A necessity of apartment living is the recurring toy and resource inventory evaluation. I recently finished the Q2 cleanout which included quite a few of the Montessori materials that our then 2-year old loved. Now past four years of age, it’s amazing the longevity of some of the items, and how we might even have been able to eke out a few more months from them. What’s even more astounding is that we can still do some of the Montessori learning activities for 2-year-olds without any loss of enjoyment.
That’s really the beauty of this philosophy – you’re meant to layer on additional extension activities and so much of the work is practical in nature. The lessons are pint-sized, but the learning joy that is sparked is not. While sending your child to a Montessori school might not be feasible, it’s definitely possible to create a learning environment at home that aligns with the method and delivers the learning results.
Setting up a Montessori learning environment
You don’t need special equipment to set up a Montessori learning environment, though the tips in Montessori method at home might be helpful in creating a joyous play space. The key to success is really the open, accessible mindset that is consistent with Montessori classrooms. As long as you have surfaces that your child can reach and items that are displayed in a way that encourages them to handle the items independently, you are golden.
In traditional education, the teacher stands at the front of a room, decides what children should learn, and teaches the children what they need to know. I see this all the time in the reports from our child’s daycare, and while no different than in many other programs, I know that the top-down approach isn’t the be-all and end-all in learning. It’s a one-size fits all approach which doesn’t work for our son (even though he’s happy to follow along), and it doesn’t work for the rest of the 14 students in his class because it’s a mixed age group with some having just turned 3 and others over 5.
In a Montessori education, the child is in charge of their own learning, supported by the adult and the environment. This is why a parent who chooses to hybrid homeschool aka supplement school at home has such a powerful advantage in advancing their children’s education. The point is to cultivate a child’s natural desire to learn, not fill a child with facts. We all know that the internet has made knowledge searchable. It’s the thinking and applying part that we could all be better at, but which takes much longer to teach + cultivate.
When it comes to the learning environment, if you prepare it with the tools kids need to succeed, then you have done most of the hard work. Putting activities in trays, having cloths ready to wipe up spills/messes, offering child-size utensils (spreader to make sandwiches, flower arranging guides, mortar and pestle, etc.), and providing art supplies in a contained manner is what counts. Enabling the child by providing exactly what he/she needs to be successful at an activity is so empowering and makes them engaged in the activity.
Montessori learning activities for 2-year-olds
Every child is unique and will demonstrate interests and abilities at different ages. If any of the activities previewed below don’t resonate, try again in a month or two. Some children are drawn to language activities and others to gross motor. Your job is to follow their lead! Once they’ve scratched their learning itch and are ready to move on, you can try something new. There are many more activities of course – I’m providing a cheat sheet here of the top activities that really captivated our super active then 2-year old.
Gross motor Montessori learning activities for 2-year-olds
- Note: gross motor activities aren’t academic in nature but it’s important to spend ample time building up the large muscles and getting the wiggles out. Not only are young ones meant to be in perpetual motion (much to our dismay once we are sapped), they also need those large muscles to be able to do other activities!
- Biking: Mastering the balance bike is an achievement in its own right, and definitely a learning activity I’m glad we worked on together. At 2, toddlers are getting into the swing of things and able to scoot then really glide for quite some time on flat or downhill surfaces. Make sure to pick the lightest weight bike you can afford because half the battle when starting so young is being able to manage a bike that isn’t half of your own body weight!
- Getting to that first ride on a pedal bike is magical and worth all the lugging around of bicycles. Our son was a bit of a late bloomer at 3.5 years old, and I only say that because we were stuck waiting for him to grow one inch to use the Woom 3. He was so close to the minimum height of the Woom 3 and the price point was so drastic that we wanted to go straight from the 1 Plus to the 3. It was worth the wait. He might have been able to start pedaling on the Woom 2 earlier, but the coaster brake situation, even with the freewheel workaround, seemed too troublesome.
- Jumping: Seems harder than I could have imagined! We have a contraption at a nearby park where you can jump on brass squares which are all tuned to a different musical note and make music. This was the most interesting way for Arlo to learn to jump so a foot piano mat may be a substitute for practice at home.
Fine motor Montessori learning activities for 2-year-olds
- Note: This is about practicing hand-eye coordination and preparing to write. The more kids do with their fingers, the stronger they become and the more avenues for exploration open up to them! Arts and crafts become so much more fun with finger dexterity!
- Threading: It doesn’t matter what kind of beads and what kind of lace, so much as making sure that the beads fit on the string without frustration (i.e. won’t roll off one end, is not too tight to tug through the string, etc.)
- Pegboards: A bit tricky in the beginning, but an activity that pays dividends and is very enjoyable once they’ve practiced pincer grasp more and can manipulate rubber bands. Challenge: see how many overlapping shapes you can make!
Practical life Montessori learning activities for 2-year-olds
- Note: I basically think of this as helping the child find his/her place in the home. This also includes things like learning to dress themselves, brushing their teeth, and blowing their nose (sigh, still a rubicon for us to cross).
- Washing windows: cut up sponges into manageable sizes, find a mini spray bottle, and get a squeegee.
- Pitting cherries, making egg salad, and other “one step” cooking tasks: I can’t promise they’ll eat what they made, but our son was definitely into repetitive tasks like washing vegetables, slicing bananas, peeling mandarins, etc.
Arts and crafts
Start with basic chunky crayons, move to watercolor paints, and then get the first rabbit scissors to practice cutting (after 2 years), gluing, pasting. The sky’s the limit here, but don’t feel bad if your child doesn’t take to arts and crafts in the beginning. They might simply be interested in other pursuits first and not particularly intrigued by making prints.
Language Montessori learning activities for 2-year-olds
- Vocabulary baskets: I can’t tell you how surprised I was to discover that my 2-year-old wanted to learn his letters. We never pushed him to and thought he was too young to learn at 2, but there we were during lockdown with a toddler who would happily spend 20 minutes tracing sandpaper letters and matching miniature items to the letters.
- The basics: by which I mean, reading books and having conversations. There is such a tremendous diversity of children’s reading material these days and I am truly humbled by the joy I feel when reading books with our son. Though I prefer to curate his reading selection now by picking books that I see featured in children’s book influencers, he will eventually pick on his own.
- In terms of conversations, there are three basic things to keep in mind: 1) describing the world, 2) engaging in self-expression, and 3) allowing for moments of silence (ha, sometimes harder than you think!).
Montessori learning activities for 2-year-olds are meant to broaden their horizons and help them develop a sense of self in a big world. There’s no reason to specifically target academic skills so young, especially at the age of 2. It is important to instill a sense of self-reliance and confidence in a child’s ability to do things for themselves and to power through any initial discomfort on the road to mastering a task. That “I can do it” mentality can only be acquired one way – by practicing something repeatedly and being able to complete the task all by one’s self.
