OVERVIEW
Prep time: 10 minutes
Difficulty: Easy Peasy
Estimated Cost: All home-based objects
Mess level: Non
What you need
Tray and magnet
Examples of what to add:
Pencil
Rock
Metal
Bulldog clip
Toy digger
Wooden block
Key
Metal spoon
Coins etc.....
Instructions
On the tray put various magnetic and nonmagnetic items.
Give your toddler a magnet (I like to use a magnetic wand) and essentially allow them to explore the tray.
The child selects one item at a time from the basket and tests to see if it is magnetic using the large magnet.
Benefits
Children get to explore scientific concepts and have fun!.
Ways to adapt
An older child can make predictions (form and then test a hypothesis) as to what is magnetic and nonmagnetic and then sort them.
You can use magnet play to help children increase their language skills by teaching them new magnet-related words, names, and shapes.
Note
When demonstrating these activities Montessori would tell us to work from left to right (preparing the child for reading), so these may not have been the best presentations of the work but this is just something to keep in mind.