I am loving Help Your Preschooler Build a Better Brain: Early Learning Activities for 2-6 Year Old Children by John Bowman. It is full of Montessori activities that can easily be done in the home, and although we can find a lot of these activities online or in our Montessori albums, not every parent has the time to browse through numerous blogs or the money to afford the albums. This book, though, brings it all concisely to you. It is well-organized so the activities are easy to find and there are black and white photos to break up the text. It is the perfect book for any parent who wants to provide educational enrichment in the home. Even a parent who has children in daycare or preschool could find the time to do these activities at home. It’s the book I needed when Bear was 18 months and I started my blogging journey in desperation to find out what I should be doing with a toddler!
I am especially excited by the Math Activities with Money and the Math in Everyday Life section (there’s a section on telling time and some really useful suggestions about watching a clock with a second hand with your child to observe the difference between the length of a second, a minute, and an hour) and can’t wait to try out those ideas with Bear over the next few weeks. John also has some very simple (as in easy to demonstrate), yet great, Science ideas that I am looking forward to trying out. Actually, pretty much every other page has a sticky note in it! It’s that good.
The photographs of the activities are useful for visual people like myself. I only wish they were in color like in his PDF book, Montessori at Home. I like that he has a photographic list of the essential Montessori materials needed so you can see exactly what the material is. John must have been thinking of those not familiar with Montessori when he chose to make that list that way. Many, if not most, of the activities in the book, however, do not require special materials and can be accomplished quite inexpensively.
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