5 Summer Montessori Activities to Try at Home
Summer provides the perfect opportunity for playing outdoors and enjoying some refreshing snacks. For young children, fun and learning go hand in hand. With these summer Montessori activities, you can continue your child’s education. More importantly, you’ll make many wonderful memories together.
5 Summer Montessori Activities for Young Children
Discover five great summer Montessori activities for your preschooler below. Most of these activities can be done at home or in a nearby park.
1. Making Refreshing Snacks
Keep cool with cold drinks, frozen treats, and healthy snacks. Cooking with your child teaches them many skills. Children build independence when they can prepare their own snacks and food. Plus, cooking helps children develop their fine motor skills. Cooking also helps children build their self-confidence as they succeed at various activities such as cutting, mixing, and more.
What can your preschooler make? Here are some snacks to enjoy.
Lemonade
Ingredients: 2 lemons, sugar or honey, ice cubes
Materials: Cutting board, a small pitcher that your child can easily use to pour, a glass, a knife, a large spoon
Instructions:
- Cut the lemons in half. If your child can safely use a knife, invite them to cut the lemons.
- Invite your child to squeeze the lemons into the bottom of a pitcher.
- Add water and sugar or honey to taste.
- Invite your child to stir the lemonade.
- Add ice cubes.
- Invite your child to pour a glass of lemonade.
Popsicles
Ingredients: Fresh fruit such as strawberries, mango, and kiwi, fresh lemon or orange, and sugar or honey
Materials: A blender, popsicle molds (or small plastic cups and popsicle sticks)
Instructions:
- Invite your child to help prepare the fresh fruit by chopping it into smaller pieces (Peel the mango and kiwi ahead of time).
- Add fresh fruit to the blender. You can do one flavor at a time, or create a combination. Add a squeeze of lemon or orange to keep the bright color of the fruit. Also, add honey or sugar to taste.
- Blend the fruit until smooth. Taste the mixture and adjust as desired.
- Invite your child to pour the mixture into the popsicle molds.
- Put them in the freezer. When partially frozen, insert the popsicle sticks.
- When frozen (typically about 2 to 3 hours), enjoy! To loosen popsicles from their molds, you can run a little water over the mold.
Fruit Salad
Ingredients: A variety of fresh fruit such as bananas, strawberries, watermelon, cantaloupe
Materials: Child-friendly knife, cutting board, bowl
Instructions:
- Invite your child to cut the fruit. You can offer your child sliced cantaloupe or watermelon that your child can cut into smaller pieces.
- Invite your child to prepare a bowl of fresh fruit salad to eat.
- Enjoy!
Looking for more recipes? Try some of these lunch and snack ideas.
2. Water Activities
Warm weather is the perfect time of year for your preschooler to play with water. What can you do?
Pouring Water
Try setting up a pouring water activity. Simply provide your child with two pouring containers. Fill one and invite your child to pour the water from one container into the other. You can set this up outside so that there’s on problem if the water spills. You can add to the fun by adding some food coloring to the water. This also helps your child see when the pitcher or glass is full.
Washing Windows
Another fun activity is washing windows or glass doors. Give your child a spray bottle filled with water. Also provide newspaper or paper towels. Demonstrate to your child how to clean the windows. Then, invite them to try. Ideally, wash from the outside in so that it doesn’t matter if they spray more water than necessary.
Sink or Float Experiment
Why not try a fun experiment? In this activity, set up a basin with water. Then, give your child a variety of objects such as a coin, a stick, a rock, a plastic toy, etc. You can collect the items together. Then, create labels that say “sink” and “float.” Place each label in a basket. Finally, invite your child to drop the different objects into the basin of water. Ask your child to notice whether the object sinks or floats. Then, have them place the object in the correct basket.
3. Gardening
Most preschoolers love watching plants grow. Why not start a garden this summer? With young children, try growing plants that sprout quickly and are interesting to watch as they grow. Some good examples are:
- Sunflowers
- Zinnias
- Vegetables such as radishes or tomato plants
- Herbs
Many of these plants can be planted directly into the ground or in a large planter. Invite your child to join the process! Your preschooler can help plant the seeds, water them, and pull out weeds. Take time to notice how the plants are growing each day. Talk about what you notice. You can even use a ruler to measure how tall your sunflowers grow! If you grow vegetables or herbs, your child can help harvest them. This can be a fun way to motivate your child to eat their vegetables.
4. Start a Nature Journal
A nature journal provides a fun space for your child to draw what they notice outdoors. You can also collect leaves or print photos and write about them.
Offer your child a new notebook to use as their nature journal. Explain that you’re going to use the journal to draw and write about things you notice in nature. Write the date on the page and then add your observations.
Some examples of things you might notice include:
- A spider
- Bugs under a log or rock
- A beautiful flower
- An interesting shaped leaf
- A rainbow
- A pretty bird
- A cloud with an interesting shape
Take your nature journal with you on vacation or trips to the park. That way, you can document what you see! Invite your child to participate as much as possible by drawing pictures or writing words. If your child can’t write, you can ask them to dictate what they notice. For example, “the spider web is shiny,” or “the rock is rough.”
Soon, you’ll notice that your child begins asking to add what they see outdoors to the nature journal.
5. Nature Scavenger Hunt: Color Edition
Have fun outdoors noticing the colors! You can try this activity in your backyard or in a local park. Here’s how it works:
- Take a metal cake pan or something similar. Place a piece of paper in the bottom of it.
- Divide the page into four parts using a pen or pencil. Write the name of a different color in each part (some good colors to start with are green, brown, yellow, and red). Or, provide a sample by coloring a little circle with a crayon.
- Invite your child to find objects that match each of the colors.
- As your child gets better at matching colors, you can divide the page into more colors or provide different shades. For example, light green and dark green.
You can vary the scavenger hunt based on what’s available. For example, if you notice there are many buttercups or dandelions, add yellow to the list of colors. Or, if there are many pretty rose petals on the ground, add pink or red.
Tips for Enjoying Summer Montessori Activities with Your Child
How can you make the most of these summer Montessori activities? We recommend focusing on connecting with your child and having fun.
Also, try letting your child take the lead. Invite them to activities rather than forcing it. If your child isn’t interested in an activity, ask them again later. They may change their mind!
Additionally, try to let your child do as much as possible. Getting messy is ok! Making mistakes is an important part of learning, too. So, if your child spills some lemonade, show them how to wipe it up with a cloth. Or, if your little one says, “I can’t draw a spider,” encourage them to try. When you show that you believe your child can do things, their confidence grows.
Practicing Montessori at Home
Are you looking for more Montessori activities to enjoy at home? Try these fun, educational activities as well.
The Montessori method is wonderful both in preschool programs and at home. A Montessori education offers many advantages and benefits for your child If you’re looking for a Montessori preschool in Calgary, get in touch! We look forward to hearing from you!
