Plastic Chinese food containers fit neatly into my drawers and are a cheap and easy storage system for the items I use to make home-made workjobs and Montessori tray activities.
If you are setting yourself up for workjobs or Montessori style tray activities for the first time there are unlimited numbers of materials that you could buy. Commercial Montessori products are beautiful but very expensive and particularly for the toddler and preschool ages it is relatively easy to make your own activities for a fraction of the cost.
I generally source my materials secondhand form op shops, swap-meets and markets and buy the rest cheaply from discount variety stores or gather them from around the house. Each tray activity or workjob usually costs no more than $4.00 and many of the items can be re-used and presented with a different combination to make other “new” and interesting activities.
Some useful items to collect include the following:
Materials to count, transfer or manipulate:
- Feathers
- Buttons
- Spools & film canisters
- Jar & milk bottle lids
- Pasta, macaroni, dried beans & rice
- Corks
- Sea shells
- Popsicle sticks (popsticks)
- Jewels & beads
- Rocks, stones & pebbles
- Straws
- Fancy toothpicks
- Golf tees
- Stirring or cocktail sticks
- Costume jewelry, bangles & strings of beads
- Pipe cleaners
- Rubber bands
- String, twine, yarn, wool,shoe laces & cottons
- Oversized metal or plastic needles
- Paper bags, plates & cups
- Plastic cutlery
- Ribbon & bows
- Hair clips & lackies
- Magnets
- Pompoms
- Wedding favours eg. fake rings, mini doves, glass slippers etc.
- Plastic & wooden pegs & dolly pegs
- Dog clips, over-sized paperclips & other fasteners
- Cardboard shapes
- Number and letter tiles, cards & pieces from old board games
- Glass, metal, china, cane & wooden bowls, trays, baskets & containers
- Plastic tubs & lids
- Cardboard tubes, boxes, egg cartons & food containers
- Plastic containers & lids
- Material/fabric scraps
- Wood scraps
- Shoe boxes
- Ice-cube trays, dip trays & other divided containers
- Plastic & glass jars
- small hammers
- Tongs, scoops, spoons & ladles
- Tweezers
- Measuring cups & funnels
- Pens, pencils, textas, scissors & crayons
- Glue, staplers, masking tape, sticky tape
- Rulers, stencils, fasteners
Other posts you may like:
Montessori style tray activities; starting out
Filed under: Workjobs & Montessori activities for highchair, mat or table time(mathematics, language, practical life & others) | Tagged: home-made, homeschooling with toddlers, Montessori style tray activities for toddlers, practical life, shoebox tasks, storage and organisation, transfer activities, workjobs, workstations |
angathome 
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