A sorting game for toddlers

My friend Amber put me onto a fabulous blog called Counting Coconuts. It's full of inspiring ideas for teaching toddlers, based on a Montessori approach.

I've already spent hours trawling this blog for ideas. Here's an easy one I've put into practise.

Sorting game
For this simple sorting game I used an Asian dish set we have, which has one large bowl and three smaller ones. I filled the large bowl with three types of beads and L's job was to sort the beads by type into the three smaller bowls.

Note: Because of the choking hazard involved with beads, I recommend you stay with your toddler while they complete this exercise.

Already off to a good start.

Picking up a blue bead to sort into its bowl. 

Placing a red bead in its bowl.

Finished!

L found this exercise pretty easy, despite being sick with a respiratory virus and high fever at the time. She did enjoy it though and keeps asking to do it again.

Exercise extensions
1. To up the skill level required, I've now added ice tongs into the mix. L has to transfer the beads with tongs to improve her manual dexterity. She's not keen on using the tongs, as she finds them difficult to use. Excellent. She's learning something new!

2. Another twist I added to the exercise was to get L to count the beads once they were sorted. At first she was reluctant as she immediately wanted to sort them again, but the second time we did this exercise she was more keen for the variation at the end.