As I learn more about the methods of Dr. Maria Montessori, I am understanding the great deal of importance she placed on children being able to discriminate between items using their senses. A while back I created a simple Montessori-inspired printable to help my kids work on matching and ordering items by size. My kids are beyond this activity by now, but I wanted to share it for my readers with younger kids who may benefit from this simple matching and ordering by size activity.
I cut straws into segments from 1″ to 6″ long and asked XGirl to match the straw segments to the lines on a printable worksheet I created (download link at end of post).
After she completed this task, we talked about which was shortest and which was longest.
An extension to this activity would be to have your child re-do the ordering part of the activity without using the printable.
If you don’t have straws, this activity can be done using string, paper strips, or any other material that you can cut into short segments.