activity.

For younger children, I would make a separate "Count the Ghosts" tray. For each tray, be sure to have the exact number of ghosts needed for the highest sum or difference or to go to the highest counted number you're using in the activity. I like to use 3-dimensional objects whenever possible, so I used the lima-bean ghosts for the activity. 3 Dinosaurs has very cute ghosts that can be printed out and used if you prefer.

Ghost Writing Tray

In the Halloween Pack, Cassie from 3 Dinosaurs also has a fun creative-writing activity for children who are starting to write stories. Just print out as many pages as you need for your homeschool or classroom and store them on a tray. If you don't have a separate place for pencils, you could add a Halloween pencil for extra interest. Younger children could always dictate a sentence or story to you if they'd like to create their own ghost story.

More Montessori-Inspired Halloween Activities

You'll find lots of Montessori-inspired Halloween activities and ideas in these posts at Living Montessori Now: Montessori-Inspired Pumpkin Activities, Homeschool Halloween, Montessori-Inspired Pumpkin Unit, Montessori-Inspired Halloween Activities, and Halloween Grace and Courtesy. I also have a Kids' Halloween Activities Pinterest Board with Halloween activities of all kinds.

Have a fun Halloween! :)

Deb Chitwood is a certified Montessori teacher with a master’s degree in Early Childhood Studies from Sheffield Hallam University in Sheffield, England. Deb taught in Montessori schools in Iowa and Arizona before becoming owner/director/teacher of her own Montessori school in South Dakota. Later, she homeschooled her two children through high school. Deb is now a Montessori writer who lives in Colorado Springs with her husband of 37 years and their cat of 11 years. She blogs at Living Montessori Now. Linked to Tuesday Tots, The Mommy Club Resources and Solutions at Milk and Cuddles and Crystal & Co. , Enchanted Thursdays Blog Hop, The Weekly Kid’s Co-op, Living Life Intentionally Linky Party, Preschool Corner, Saturday Show & Tell, Show-and-Share Saturday, The Sunday Showcase, Link & Learn, and Afterschool Express.

Middle School Freebies ~ Lessons, Activities and Printables

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 09:00:03 GMT

I’ve been getting lots of traffic on my “Freebies” page from blog followers and visitors. It occurred to me, though, that maybe not everyone has looked beyond the homepage of Lessons From The Middle. I just had a peek at the Middle School Freebies collection that I started a while back, and I noticed that [...]

Improving Word Choice ~ A Freebie For You!

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 23:13:48 GMT

We just had our 2 day, Annual Teachers’ Convention. The sessions were really fabulous and I feel totally energized – and the weekend’s not even here yet! I just need some time, now, to reflect on the messages of the presenters and figure out how to incorporate them into my classroom. More on all of that in [...]

Simply Primary Memory Book Freebie

Anonymous — Thu, 03 May 2012 02:52:00 GMT

So excited to share this freebie with all my reader joining us from Empowering Little Learners and all of our new readers to Simply Primary!

Included in this exclusive freebie is four different themes: school children, monkeys, dinosaurs, and owls! Each book contains these pages as well as several others. About 40 pages total!

So head on over and start reading along with me at Simply Primary and get this great freebie!