On Halloween, my students started singing “Jingle Bells” and talking about Christmas. They hadn’t trick-or-treated yet, but they were ready to put up their trees and jump into everything Christmas. I can appreciate their holiday excitement and I’ve definitely started getting into the Christmas spirit too, but for the most part I try to slow it down and enjoy the Thanksgiving season first. There’s so many practical life, sensorial, and cultural activities for toddlers to experience during this holiday. Although most of what Asher does lately is practical life activities in the day to day, I switched out his shelf work with a few Thanksgiving themed trays. Here are a few ideas for toddlers in this season:
Practical Life Button Turkey
I got this amazing idea from the Natural Beach Living blog. It took me an evening to put together, but I think it will last from year-to-year so Aiden can enjoy it too in the future. I used Kimberly’s tutorial, felt, buttons, thread, and googly eyes to make this adorable turkey. Asher is pretty comfortable with buckles and zippers, but buttons are still difficult for him. I’ve been thinking about getting one of these Montessori dressing frames to practice, but in the meanwhile, he’s been having fun practicing with the feathers on this cute turkey!
Turkey Cutting Strips
We’re still continuing with our cutting work as this is still a high-interest activity for Asher. He uses his preschool scissors to cut on the lines and separate the turkeys. He also collects the scraps in his bowl and dumps them in the trash when he’s done or sometimes we recycle them for a quick craft. I’ve found that by thinking through the process of his work myself, I remember to include what he will need in order to complete the whole process and clean-up after himself. He builds so much confidence from being able to do everything from start-to-finish and I’m glad that things stay pretty clean! I kept the lines straight for him on these strips because he still needs that simplicity, but if your child is ready for something more advanced, I also made a version with zig-zag lines. Head on over to the free printables library to get free access to the Google Drive folder with these cutting strips and more!
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Thanksgiving Matching Cards
I downloaded these matching cards from The Montessori Print Shop. I usually like making my own materials, but sometimes I just have too many other priorities and it’s nice to be able to use a pre-made set! The Montessori Print Shop has a large selection of resources and they’re all so reasonably priced; I’ve been super pleased with the materials I’ve purchased from them so far. I printed this set on card stock and laminated the cards. We’ve been using them in many ways: basic matching, hiding the pairs around the house to find, and playing a beginning version of Memory. These are all great activities for improving short-term memory, attention to detail, and concentration!
Cranberry Transferring
I am definitely not the brains behind this work; this work has been shared on many Montessori-inspired blogs. I loved the idea behind it and decided to replicate it. I kept the original idea of transferring but gave him tongs as well as a measuring spoon for scooping. This activity has the perfect amount of challenge and interest for him.
Parts of Corn
Asher continues to be curious about the names of parts of objects lately and I’m thinking it might due to a sensitive period for small objects. He’s certainly not ready for labeling as he’s two and we haven’t even introduced letter/sound work yet, but I made this quick felt corn so that we could explore this together. I cut the corn pieces out of felt from a template a I drew and I sewed a few pieces of white thread onto the end for the “silk”. If you’d like a template for the corn, feel free to send me an email and I can send it to you. I included a print out of the parts of corn for another visual for us to talk about.
Autumn Three Part Cards
I purchased this download from The Montessori Print Shop as well. These three part cards are perfect for the month of November! We leave the label only card out for now and just use the other two. Sometimes Asher uses these for matching games and sometimes he just likes to talk about the items. This set has been wonderful for building in new language for him such as “harvest”.
Thanksgiving Dot Painting
I had these dot markers on an Amazon wish list for awhile when I finally got them as a second birthday gift for Asher last spring. I love the simplicity of them, that they reinforce fine motor skills, they’re exciting and inviting to toddlers, AND there are so many amazing free printables for them. A quick Google search brings up tons of options, but I got this free set of Thanksgiving dot painting printables from The Resourceful Mama.
Well, those are the activities that are on our shelf this month. Somehow the time between Halloween and Thanksgiving always flies by so we’ll try to enjoy it as much as possible until it’s over. Then maybe I can jump on the Christmas bandwagon with my students and bring out the trees, lights, and Christmas music!
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Shellie says
Hi! Thanks for sharing these excellent activities! Im making a buttoning Turkey for mmt practical life area right now! I currently have a corn de-kerneling activity on my practical life shelves and would really love a parts of corn template if possible.
KMenko says
I can send it your way! I think I just used a Google image that I printed out on card stock and printed out to make my own template. I’ll see if I can find it and email it to you. 🙂 I love the idea of corn-dekerneling! My boys would love that!
Nicole says
Could I also have that template please
Nadine Medford says
I have enjoyed this website
Could I please get the corn template parts of corn for the preschool
Thank you the awesome ideas