I’ve always loved preparing valentine activities. Today, I’m sharing some fun Montessori-inspired valentine activities I prepared using Spielgaben educational toys and free printables I found online.
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Spielgaben. All opinions are honest and my own. This post also contains affiliate links (at no cost to you).
In case you’re not familiar with Spielgaben toys, they are exceptionally high-quality educational toys designed for ages 3-12. You can see from the photo that the cabinet is very high quality and fits in well in a room with traditional Montessori materials. I love the new, easily removable drawers in version 4. The yarn balls from the 1st Spielgaben set can be used with babies and toddlers, too. The Spielgaben complete set comes with over 1,000 pages of supplementary learning materials that help you as a parent or teacher easily use Spielgaben toys educationally with your child and/or students. All of the instructional materials are digital PDFs that can be printed out or viewed on any device.
Spielgaben Materials Used in This Post
For this post, I used the Spielgaben wooden sticks from set 8. (If you’d like the wooden sticks from the earlier Spielgaben versions, Spielgaben will sell them to you at minimal cost to go along with version 4.) With the wooden sticks, I used the wooden semi-rings from set 9. I also used the wooden dots (points) from set 10 and the wooden parquetry tablets from set 7.
In this post, I’ll link to free printables which will help make the activities simple to prepare yet attractive. I’ll also tell you where I found the materials for my activities.
Heart Counting and Fine-Motor Activity
For this activity, I used the free Heart Counting Do-a-Dot Printable from Gift of Curiosity with the page sizing for printing set to custom size scale 40%. I used a medium-size tray from Montessori Services. To focus on fine-motor skills, I added Quick Sticks, which I love and use for many activities. A strawberry huller or tweezers would work well, too. Younger children could place the dots with their fingertips. I used the exact number of dots needed as a control of error.
Valentine Pattern Block Trays
This free heart pattern block printable is from Making Learning Fun. I used a large plastic tray from Montessori Services and a heart-shaped bowl from the grocery store, a craft store, or the Dollar Tree (I don’t remember which).
You’ll find two free Valentine’s Pattern Blocks Activities at Playdough to Plato. I substituted four red squares for the orange ones in the letter “I” to have enough squares.
Small/Medium/Large Heart-Building Activity
For this tray, I used the free small/medium/large cards from the Valentine’s Day Printable Pack ~Preschool Version at Homeschool Creations. Depending on the child’s age and skill level, you could show the child how to make a heart from semi-rings and sticks or simply give him or her the challenge of creating hearts with the materials. Again, I used the exact number of pieces needed as a control of error.
I used a Montessori Services rug for the layout.
Heart Hundred Chart Art
I really love hundred chart art activities. I just think it’s a lot of fun to discover the picture, and I appreciate that the work extends the Montessori hundred board. This activity uses the free heart hundred chart from Lil’ Country Librarian. I used the same printable for a different valentine activity in this post: Montessori-Inspired Valentine Math Trays. Here, the page sizing for printing is set to custom size scale 60%. The original printable uses red and pink while there are only Spielgaben dots in valentine colors of red and white. So I glued a small piece of cardstock over the words “red” and “pink” and punched out red and white label dots to identify the colors needed. I didn’t use the control chart because of the colors, but I added the exact number of dots needed to the tray as a control of error.
I didn’t add a transferring tool because of the number of dots needed. Also, using fingertips to transfer the dots is a great fine-motor activity. It requires coordination to properly place each dot in exactly the correct position.
My Previous Spielgaben Posts:
Most of these include links to free printables!
My original Spielgaben review includes examples of Montessori-inspired activities as shown in the collage above.
Montessori-Inspired Color Activities Using Wooden Toys and Free Printables
Montessori-Inspired Math Activities Using Wooden Beads and Free Printables
Montessori-Inspired Geometry Activities Using Wooden Shapes and Free Printables
Montessori-Inspired Color Activities Using Spielgaben Yarn Balls and Free Printables
Montessori Monday – Geometric Solid Dressing, Wrapping, and Gift Giving (and Receiving)
Using Montessori-Inspired Activities for Elementary-Level Learning
Are Spielgaben Educational Toys Worth the Price?
Montessori-Inspired Age and Birthday Learning Activities
Montessori-Inspired Math Activities Using Cubes and free Printables
Montessori-Inspired Activities for Babies and Toddlers Using Yarn Balls
Montessori-Inspired Activities Using Spheres {Free Printables}
Montessori-Inspired Sphere, Cube, Cylinder Activities {Free Printable}
Montessori-Inspired Phonics Activities Using Dots {Free Printables}
Montessori-Inspired Christmas Activities with Spielgaben {Free Printables}
Montessori-Inspired Color Games {Free Printables}
New Version 4 of Spielgaben Educational Toys !
I highly recommend Spielgaben as an amazing educational material for home or school. Even though the toys aren’t inexpensive, they’re definitely worth the price because of the high quality of materials and number of years your children or students can use them.
Montessori Monday Link-Up
If you have some Montessori activity trays/lessons to share, please link up below. It’s fine to link up a post from your archives – and you may link up anytime during the week!
Your post may be any Montessori-inspired activity or idea. It doesn’t need to be related to my Montessori Monday post. If you’re wondering what’s considered “Montessori inspired” and what to link up (or not link up), check out my “What Is Montessori Inspired?” post.
Link up your exact post URL so that we can find your activity if we return to the linky at a later date (which I often do when I’m looking for activities for a roundup post). I publish the Montessori Monday post and linky each Monday morning and keep the linky open throughout the week. Please place the Montessori Monday button (using the code from the right sidebar) in your post or put a link back to this post. I do a lot of pinning on Pinterest and sharing on the Living Montessori Now Facebook page from the Montessori Monday link-up. Thanks for participating!
Notes For community discussions, please join us at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page and/or Google+ Montessori Community. And don’t forget the Saturday/Sunday weekend sharing days where you may share a kid-related activity of any kind at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page!
It’s also Motivational Monday on Mondays! I invite you to share something positive on the Bits of Positivity Facebook page (Bits of Positivity is my other blog) to help us all get a good start on the work/school week. You might share an inspirational or motivational quote, positive graphic, or post about finding balance or simplifying your life. Or you might share a post on organizing, an encouraging post, a post about making a difference in the world, or a positive parenting post. Just go ahead and share on the Bits of Positivity wall any time today! (Please “like” the Bits of Positivity Facebook page if you haven’t already.) I’ll be pinning a number of ideas to my regular Pinterest boards.
If you have a giveaway on your blog, please add it to my Family-Friendly Giveaway Linky Page! If you enjoy entering giveaways, you’ll always find some great giveaways there.
Learn more about my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to Teach Grace and Courtesy! It’s designed to help parents and teachers feel comfortable teaching manners to children ages 2-12. (And courtesy is a great addition to any curriculum.) Also, if you’ve ever been linked to in one of my roundup posts, please feel free to grab the “Featured on” badge.
Have you added the Montessori Monday button or a text link? Please be sure you’ve done one or the other so that others can find the link-up, too!
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