What are some Montessori inspired toddler school activities?
I am so excited to share some purple-themed toddler school trays with you today. I have been reading a lot more about the Montessori method and what I should include on toddler trays. These color trays will be so great for your toddler and you will be impressed by what they can accomplish. Before most of the tray would be hit or miss, but now your toddler will enjoy all of them. Wahoo!
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Purple Tot Trays
Special Purple Tray: Purple hair ties and pencils
I found these fun purple hair ties from Amazon and I knew they would be perfect for a toddler to explore. You can put them on a toddler tray along with some pencils stuck in an empty egg carton. Have your toddler put the hair ties onto the pencils. From this activity they can also discover stretching out the hair tie, it will be a fun material for them to explore.
Color Game: Odds and Ends Color Sort
Each cup has a color on it (the number shows how many objects of that color there are). There are also a bunch of odds and ends. Have your toddler sort the objects into the correct color. If your child is a little older, you can finish by counting the objects in each cup to make sure it has the correct number. If they have a hard time sorting the six colors of the rainbow, just work on that first. 
Puzzle
Trace some circles (using the lid to some corn syrup) onto a white piece of paper until they looked like grapes. Then trace and cut out the same number of circles from construction paper. Then draw a green stem and leaf onto the white paper and cut one from green construction paper. To complete this toddler tray, just match the stem and purple circles to the correct place on the white paper. This might be harder for them but it is still really fun for them.
Sorting
You can probably get this food tray from the dollar store. In the center put several purple pipe cleaner pieces and several purple math links. Put one pipe cleaner piece in one section and one math link in another section. Show your toddler how to sort the different objects into the correct section. This was pretty hard at first because everything was purple. But after doing this tray a few times, something will click and all the sudden they will get it.
Cutting
This tray has purple paper that you can have your toddler tear. Tearing paper is always a favorite with toddlers, so they will thoroughly enjoy this.
Coloring
Make some crayon rubbings by using a glue gun to make fun designs on some cardboard from an empty cereal box. Show your toddler how to cover the cardboard with the paper, then how to rub the crayon across it. This was difficult at first, but they will eventually get it. It is fun that a design “magically” shows up while they rub. I definitely think there will be more crayon rubbings in our future. 😉
Have your child do the purple pages from the Learning Notebook to finish up toddler school. The Learning Notebook is really fun for them. Start to teach your toddler how to correctly hold their crayon, pretty soon they will start self-correcting. Of course, they don’t do it right every time, but I think it helps to do a “writing” page every day.
