Montessori at home

Continuing with Theo's number obsession of late I thought we'd try and really simple pattern making game. He quite like things in order, and counting seems to fit in with that nicely as well as noticing patterns. I find it difficult to engage him in 'arty' activities, he certainly isn't one to sit and colour for hours, and is yet to really start drawing his own pictures instead he prefers to just write his own name. I guess all children have different skills and interests and I hope I can encourage him to follow what he enjoys doing. But a little gentle prodding to try and get him to enjoy using pen and paper doesn't hurt either right?

So I created an incredibly simple pattern sheet, used a key with numbers and its corresponding shape stamp and let him figure out the rest. I started with two rows of an easy pattern, to see if he got the hang of it, then changed it around a bit. You could obviously make it easier or harder by changing the patterns or adding more numbers and stamps. It's one that we can go back to again and again for a little bit of stamping action, which helps to recognise numbers and predict patterns. 


We used these great little stamp pens from Ikea  but homemade stamps or any others you have lying around would work well too!