Color Matching Activity Cards: Not Just For Learning Colors

I was always so amazed as I watched my children "play" with these beautiful color match activity cards, it seemed like such a simple activity...a fun thing to do...a game. 

I knew that working with the cards promoted fine motor skills while they were learning their colors, but I was not aware that so many more things were going on in their minds while their little hands were happily matching and sorting. They were also gaining early math concepts, such as sorting, grouping, and pattern recognition.

Seeing the sense of accomplishment on their face as they identified and matched those colors is something I loved seeing. It was such a boost to their confidence. 

Visit www.insightfulbrain.com to grab a set for your child or classroom and watch their little minds work!

Place Value Mission

Practicing place value can get a little tiresome, but it is important to keep it fresh in their minds. We try to jazz it up a little bit by pretending we are on a "mission."

We play the Mission Impossible Theme during this work and see if we can complete the work before the song is over. It adds interest and fun to our learning when we do it this way.

For the lesson, I created the following Montessori materials (free download):

• 4 place value charts
• digit cards (i.e. 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9)
• 'mystery cards'
• mystery card set one is in blue and has the following numerals: 7000, 500,30, 1
• mystery card set two is in orange and has the following numerals:  4000, 700,80,2
• mystery cards set three is in purple and has the following numerals:  2000,800,40,3
• mystery card set four is in lavender and has the following numerals: 8000, 900,60,5
• and 2 more mystery card sets

Sunshine placed the place value charts in the middle of the workspace. The mystery cards were separated into piles according to their respective colors on the side of the workspace (shuffled), and digit card were placed in piles according to their respective colors. (my montessori material download has a picture of the work in its place)

After all the work is in its place, we start the Mission Impossible Theme. I downloaded mine from Amazon.Com. She picks a numeral card from the mystery pile (i.e.500), then she chooses the '5' digit card and then places it in the hundreds spot on the place value chart.  From the same pile, she chooses another mystery card (i.e. 30). She then picks up a '3' digit card and places it in the tens place on the same place value chart. She repeats it until she creates the 4 digit number. We then lay out the mystery cards under the place value chart in order of place value and then say the number we created.

This is helping with transferring concrete knowledge to abstract - and it's fun too! I am going to find other ways to use our "detective" approach. They think it's a blast!

The Place Value Montessori materials can be downloaded here free.

Early Money Practice

 Little Angel loves to work with money when I pull out this work! The basket contains small toys around the house with price tags. I have the amount that it "costs" on one side and a control picture on the back to show what coins should be used to "purchase the item."

 It also contains exact coins needed to purchase all items in the basket.

She pulls out the "items for sale" out of the basket. She looks at the tag and then chooses which coins to use to "buy" the toy.

I print the "price" of the item on one side of the tag and placed pictures of the coins that Little Angel should have chosen on the other side of the tag as a "control."

I created two levels: An easy level (green tags) where Little Angel only has to choose values 1cent to 4cents, or choose whether the item cost a nickel, dime, or quarter.

The more advanced "orange tags" require Little Angel to combine simple coin combinations (i.e. 11 cents, 6 cents, 14 cents ... nothing tricky such as combining two dimes, a dime and nickel, etc.) This will be presented at a later time.

In the past, I have created my control pictures by finding pictures of coins on the internet and reducing them to a smaller size to fit on the tag. However, I came across these stickers at the Dollar Tree and the pictures of the coins were just the right size for this activity. The coin combination pictures fit perfectly on the back of the tags.... only $1 per sticker pack.... which saves on my printer ink!

The Dollar Tree has become my new best friend! I haven't decided how I am going to use the bills yet, my palms are itching to use them, but my brain isn't quite ready to come up with the ideas!