Two Minute Tuesday: Montessori Inspired Button Sorting

Montessori Button Sorting Game

Two Minute Tuesdays are made for quick, simple and fun activities. They don’t take many resources or much prep and provide lots of learning and exploration for little learners.

This week: Montessori-Inspired Button Sorting!

EYFS Areas Developed:

  • Mathematics: sorting objects by colour, 1:1 correspondence
  • Physical: developing pincer grip, pinching and transferring objects
  • Expressive Arts & Design: exploring and distinguishing colour

Since Sophia (2.3yrs) was a baby I have been really interested in Montessori methods of teaching children and try to include the practices as much as I can in my parenting (if you’d like me to write more about Montessori and how we use it, leave a comment and I will write more in depth on it!).

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This activity encourages children to play close attention to the objects and to sort them according to colour. It’s also wonderful for fine motor control!

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I used a three-way snack tray for this activity. I filled the middle bowl with a selection of buttons in red and green. Don’t have a snack tray or buttons? This activity can be customised to suit what you have at home; bowls, beads, shapes or even two types of pasta would work just as well.

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I demonstrated to Sophia how to sort the first few buttons and she was then able to sort the rest of the buttons into their separate colours herself.

Sophia’s attention span is that of a typical 2 year old and is pretty limited but I was really surprised at how this activity held her attention so well. She was concentrating really hard on putting the buttons into the correct bowls and stayed at the activity until they were all sorted. It made a fantastic calming activity!

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As she sorted each button she was saying which colours they were and was talking herself through the activity; “red”, “green”, “this one”, “no not in there” etc. Half way through the activity she insisted on bringing her cars to come and help her.

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Once they were all sorted Sophia started picking up and dropping the buttons, enjoying the sound they made once they fell back into the bowl. She was also counting the buttons and using lots of number language.

Ways to extend this activity:

  • Use more than two colours for children to sort
  • Sort different shapes as well as colours

Like this Montessori-inspired activity? Take a look at my MONTESSORI board on Pinterest for more activity ideas!

Follow Beth @ Wings and Roots’s board Montessori on Pinterest.

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